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PPC Advertising Battle: AdWords Vs adCenter

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Everyone knows that Google is king of search. But when it comes to Paid Search Advertising (PPC), is going with the Google always the best option? Although Bing and Yahoo combined do not compare to Google’s daily search volume, their paid advertising via Microsoft adCenter might be a cheaper alternative that could generate a higher ROI for you.

Round 1 of the PPC Advertising Battle: Stats & Metrics

From my experience, there seems to be less competition and therefore cheaper prices (CPC) on adCenter. Below is a snapshot look into a client’s account on adCenter. As you can see, they had an almost 2% CTR, an Average Position within the top 2-3 spots, a CPC below $1.00, and a CPA under $20.00. Now let’s compare those performance metrics to the same time period on Google AdWords. Stats are taken for the same Date Range from Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter. As expected, Google AdWords brought in more traffic, and therefore more conversions (7 more to be exact). However, each Click cost $0.71 ($0.07 more) and each Conversion cost $26.26 (almost $10 more.)

Round 2 of the PPC Advertising Battle: ROI

If, for example, we assume the value of each conversion is $50 each, which PPC Account has a better ROI? Microsoft adCenter is showing a Cost of $583.10 (CPA $16.66 x 35 Conversions) with a returning Value of $1750 (35 Conversions x $50 value per Conversion). That results in an ROI of $1166.90 ($1750 Value – $583.10 Cost).

Keeping the same assumption of a $50 value per Conversion, Google AdWords earned a returning value of $2100 (42 Conversions x $50 Value), but had a cost of $1102.92 (Cost/Conv. $26.26 x 42 Conversions). With that said, the ROI for Google AdWords was $997.08 ($2100 Value – $1102.92 Cost.)

In this particular case, although Google AdWords earned a 90.4% ROI ($997.08), it was trumped by Microsoft adCenter, which earned an incredible 199.9% ROI ($1166.90).

Google AdWords Vs Microsoft Adverting Battle Re-cap

Microsoft adCenter did well in Round 1 with maintaining a good CTR (almost 2%) and generating 35 Conversions. However, Google was able to out muscle Microsoft, with more than double the CTR (above 4%) as well as an additional 7 Conversions (42 in total.)

In Round 2, Microsoft adCenter came out swinging with it lower CPC and CPA (or Cost/Conversion). After multiplying the incremental costs out, it turned out to be too much for Google. Bing Ads was able to pull out the victory with a very impressive ROI of over $1,000.

If you run similar or identical campaigns on both Google AdWords & Microsoft adCenter, let us know which is performing better. Does your paid search advertising battle end the same way this one did with Microsoft earning the higher ROI?

Testing Changes in PPC Advertising

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As many of you have probably heard, both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter are testing multiple aspects of PPC advertising. Some items being tested include placement, layout, ad extensions, images within text ads, and more.Descriptions of each follow:

Placement

It has been reported that text ads have been spotted with the organic results on search pages.

Layout

The Headline can sometimes include the first line of description and the URL has jumped to just under the Headline.

New Ad Extensions

These let you have searchers request that you contact them via phone of email directly from your ad.

Images within Text Ads

Lastly of the ones that I am mentioning is the ability to show off products being advertised or the company logo within the contextual ad space.

To wrap up, keep an eye out for some, if not all, of these aspects being tested to be implemented into either Bing Ads and/or Google AdWords. Also remember that no matter how frustrating these changes are to keep up with, both Google and Microsoft are trying to improve their services so that we as online markets can improve our CTR and Conversions.

Bing Gets Creative: Testing Ad Placement with adCenter

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Recently Microsoft’s Bing has confirmed that they are running tests by showing Ads via Bing Ads intertwined with Organic Results. Though there are some screen shots out there, I have not had the opportunity to see ads within Organic Search Results. Another change that I have noticed is the extra benefit of being the number 1 or 2 ad in the overall search results. In addition to being listed at the top, in those top 2 ad spots, the top 2 ads are also shown at the bottom of the first page adding more compelling value.

I’m glad to see that Microsoft adCenter is testing and trying to improve their services. As a PPC advertiser, who is adCenter Certified, I would now like to know if my ads are getting clicks while at the top of the page, the bottom of the page, or somewhere in between. I hope they are measuring this to help educate us all on where the best placement is and whether it is beneficial to have an ad in the middle of Organic Results. Only time can tell if this will be something that Bing will use in the near or distant future, but my guess is we’ll see some variation sooner rather than later.

Be Relevant to Searchers with Dynamic Text

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Anyone doing PPC advertising knows that you want to incorporate your best performing keywords into your ad copy. Not only will this help your quality score and cause your ad to stand out more with bold text, but it also keeps you relevant with people searching for your products and/or services. If your keywords are very similar or even synonyms, Dynamic Text will save you many headaches.

Using Dynamic Text will automatically insert your keyword or phrase that is generating the impression into your Ad Copy. This means that you no longer have to create a new ad for each one of your keywords. Instead, save time and effort by letting the automated Dynamic Text take care of it for you.

The example of how to implement Dynamic Text below is from Bing Ads, although other popular PPC platforms, like Google AdWords, provide this service as well.

As you can see, this generic Ad Copy will tailor itself according to the keyword list and the search query. Depending on the search this Ad Copy could read:

Looking for Fresh Fruits?

We have the Fresh Fruit You are looking for.

www.————–.com/Fresh_Fruits

Looking for Apartments?

We have the Apartments You are looking for.

www.——————–.com/Apartments

Looking for Computer Parts?

We have the Computer Parts You are looking for.

www.——————–.com/Computer_Parts

A quick warning, before implementing dynamic text make sure that all your keywords will make sense in the Ad Copy. The keyword “rent apartments” would not work in the example above. Also, make sure that the inserted keyword does not exceed the character limit; otherwise, your ad will not be shown.

Hope this helps improve your PPC efforts and keeps you relevant to your audience.