Why you should not compare Yahoo! Search Marketing to Google AdWords
1. Match Types
Keywords are the base of both systems. A keyword is submitted by an advertiser for matching user searches against one of a range of match techniques. Yahoo! Search Marketing offers “Standard” and “Advanced” match types. AdWords offers “Exact”, “Phrase”, “Broad” and “Broad Modifiers” match types. There is no direct equivalent between the matching systems. This makes comparing performance somewhat difficult.
2. Quality Score Versus Quality Index
Quality Score for Google is a dynamic metric assigned to each of your keywords. It is calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad group and to a user's search query. The Yahoo! Quality Index, on the other hand, is purely based on Click Through Rate (CTR) and is assigned at an Ad Level.
3. Competitive Pressure
The competition is fiercer on Google due to its larger market share which results in a saturated marketplace. For any given keyword, there can be dozens of companies bidding for placement on the first page of search results. Currently, that line is shorter on Yahoo!, and as a result, advertisers can expect to pay less for placement on most keywords.
4. Demographics
From the latest data available from Yahoo! and Alexa, the majority of Google users are between the age of 45 and 54, while on Yahoo! they are between 50 and 64. Also there are more female users on Google than on Yahoo!
Source: Alexa - Aug 2010
Source: Nelson Online Net View – May 2010
5. Partner Networks
As Yahoo! and Google both have different Search Partners, your ads are shown on different networks. If you have opted to show your ads on partner networks, with Google, your ads will show on networks like aol.com and askjeeves.com. On Yahoo!, yours ads will show on networks like WebMD, Buy.com, CNBC and CitySearch.
Advantages of Using Yahoo! Search Marketing
1. Increase Online Exposure
From the first table below, if you advertise only on Google, you will only target 87.26% (google.com & google.com.au) of the Australian online market. If you also advertise on Yahoo!, you will expand your target to another 11.13% (Yahoo! & Bing) of the market, thus targeting a total of 98.4% of the Australian market.
From the second table below, according to Hitwise, ninemsn (Bing) is the second most visited website in Australia with Yahoo7 being the fifth most visited website.
Source: Experian Hitwise
2. Lower Cost & Higher ROI
Due to the competitive pressure which is causing prices or Cost Per Click (CPC) to inflate on Google AdWords, CPC on Yahoo! Search Marketing is relatively cheaper. For example the broad keyword “Personal Training Course” for the month of July 2010 on Google AdWords had an average CPC of $7.10 with an average Ad Position of 1.9 while on Yahoo! it had an average CPC of $4.62 with an average Ad Position of 1.2. This shows that the keyword was approximately $2.50 cheaper for each click on Yahoo!. A cheaper CPC means lower cost and lower cost per conversion which can result in higher Return on Investment (ROI). Below is a CPC comparison between Yahoo! and Google for different industries.
Source: Yahoo!
Source: Yahoo!
While Google is still in pole position, any serious PPC or SEM advertiser must also advertise on Yahoo! Search Marketing. Failing to do so would eliminate a great deal of online advertising potential and diminish your market reach. While most advertisers will say that better results can be obtained through Google, Yahoo!'s search network can still be a force used to drive shoppers to your site. My recommendation would be to use both together by simply managing your funds more effectively.
This article was posted by Manesh Ram. Manesh is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador and SEM Campaign Manager at Traffika. You can follow Manesh on Twitter @maneshram.
