Selecting a new PPC network isn’t an easy task since marketers have to consider their budget, audiences, pricing, B2C or B2B expertise, and types of ads available.
From the widely-used Google Ads platform to native advertising or social media – PPC networks present multiple possibilities that can be customized for different marketing approaches and industries.
That’s right, people only think of using networks managed by Google and Bing when it comes to PPC. However, these are not the only paid search platforms.
Google Ads is one of the most popular advertising platforms because of its broader reach, thanks to the massive search volume. However, if you want to expand your paid search horizons, it may be a good idea to look into other Google ad alternatives that can help you achieve your goals with precision. Simply put, there’s more to paid search than Google.
Here is a round-up of some of the best paid search platforms (PPC networks) for digital advertisers to leverage:
Microsoft Ads
Microsoft Ads is another paid search platform that offers advertisers the ability to easily import campaigns from Google Ads, making it easier to get your ads off the ground.
The Microsoft Search Network gets 12.2 billion searches every month. In addition, Microsoft has the benefit of explicitly serving search traffic from Yahoo, as it also powers searches from various digitally-powered voice assistants. They also target visitor profile data on LinkedIn, such as job function, industry, and company.
As per Microsoft:
“Apart from LinkedIn, Microsoft Advertising is merely the only digital ad platform that offers LinkedIn Profile Targeting.”
Pricing: CPC model depending on the ad quality and the competition.
Ad Formats: Better for native placements, text for search, LinkedIn serves text advertisements, shopping campaigns, and Dynamic Search Ads.
Placements: Microsoft Audience Network, search engines, which comprises native content posts on Outlook.com, MSN, choose quality partner sites, the Edge browser.
Tip: While the Microsoft Ad platform allows marketers to import campaigns, keeping a precise copy and not optimizing Microsoft Ads can be a blunder. So make sure to adjust bids, match types, and include ad extensions.
The platform has 200 million monthly users (low-funnel) who are there to research products and ideas.
Besides the fact that Pinterest is growing in popularity and usage on a global scale, various other reasons contribute to why eCommerce companies should consider it a viable PPC ad platform.
Two-thirds of the Pins are also from company/business sites. So your competitors are most probably leveraging it, and you can be sure that your prospective clients use it as well.
Pricing: CPM for promoted video pins. CPC for app installs and promoted pins
Ad formats: One-tap promoted pins, promoted pins, promoted video pins, promoted app pins, cinematic pins, on the Pinterest app and Pinterest.com
The Instagram platform has more than 1 billion (active users) who are younger than the users on Facebook.
Campaign management and creation are directed through the Facebook Ads platform. While Facebook endorses Automatic Placements that target all placements in a single campaign, this can easily be changed to perform the way the advertiser wants.
Pricing: Estimated action rates, cost per preferred action, ad quality, based on bid.
Ad Formats: Video, single image, collection, carousel ad.
Tip: the Instagram audience is younger than users on Facebook.
Placements: Instagram Stories and Feeds can be amalgamated with different Facebook placements.
YouTube
YouTube has more than 2 billion active/logged-in users per month internationally, so this presents a brilliant opportunity for advertisers and marketers to reach their intended audience via this platform.
Campaign management and creation happen via the Google Ads platform using exhaustive information about the audience’s engagement. These functions also require data on demographics via YouTube Analytics in the respective YouTube account.
Pricing: CPM, CPV.
Ad Formats: Non-Skippable in-stream advertisements, Skippable in-stream advertisements, video discovery ads, Bumper ads, Masthead ads.
Tip: Marketers can reach their prospective clients with similar targeting accessible for the Google Display Network.
Placements: YouTube.
As the leading social media platform, Facebook has 2.6 billion users every month.
Targeting your required audiences can be pretty granular since you can shortlist by interests, demographics, behaviours, etc. For example, Facebook facilitates retargeting via user activity off Facebook and on Facebook actions with the Facebook pixel.
Ad Formats: Single image, video, slideshow, canvas (mobile), carousel. Mobile Audience Network facilitates the various display and video formats such as interstitial, native, in-stream, and rewarded.
Mobile: Audience Network and Facebook mobile properties.
Placements: Instagram, Facebook, Audience Network, and Messenger.
LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, has a significant number of users and information for marketers to target for their brand.
Over 500 million experts are on LinkedIn, and you can target by professional criteria, like seniority, job title, company, and more.
Ad Formats: native on LinkedIn Audience Network applications and sites. Image/text advertisement on LinkedIn.
Mobile: Advertisements in the LinkedIn application and LinkedIn Audience Network
Placements: LinkedIn Audience Network contains multiple mobile apps, mobile sites, and ad exchanges.
Twitter offers various options to reach the intended audience from the 330 million people that use the app every month. Unlike other paid search platforms, Twitter advertisements are exclusive to the Twitter platform, without network partners.
Endorsed tweets are one of the best and flexible ad formats as they can contain any mix of media and text that comply with the standard policies.
Pricing: Promoted accounts and tweets are CPC. Endorsed trends are managed via a Twitter sales representative.
Ad Formats: Promoted accounts, promoted tweets (images and/or text, videos, GIFS), promoted trends.
Mobile: Advertisements in the Twitter application’s feed
Placements: Twitter app and Twitter.com
Wrapping Up
All of the paid search platforms mentioned above can work wonders if you have adequate knowledge on how to leverage them in a manner that drives results.
A complete paid social account and PPC should comprise various goals to reach and lead the potential clients down the sales funnel, enticing them to purchase. Alongside digital marketing tactics, PPC ads can help you generate audience engagement and instant exposure, and the above platforms are excellent Google ads alternatives.
Through refining, testing, and paying extra attention to both the PPC platform’s capabilities and your customers’ needs, you can leverage PPC to build a lucrative revenue stream and expedite your organizational growth.
It might be helpful to outline your keywords, goals, landing messages, and key messaging to get prepared and make sure you cover all the bases.