OVERTURE or GOOGLE ADWORDS

[critter]

Hey all..

I'm curious how does one decide between a campaign with Overture PPC and/or Google Adwords?

Cheers

Critter

[Affiliate Program Manager]

You will have to test them both.
It will varry from industry to industry.

We have found that there is no right answer to that question.

[bradbyrd]

critter,

the most significant difference between the two is this: overture let's you ensure that you are placed #1 by simply paying the highest CPC; google fiddles with results more (rank is a combination of your bid price plus your click popularity), so you do not have certainty of your placement. this may be important to you if "visibility" in itself is important, independent of actual traffic captured. said another way, overture lets you bid to increase both visibility and traffic; google only lets you bid for traffic, and will punish sites that get impressions without clicks (lower rankings/higher CPC price).

that said, why should you choose "between" these channels? both deliver considerable traffic, and offer excellent marketing opportunities.

[tomslick]

In my experience, it is a little easier to get up and running on adwords because their editorial process is less stringent than Overture's. Both programs deliver way more traffic and better ROI than any of the 2nd tier sites I have worked with.

You will most likely end up working with both, longterm, if your paid search program is successful - good luck!

[knubbi]

There is no limitation to only go for one PPC provider.

Personally, I find the Adwords control panel easier and much faster to use. It mostly cost a click less to have things arranged. But Overture offers a better keyword helper tool and it saves you from think about singular/plural keyword forms. Additionally, Overture very nicely shows you the position of your ad.

My free keword tools helps you to generate keyword combinations in a snap:
http://www.maxivista.com/adword_keyword_juggler.php

I actually prefer Google's position ranking scheme with the combination of cost per click and click-through rate analysis. It replaces the lame manual Overture editorial system and you get almost real-time feedback.

Additionally it motivates and "pays" you to be more targeted in your campaigns. This is not necessarily the case if Overture reviews your ad.

Very important is also to maintain a good negative keyword list as well. If you are into Microsoft business, make sure to wipe -mac, -macintosh, -apple, -linux, -sun, -unix, etc...

Gunnar

[Windsun]

In my experience, Google is much easier to work with and has better tools. I get slightly better results with Overture, so even though they can be a nightmare to get past the submissions at times, I keep forcing my self to use them.

As others have said, no reason to use only one. And as Knubbi said, negative keywords can be very important to avoid irrelevant clicks.

And we are gradually refining our Google ads to get better results - one thing we found out early on is that click throughs do NOT = sales on many keywords. We have had the best results on Google with low frequency but high click rate "niche" keywords. For example "lights" might get us 500 hits but no sales, but "pink bunny shaped lights" might get us 10 hits and 4 sales.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

There is no limitation to only go for one PPC provider.

Oh yes, there are many limitations - the main one being that Overture don't have distribution, or very little, in many regions around the world. Here in Denmark, for example, the reach is so small with Overture that it usually dosn't pay to use them at all (if you value your own time at all, that is). Only on very broad campaigns with the most searched for keywords I use Overture here.

Another limitation is that outside the US I often find that Overture is SO difficult to deal with that it's just not worth it. Sometimes it can takes months (YES, months!) to set up a campaign and when it's finally up it's not uncommon that they made so many mistakes that you litterally have to start all over. On top of this, local Overture reps seems to know very little about Overture and can't answer even the most basic questions from advertisers (such as: Who do you show the ads to!).


Google often sucks too, so it's not like they are perfect. They just usually sucks less that Overture and with a 25-50 times better reach I just have to live with it :)

[Windsun]

.... when it's finally up it's not uncommon that they made so many mistakes that you litterally have to start all over. ...

About a year or so ago, some Overture rep said he was going to "help" me get more hits.

So what he did was take all my existing key words, and then add "cheap" and "discount" in front of all of them, and then added them to my list. Nothing else, nothing new - he just spammed my existing keywords. :eek:

Took me over a full day to get all the crap out, including the 2 hours I spent on the phone with them letting them try to convince me the place was not populated by low-IQ monkeys. :(