Pay-per-click marketing offers an opportunity for companies to advertise on the pages served by many of the main search engines when a user searches for a specific keyword. Payment is only made when a user clicks through to your site from the advert, which is displayed as a sponsored listing in the search results.
On each results page there may be a number of adverts served, with the placement of these ads controlled via a bidding system, so the highest bid will receive the most prominent ad space. This bidding system also controls pricing, with the more competitive markets attracting higher costs.
The UK pay-per-click market has grown rapidly since its introduction in 2000 and has been dominated by three major players:
- Overture (previously known as GoTo until October 2001) is now a major pay-per-click provider to English language search tools and a number of foreign language sites. Owned by Yahoo, it has established a wide coverage of many key UK search tools such as AltaVista, AOL, HotBot, Lycos, MSN Search, Tiscali, Wanadoo and Yahoo.
- Google launched its AdWords scheme in 2002 in response to similar services elsewhere. Its popularity has grown rapidly, taking advantage of Google’s position as a major destination site on the web. AdWords now also provides advertising to Ask Jeeves and a network of content sites via Google’s AdSense program.
- This European wide service, founded in 2000, initially provided a significant network of search tools with pay-per-click advertising. However in 2003 it lost coverage of both Yahoo and Ask Jeeves, greatly reducing its significance in the UK market. The company now relies on a network of smaller affiliates to display its advertising and is
currently in the process of merging with the US pay-per-click provider FindWhat.
The three companies provide similar services although there are a number of differences:
|
|
Google
AdWords
UK
|
Overture
UK
|
Espotting
|
|
Advert
Sizes
|
|
|
|
|
Title
(Max characters)
|
25
|
40
|
50
|
|
Description
(Max characters)
|
70
|
190
|
200
|
|
Pricing
|
|
|
|
|
Minimum
setup cost
|
£5
|
£60
|
£60
|
|
Minimum
bid price
|
5p
|
10p
|
10p
|
|
Minimum
monthly spend
|
None
|
£20
|
None
|
|
Editorial
|
|
|
|
|
Set
up process
|
Instant
|
Review
within 2 – 10 days
|
48
hours
|
|
Relative
editorial control
|
Moderate
|
Strict
|
Strict
|
|
Tools
|
|
|
|
|
Downloadable
Reports
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
|
Negative
Keywords
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
|
Conversion
Tracking
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
|
Network
|
Google,
Ask
UK
|
UK
versions of
AltaVista, AOL, HotBot, Lycos, MSN Search, Tiscali, Wanadoo, and
Yahoo
|
Network of smaller content sites
|
To find out whether pay-per-click marketing is suitable for you, you can also read about the costs and benefits of pay per click advertising and find out about the web search workshop's pay-per-click management service.
Return to Materials introduction
The top search engines
How the top search tools work together
Options for paid search listings
UK search engines and directories
Partnerships between UK search engines and directories
European search engines and directories
The future of web search tools
