Top PPC Advertising Networks Comparison

Over the past two years, I have spent close to $3,500 on PPC Advertising. Of course, that kind of spending resulted in decent returns but the reality is that, only 3 ad networks out of the 8 or 9 that I tried, actually returned anything significant.

Based on my experience, here’s a table that contain the good and bad aspects of those best PPC ad networks that I experimented with and my rating of them from an advertiser’s point of view. Please note that many of you may have a different story to talk about your specific campaigns and hence please pitch in with your comments.

PPC Ad Networks Comparison

Comparison and rating of the Six PPC ad networks is given below. You can actually take it as a comparison of AdWords vs other networks such as Microsoft AdCenter, Facebook Ads etc (As you may already know, Yahoo Publisher Network is now folded into Microsoft Advertising). And please note that the MY rating is based on what I got in return for my ad spending.

Network	Pros	Cons	Rating
Google AdWords	Leaps ahead of the competition Highest conversion rates Multi-format ads that gets highest CTR Highly Context specific ad-serving Numerous ad-sizes and device support Best geo-targeting and suits international customers	High Cost-per-Click Slow customer support Abrupt ban of advertiser accounts	9 / 10
Microsoft AdCenter	Second option for Search Advertising Reach on Bing and Yahoo Good Customer Support	No Image Ads No content publishers outside Microsoft Network Conversion rate not as good as AdWords Ads not as Intuitive	7 / 10
Facebook Ads	High Social reach Very good demographic options Very Good for brand building Highly specific targeting	Slow ad approval process Only one ad size/format Works only with specific niche products Low conversion rates	6 / 10
LinkedIn Ads	Extremely good for increasing brand awareness among professionals Lead generation options in campaigns Can target selected entrepreneurial roles	Limited ad size options PPC Bids not accepted below suggested range Poor direct conversion (but good leads) Phone numbers etc not allowed in ad text	5 / 10
Bidvertiser	Custom ad sizes Low CPC rates Easy to get started and drive traffic	Ads are not always context-aware No real search/social advertising options Not as effective as premium ad services mentioned above	3 / 10
Adbrite	Global reach Cheap advertising option to drive traffic Adult advertising options	Not as effective as premium ad services Your brand may be damaged if ads appear on adult sites	3 / 10

I didn’t try Miva, Ask.com PPC Advertising, Chitika, Infolinks etc yet nor have I focused on CPM networks other than BuySellAds in CPM mode. [I must tell you that, BuySellAds from advertisers’ point of view has been very disappointing with the trials that I had. I still have four to five campaigns running on BSA. It seems to work well only with highly visible ad spotsabove the fold]