Google is supposed to be the best search engine for marketing the products and services by online advertisers, because of its reach among Internet users. But the popularity has its own disadvantages namely:
- High Competition
- High Cost
- High CPA
Yahoo and MSN are other search engines, which are popular among Internet users, and competition of advertisers is comparatively less than Google. Some other search engines are Rediff, Miva, Mirago, Looksmart, Guruji etc, but these are popular in specific countries.
It is advised to not rely only on Google for the campaigns where conversions are important. To get maximum conversions, other search engines can also be tested. Alteast 25% of the budget can be divided in Yahoo, MSN and other country specific search engines to see the profitability and then based on the response, the portion of budget can be increased.
Search Engines like Yahoo and MSN usually generate less traffic but sometimes the quality of traffic is better than Google and therefore the chances of conversions is higher and at low cost. Competition in other search engines is less and therefore even with the less number of impressions the probability of getting clicks is higher than Google.
The disadvantage in advertising on other search engines is their management tools. The campaign management tools such as Adwords Editor offered for Google Adwords are very user friendly. For this reason, there is a high entry barrier for advertising on Yahoo, MSN and other search engines.
