Yahoo! Knocks Out Google as Preferred Advertising Channel
August 2, 2006 – 11:37 pm | by J. Rodriguez
Marketers targeting travel searches prefer using Yahoo! over Google for paid search campaigns.
Recent analysis of the most visited online travel agency sites by comScore, reveals that Yahoo! received close to 44 percent of all sponsored ads, whilst Google only managed to secure 26 percent of all paid search campaigns by these sites.
Despite this, Google did receive a two percent higher click through rate to Yahoo!, (35 percent compared to Yahoo!’s 32 percent), demonstrating that Google has a higher relevance over Yahoo!’s sponsored ads. MSN followed with the third highest click through (22 percent), and AOL finished off the top four with 7 percent.
The study also looked at the effectiveness of search campaigns by these travel agency sites, and found that “more than 50 percent of the total click-throughs to these sites were generated by sponsored ads, compared to just 11 percent across all Web search activity.” Top performing sites included Orbitz.com and CheapTickets.com, both attracting around 72 percent of click-throughs from sponsored ads.
Peter Daboll, President and CEO of comScore comments, “With search advertising accounting for roughly 40 percent of total online spending, it’s clear that advertisers view the medium as a critical component of the advertising mix.”
Mr. Daboll also suggests that advertisers using sponsored ads should take close consideration to the search terms they are choosing, ensuring they are relevant to their target audience, as the most popular travel sites analyzed demonstrate, close to two-thirds of their search-generated click-throughs came from sponsored ads.
