I confess: I’m a Google lover.
It isn’t “love is blind.” I know they aren’t perfect.
But they try, and in comparison to everyone else, they usually come out on top.
(Not always. I do use an iPhone, not Android.)
Take Google AdWords vs. Microsoft AdCenter – the two big players in click ads. Google owns about a 2/3 market share in the U.S., Microsoft almost all the rest.
When you compare the two services, most of the time it is either “Microsoft is as good as Google because they are imitating what Google does” or “Microsoft isn’t as good because they are doing something differently from Google.”
AdCenter’s procedure for setting up agency access to a client account is so weird and counter-intuitive – and obscure even to their own people – that it took 3 weeks, about 6 phone calls, a chat and probably a dozen emails to get it straight. It requires two different logins, one to accept the invitation to manage, and another to actually manage the account.
Why?
A recent article says that AdCenter has now achieved near parity with AdWords as far as cost of clicks for comparable searches. I don’t find that to be the case. With our clients, Microsoft ads are consistently much cheaper. So on that basis it is worthwhile to run AdCenter ads.
I also find the potential clicks are way less than 1/2 that of Google’s. Since Google’s tools for campaign management are superior, our typical process is to set up and fine-tune campaigns in AdWords, then set up a duplicate campaign in AdCenter and fine-tune it for differences.
Microsoft is losing billions of dollars on click ads. Google of course wants Microsoft to stay in business, because if they fold, then Google really is a monopoly and governments will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
What will happen?
Say tuned.