The key differences between Google and Overture

• Google AdWords and Overture have different editorial standards. At Overture, editors are employed who then make sure that the keywords are relevant by manually checking them. Google AdWords use Click Through Ratings to ensure the relevancy, which means that at least 0.5% of viewers should click on any given keyword or phrase, if not, then that particular keyword or phrase will be disabled. Google also employs editors, but they they are there mainly to check that people do not have offensive content in their ads, and that they are following the Google Adwords guidelines. In Google Adwords your ad can run immediately without editorial approval. With Overture it can take up to 5 days before your ad is up and running.
• CTR is critical at search engines such as Google. It also acts as a financial motivator for advertisers. If your CTR is three times higher than your competitor’s CTR, then if he is vying for the same ad position, he needs to bid three times as much. Overture on the other hand does not have any such click-through rate contesting.
• Google has a tool which bridges the bidding gap. Your maximum bid is not your actual bid. Your actual bid will be the amount which is required to be above your immediate competitor. Overture did not have this facility earlier, however in recent times, this has been introduced.
• Google AdWords has a number of options such as broad matching option or wild card matching option, phrase matching, exact matching, negative keywords, etc. Overture provides it customers with some other features such as variations on the same keywords like singular to plural, and so on.
• Google ads appear on the Google search engine, Google Groups, AOL, Teoma/Ask Jeeves, Earthlink, Infosearch metasearch properties and also the Canadian portal Sympatico. Overture ads are displayed on countless portals including Lycos, MSN, Yahoo, Infosearch Metasearch properties, and so on.
• Google has an option of turning off syndication which means that you can control the display of your ad. Overture does not have that feature.
• Google supports multi-lingual ad display and support as well as shows ads relevant to different countries and has tools that help users in different countries. Overture does not have either.
• Google has a minimum bid of 5 cents and Overture has a minimum of 10 cents.
• Google does not support external bid management software. Overture does, and which can give rise to ‘bidding wars’ among its advertisers.

Try putting the price in the ad

For Overture, sometimes it is desirable to put the price of your product in your ad. This is because if you put your price in the advertisement it will mean that only the people who are serious about buying your product or service will click on the ad. Many people are searching for free information and if you put the price in the ad you will ward away these people, and decrease your cost of advertising hopefully without decreasing the number of sales you make. However, you should not lie in your ad and quote a wrong price for your product or service. So, putting a price in your ad is often a very practical thing to do. Everyone knows that there is a price tag on everything. If your price is competitive and reasonable, then they will probably click on it. You will probably see less clicks on your ads, but overall your sales conversions will benefit as you will eliminate freebie-hunters.

In Google AdWords it is less likely to work to put your price in the ad, because you are always trying to increase the click-through rate of your ad. With Google you might want to try the opposite strategy and offer something for free, like subscription to a free online newspaper, a free online analysis, market report, a preview, free 30 days trial and so on. You can use the word free in your ad copy, but with caution as it may lower your return on investments. Also, it must be relevant to your ad; otherwise Google will disapprove of your copy. So even on search engines like Google don’t use the word ‘free’ excessively, unless you have a business strategy that actually works on giving away freebies.