Pay per click (PPC) Advertising in the UK

Although there are a large number of pay per click providers, the UK pay per click market is dominated by AdWords, then Overture with other pay per click providers offering benefits in some markets. The major UK pay per click providers include:

• Google AdWords
• Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture)
• MSN Adcentre
• Mirago UK
• eSpotting

This page gives a summary of some of these UK Pay per Click Providers.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is our recommended initial pay per click advertising provider for most UK businesses - and certainly those who target a business market. Cornish WebServices only use Qualified AdWords Professionals to manage client pay per click budgets, ensuring we can provide a quality service.

Google launched its AdWords scheme in 2002 and it has grown very rapidly, partly at least due to the dominance of the Google search engine. AdWords also provides advertising to Ask Jeeves and other search engines, and to a network of content sites via Google’s AdSense program.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo! Search Marketing took over the Overture brand name in 2006.

Yahoo! Search Marketing pay per click ads show up on some major UK search engines such as MSN and Yahoo. Also AOL, Altavista, Tiscali and Wanadoo. The biggest disadvantage is they do not show up on Google, the dominant UK business search engine. Yahoo is almost always the second choice pay per click provider in the UK market, being slightly stronger in the consumer market. But in non UK markets the situation is different with Yahoo being a strong second place to Google in much of the US and Europe.

MSN AdCenter

MSN launched their PPC product in competition with AdWords and Yahoo in summer 2006. The planned launch was predicted to be early in 2007 but this was brought forward. After initial good results traffic from this pay per click provider is usually poor and small in quantity in UK based markets.

Miva

Miva acquired FindWhat in 2006. FindWhat has merged with the old eSpotting pay per click provider.

Overture Search

Overture Search started out with the brand name "Go To" but changed to Overture Search in 2001. In the UK, Overture had a much smaller market share than Google AdWords, but the relative difference in other countries (e.g. the us) is smaller).

Overture pay per click ads showed up on some major UK search engines such as MSN and Yahoo. Also AOL, Altavista, Tiscali and Wanadoo. The biggest disadvantage is they do not show up on Google, the dominant UK business search engine.

Overture has now re-branded to Yahoo! Search Marketing, but the Overture details have been left here as old brand names take a time to be forgotten.

Mirago UK

Mirago Pay per Click advertising operates through a network of search partners, many of whom are exclusive to Mirago. These include names such as InfoSpace, Holiday Watchdog, MoneyFacts and Lycos.

Mirago were the first pay per click provider to offer 'day parting' - the ability to show your ad differently at different times of the day.

eSpotting

eSpotting Pay Per Click Advertising was founded in 2000 and initially was a successful brand name in Europe.

By 2003 eSpotting had lost significant market share, particularly in the UK compared to AdWords and Overture. eSpotting relied on a network of smaller affiliates to display its advertising merged with FindWhat (a US pay-per-click provider). In 2006 this was acquired by Miva.

Yandex

In some countries such as Russia, Google is not the dominant pay per click provider. In the Russian paid search market Yandex is the most important pay per click provider (in Russian) . Cornish WebServices can provide pay per click management in Russian on Yandex if required.

Which Pay per Click (PPC) Provider is best for your website?

Cornish WebServices have worked with many different pay per click providers and when appropriate suggest starting new campaigns with some providers (or withdrawing from pay per click providers which are not producing a good ROI).

It is also important to consider which country you are targeting, as this can affect the best account(s) to use. Cornish WebServices have experience man ageing pay per click campaigns in the UK and other countries. This is in English and other languages as required.

Contact us for advice on selecting the most appropriate pay per click provider. Other factors we consider are how well your website is already doing on the search engines that show the pay per click ads.

Looking for a pay per click management company?

Cornish WebServices have extensive experience providing managed pay per click services in both B2B and B2C type markets (based in both the UK and non UK markets) on all the major pay per click providers. We also provide natural search engine optimisation services and often offer a combination of services where we gradually decrease pay per click spend as the client website gains top rankings.

Contact us for a realistic assessment of the benefits of PPC (pay per click) advertising for your business. We only use qualified Google AdWords Professionals to handle client budgets. We were probably the 1st UK pay per click management company to do, and are still one of a very small number that do not allow 'unqualified staff' to manage client pay per click campaigns.