Google vs. Yahoo

[mmuench]

Hello, everyone. I'm new to PPC and have gotten a lot of useful info from posts here. Thanks!

I'd like some input on my fledgling campaign. Right now I've got a budget of about $350 pm (I'd actually like to keep it closer to 300 for now) and I'm using both Yahoo & Google. I'm wondering if I'd be better off sticking with just one (I'm thinking Google) with such a limited budget rather than spreding my money out over the two. Is this advisable?

I'm also wondering:

1.) how many different search terms should I bid on? I've heard 20 is a good number, but I'm wondering is more better? If I bid on search terms relevant to all of the areas in my market I'll have no trouble coming up with far more terms than 20, but I'm not sure if that's the best way to go.

2.) Should I include Google's Content Network & Yahoo's Content Match or do these tend to deliver badly targeted trafic?

Thanks for your input.

[RonnieG]

My opinion and experience only:

With your budget, stick with one for now. I never got anything good from Yahoo, and have had good very success with Google, so I am biased toward Google. I am also pretty lazy, and didn't like having to constantly monitor and tweak two systems. Your market and experience may be different.

Read some of the other PPC threads for keyword ideas. Mine are usually 20-30 terms per community, and my ads are very community specific. If this doesn't get you enough traffic, and you can't spend your daily budget, add more terms and/or more communities.

Avoid content network stuff. Very poor focus, and a waste of impressions and money.

[mmuench]

Google does seem like less of a headache to monitor, but I have been a little frustrated at not being able to rank consistently in the top 3 or 4 on Google. I don't like having to monitor my bids all the time on Yahoo (although, I must admit I do love jamming people bidding outrageous amounts and actually making them put their money where their mouth is) but I do like the fact that if you are the top bidder you get the top position. Thanks!

[Jay6]

Google has been much better for us but we always target everything based on Geography and Yahoo doesn't offer that. I guess their new system is coming out soon so we'll see what that gets us. We also set up MSN but it's only getting delivering about 10-15% the traffic of what Google does.

[mmuench]

Another thing about Google that I hate is the cost. When I initially set up my keywords I've been using Yahoo's bid tool as a guage to see how much I should bid on Google. I shoot for position #3 to keep costs down. So I'll set my maximum cpc for that search term at, say .70, based on Yahoo's 3rd highest bid -- only to find out that I'll be lucky just to make the second page of results in Google . . . frustrating as hell.

My market is so competitive that for a good number of the terms (and not just the most common "_____ real estate," etc. you sometimes have to bid 2.00 just to BARELY make the bottom of the first results page, it's insane! If I've got to pay $5.00 for a high position how can I generate any trafic without spending thousands per month on ppc with Google?

[Jay6]

The prices on Google and Yahoo don't really make sense to me. You would think the prices would be similar because they are both set by "us" on an auction basis so you would think people would value traffic at certain price and bid that on both. I have terms that are $.40 on Google and $4.00 on Yahoo and vise versa. Now I just look on Google, Yahoo and MSN for good deals and only bid on terms that are cheap. This has been a big improvement to cost/conversion.

[RonnieG]

I would rather get ten clicks with one conversion from a good keyword at $2/click, than 50 clicks from a .40 keyword where none of them convert. That is the point of having the ability to track conversions by keyword. If you can't track conversions (registrations) by keyword, anything you do in the PPC world is a stab in the dark, and likely to cost way more than it should.

[ShaunG]

I use yahoo for my mortgage site. Is there a tool on google like overture has for keywords and bids? I saw the google tool, but it seems it was just a bar....not an exact number. Is there a way to get exact numbers on searches for google and exact bids for google?

[RonnieG]

Not that I am aware of. Google bidding is really very "seat of the pants" when you first get started. But I rarely have to adjust bids or keywords any more. A bid tweak every couple of weeks, and pruning non-productive keywords is about the extent of it for me, unless I add another community to my campaign. Since all of my keywords are community specific, "communityx real estate" takes different bids than "communityz real estate".

As far as Google's geo targeting, I have found that to be very non-targeted and error prone, since G uses ISP IP addresses in their geo targeting process. I prefer to use "mytown mystate" in every keyword phrase, and let them run nationally. The lead quality is better that way, since you get more relo leads.

[ShaunG]

That makes it tough when just starting. I think I may start with overture. I have also notice that when I research certain keywords, it says there is no bids and I can get it at .10c, but then I search that term on yahoo and I see like 3 companies over there. What is the deal with that? I am curious. Is it just not accurate?