Danny Sullivan points to a survey that shows Google advertisers say they found their ads more effective than Yahoo and (much more than) MSN.
MediaPost reports on an Outsell survey of 1,200 advertisers last November that found 71 percent found search ads on Google were effective, compared to 62 percent on Yahoo and 49 percent on MSN.
Google’s contextualization targeting does seem more advanced, so I’m sure this survey is spot on. I wonder, since MSN was serving Yahoo ads, why would their ads be so much less effective? Is Yahoo screwing MSN on technology, or is Yahoo supplying the ads, not the targeting? We’ll have to wait for AdCenter for results that accurately reflect on MSN, however.
But when Outsell looked more closely at the results, it found that the most enthusiastic Google fans also had the smallest marketing budgets. The average marketing budget of respondents who rated Google “extremely” effective totaled $3.7 million. But average budgets for those who considered Yahoo and MSN extremely effective came to $4.6 million.
Google did make its mark on the long tail of advertising, and I guess its showing. Is the message that larger advertisers need look elsewhere to reach a broader, consumer-focused audience? I don’t think that’s a message Google should like. It needs its advertising products to appeal to advertisers both large and small.
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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