Google Adsense vs Yahoo Publisher Network
Background: I ran Adsense on this site for over 2 years before trying out YPN for the past 6 months or so. Here are some preliminary observations and a suggestion or two.
Ad Relevancy/Targetting: Google is way, way ahead. Pretty much every page on this site gets relevant ads. Yahoo on the other hand lags behind but is catching up. Perhaps this is direcly tied into which is a ‘better’ search engine i.e. has a better ’sense’ of what a page is about?
Cost-per-click: Yahoo’s CPC is substantially higher than Google’s. Google routinely had clicks coming in at 3c a click. It isn’t unusual for Yahoo to do over 50c a click.
Clickthrough rate: Google’s CTR is about double of Yahoo’s. But Yahoo’s CPC is so far ahead that net $ are still about 2X-3X of Google’s.
Ads: For some reason, Google’s Adsense ads are written much better - perhaps a result of better documentation on their Adwords site. Yahoo’s ads tend to be somewhat less well-written - to the point that a cursory look makes them look less relevant that G’s ads. This is a good area for Yahoo to look at improving.
Reporting: No comparison. Google is miles ahead both in terms of reporting flexibility as well as real time reporting. In addition, Google’s channels seem to me to be an easier way to get a grip on which pages make more $ compared to Yahoo’s Reporting URLs. Plus the fact that you can only look at Y’s reporting URLs one at a time is annoying. Yahoo has easy wins here as well.
Payments: Both Y and G send you a check 30 days after your month-end balance reaches $100. G offers direct deposit to your bank a/c which is nice compared to Y’s check-only by mail.
Availability: Google is a worldwide wheras YPN is limited to US publishers only (and I have heard, to sites with a majority-US readership).
AdBlocking: pretty much even.
RSS: I don’t have a ton of first hand experience here. Yahoo is ready today with RSS feeds while Google is still in beta for RSS ads, but then again YPN itself is entirely in invitation-only beta!
Overall winner: YPN by a 60-40 margin.
Add comment March 29th, 2006