Google AdWords is the Godzilla of search engine pay-per-click advertising, eating up to 80 percent of search engine traffic.
But, keyword bids can also be expensive. Competition can be fierce. Budgets can and will be stretched. Luckily, there are alternatives to AdWords.
Bing/Yahoo
Accounting for 20 percent of the search engine ad market, Bing continues to make advances as it gains a reputation for fair search results. In conjunction with its partner, Yahoo, the two account for an effective reach of 33 percent, according to searchengineland.com.
Clicksor
Clicksor is a company that puts links in text on websites and allows advertisers to create pop-under ads. It is good for brands trying to reach specific markets. Clicksor boasts that advertisers can watch their ad performance in real time. Although growing more respected, prior to 2014 consumers complained of malware in pop-under ads. This problem has been substantially reduced, according to monetizedpros.com.
Reddit is a social news site and forum that is made up of individual communities. Each community has its own page, subject matter, users and moderators. Its advertising platform was highlighted in Entrepreneur magazine. Reddit boasts that when you promote using its ad tool, you could tap into its more than 234 million engaged users through its programmatic platform.
Facebook can target potential customers based on their profiles and likes. Considering Facebook has more than 1 billion daily users, the potential audience reach is huge. It's probably best for consumer goods.
BuySellAds
The largest network for banner ads, selling more than 6 billion ad impressions each month. According to ppchero.com, the site is a good choice for high-quality tech and internet niches.
Kontextua
If you are interested in the Spanish language market, this is worth a try. Kontextua is an in-text advertising network.
Other contenders
ADsmonster, an AdWords alternative, provides variety of low- and high-quality traffic at various prices.
Sponsored Tweets, the Twitter advertising platform. Advertisers can choose partners according to geography, following, and category. Links track back to Google Analytics.
AdLandmark, a good network for software providers. Pay per download service.
