About the test:
In January of this year, I posted my extensive test results of 12 PPC networks. Since 8 months is an eternity in affiliate marketing, I decided to revisit this test with a brand new niche and see who performed best and worst. I also added 1 more network, Ask.com, into the mix. The test ran for most of the month of August, and it took me the last 10 days to really analyze the data. Please don’t ask what the offer or niche was, I still need to make a living guys! The keyword list and ads were kept as close as possible on all the different networks. Some minor changes had to be made based on ad copy length restrictions. All landing pages were identical. Bid prices were adjusted to try to keep ad positions as close as possible throughout the duration of the test.
Scoring system:
I rated each network on 3 criteria. Traffic, conversions, and pricing. I had a scoring framework for the different point levels, but obviously some subjective decisions were made in determining each score. Traffic and concerversion rate were given the highest weight, and click pricing was give half weight.
• Traffic Volume (Highest volume = 10 out of possible 10)
• Conversion Rate (Best conversion rate = 10 out of possible 10)
• Click Pricing (Lowest pricing = 5 out of possible 5)
For a best possible total score of 25
The Results:
| PPC Network | Traffic Volume |
Conversion Rate |
Click Pricing |
Total Score |
| Yahoo | 8 | 8 | 3 | 19 |
| MSN | 6 | 8 | 3 | 17 |
| 10 | 6 | 1 | 17 | |
| Looksmart | 3 | 7 | 4 | 14 |
| ASK | 3 | 5 | 4 | 12 |
| Miva | 2 | 5 | 4 | 11 |
| Searchfeed | 3 | 4 | 3 | 10 |
| Adbrite | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| 7Search | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8 |
| Enhance | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| Kanoodle | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| Search 123 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| Bidvertiser | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
Overall Winner:
Yahoo came out on top. With their strong traffic volume, and strong conversions, Yahoo surged to past rivals MSN and Google. Their moderately priced traffic and more lenient quality score (compared to Adwords) also helped Yahoo grab the top spot.
Traffic Volume Winner:
No suprise that Google Adwords is the leader in this category. As the king of search and a 2/3 market share for most keyword searches, they reign supreme as the volume leader.
Conversion Rate Winner:
Yahoo and MSN tied for the top conversion rates. The traffic from both of theses networks continues to convert better than Google for most of the niches we have tested. This may be surprising to some, but our data clearly shows big G behind the other 2. Also notable, Looksmart produced strong conversion rates.
Recommended list:
Based on the test results, these are the networks that I would consider testing any offer on:
• MSN
• Yahoo
• Google
• ASK
• Looksmart
• Miva
Avoid list!
These are the networks that are probably not worth your time. But you never know until you test!
• Adbrite
• 7Search
• Enhance
• Kanoodle
• Searchfeed
• Search 123
• Bidvertiser
Want to test these for yourself? Check out these PPC coupons for some free seed money.
Chad,
That is absolutely an awesome and interesting post. Very different results from what one would initially think would be the case. I have recently had a suspicion that Yahoo is a “better” engine to play on in terms of conversion. It would be interesting to see your take on Yahoo quality score vs. Google’s. And your previous posts on MSN are right on in my limited experience. What’s up with those annoying emails?
Yep, I would also avoid Miva and LookSmart as well.
i guess it all depends on what you are marketing. From where i stand Google while it eats up more money also brings it 2 1/2 times the conversion of yahoo and about 4 times as much as Msn. they key is that you have to watch ever single keyword on Google a lot of Google keywords are money eaters and the few that are conversion makers they give and keep on giving day after day the main point you have to manage your keywords so Google takes less of your money while giving you more conversions with yahoo and Msn you can be a little more liberal but they def. do well with low costs and great cost/conv rate. over all great post
great review man. as always though the big 3 are KEY
Very informative - I should stop focusing solely on Google and expand to Yahoo.
Cool post! What im wondering about is which one left you with the most profit? Did Google’s traffic volume make up for its poorer conversions? Or did Yahoo & MSN’s great conversions leave you with more money in the end?
MSN was the best profit margin. Google’s extra traffic didn’t make up for the lower CR with this particular offer I was promoting.
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This has given me the idea where to promote my next campaign for better returns. Thanks!
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What a great post and very timely for me as I will be starting a ppc campaign this weekend.
Wow, great analysis. I love the breakdown of the factors you used for the test.
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Chad,
Thanks for sharing your results. We’ve used most of the sites you mentioned. As you said, mileage may vary depending on the niche or type of site and terms used. For one client, AdBrite has worked out well, just have to keep the bids low (.05 or so). MSN seems to be steadily delivering more traffic while maintaining good conversion rates. Unfortunately, my experience with Miva ever since FindWhat was sold has been most traffic doesn’t convert. Keep your bids very low on the 2nd and 3rd tier sites and it’s still hard to go wrong but make sure there’s some reasonable volume before going crazy adding terms. Setup a new account, add top 10 volume terms and see if it adds up to anything worthwhile before adding the hundreds or thousands of other terms in a campaign.
Great Post… My clients in past tests have received very little return on the Miva network. We have found the proper application of SEO to a website pulls in more traffic and that long tail keywords convert the best.
That will help a lot in deceiding future Advertyising strategies
Thanks for saving so much of trail nd error sessions
Nice report here, you definitely provide some valuable information. I was wandering about some of those networks and this report definitely helps.
Have you done anything with ABC Search? I’m trying them out right now and so far it’s hit and miss with them.
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thanks for the info, man!!!
i am actually surprised that the conversion if better on msn and yahoo than google. perhaps i have been doing it wrong.
Does anyone know whether there is a difference in the demographics between yahoo and google?
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I think so man, but some product is defferance we must tracking wich is the best
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Chad, I found the article from the John Chow link. This information is great. I’ve often seen posts on forums about 2nd tier networks but I’ve never seen such a good review. I’ve bookmarked this page. Thanks.
Testing is always key. While John listed a few networks to avoid, I have recently read an ebook on that attributed $10k per month profits using these same networks like searchfeed.com. So like John said, what might have failed for one person can in fact be a gold mine for another.
Interesting results, I don’t really understand why so many people think that Google Adsense is the bees knees when it comes to PPC advertising networks, I’ve been using YPN for nearly a year now and make about the same amount of money if not more from YPN as I did with Adsense.
Have you tried catchresult.com/services/
They have a PPC program that I was thinking about joining. I was just wondering how you picked networks to try or if that was just a list of popular networks that you wanted to compare.
Great article, thank you very much
Interesting results. I’ve tested several hundred dollars worth of ads on Miva and never got one conversion from all of it. Likewise, I’ve been running a few profitable campaigns on 7Search for a few years and although volume is low, they convert fairly regularly.
I know you’re not going to reveal the offer/niche you tested, but it would be great to see a large test with multiple niches/offers - I bet different networks would perform better or worse depending on the niche used. Such a test might provide some very useful information.
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I think there is none to fight with google in Asia.
Be carefull with looksmart. They rotate the traffic and it’s usually garbage. If you complain, they will switch you to good traffic and for a while you will get conversions but you will get cycled back out again.
So? Yahoo Search Marketing still the best right? i already read some similiar post like this and YSM still a winner
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A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually.
Great post!!! Thanks for sharing!
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