Last time, we focused on Google’s Pay Per Click program, Google Adwords. This time, we take a look at Yahoo’s offering, Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM).

To be honest, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two. Again, advertisers can bid an amount they wish to pay for a visitor to click on their ad which gets priority listing for a specific keyword search. And again, the cost per click can range from .10 cents to $5.00. And again (again?), advertisers only pay when a visitor actually clicks on their advertisement.

Having said that there are a few differences.

Firstly, while Yahoo and NineMSN have a far less amount of traffic to their search engines, they could argue that they command a significant slice of the business-to-consumer pie. Both engines attract a large amount of traffic for their television affiliations (Channel 7 and 9 respectively) as well as news and magazine associations. So if your business is not interested in business-to-business traffic, this product could be for you. Further, YSM places your ads on multiple engines including Yahoo, NineMSN and Altavista increasing your reach further.

The second difference relates to up front costs. YSM requires a $100 deposit to open an account but this is put towards spending on clicks so it is not money wasted. For those wanting to "dip their toe in the ocean", you will have to accept that this is your minimum outlay.

It would be very hard for us to recommend using Yahoo Search Marketing at the expense of Google Adwords, but nevertheless, YSM should be a part of your online advertising budget. Many of the keywords found on YSM are much cheaper to bid for than their Google counterparts, so it could make economic sense to compare the two pay-per-click programs against each other and make further business decisions from there.