Each pay per click advertising platform has its own unique selling points. Depending upon your product or service, type of company, industry, target audience and budget, you may find a particular PPC platform provides higher audience engagement than others.
It is therefore necessary you do your research on the top PPC platforms out there and use the one that suits your needs the best.
If you have the budget, ideally you should try out a few networks before you can zero in on the one or two where you can continue to advertise bringing in the desired results.
Top Performing PPC Platforms for Startups and Small Businesses
The below given 10 networks are the best we have found. They are not listed by rank. They have been clubbed together as per their type such as search engines, forums, social networks and content marketing.
1) Google
Let’s start with the most obvious one. Google properties are the go-to platforms for any new digital marketer.
There is just no going past their extraordinary reach covering well over 90% of the entire internet.
Google platforms include Google Search Ads, Display Networks, YouTube, Gmail, Google Discovery Feeds etc.
Honestly, for most marketers this is the only platform you will need. Google properties cover both B2C as well as B2B companies.
The only drawback of Google Ads can be the intense competition. Considering it is the number one PPC platform in the world, every advertiser is on Google.
Due to this, you may find the per click cost for your specific keywords are already out of reach for your budget.
However, I do recommend you try Google Ads once. You get warm leads and their targeting options to reach your specific audience is simply outstanding.
2) Bing Ads with Yahoo
Bing along with Yahoo can be reached by signing up for Microsoft Ads. They are easy to setup and offer all the features you would find in Google Search Ads.
Now, I do understand Bing is not even close to Google for search market share. But that can be a good thing.
Bing still gets millions of searches per day on its platform. So you have a decent number of users to target.
The advantage here is since most advertisers are focusing their energy on Google, Bing Ads end up getting cheaper cost per click rates.
So you do get warm leads, excellent audience targeting options but with low competition and lower click rates than Google.
This makes Bing a good place to start for those with tight budgets or new startups.
Remember, through Microsoft Ads, you can not only target Bing and its display network, you can target Yahoo platforms as well. Hence your potential reach can be quite substantial.
Bing is recommended for both B2C as well as B2B companies.
3) DuckDuckGo
Not many have heard of this search engine but DuckDuckGo has built quite a reputation for itself by its strict privacy protection systems for search users.
This means unlike Google, DuckDuckGo does not track you around either on their search engine or when you leave the site to browse somewhere else.
Hence their targeting options for advertisers is quite simple. As per their own example on their website, if you search for cars, you will see ads related to cars only. Hence the ads are displayed based on search keywords.
If you are selling mobile covers, you could target only those users searching for mobile covers in your location via DuckDuckGo.
Note, to advertise on DuckDuckGo, you need to sign up at Microsoft Ads and then choose their network when creating your ad campaign.
DuckDuckGo is recommended for both B2C as well as B2B companies.
The cost per click rates are also lower than the other search engines listed here.
4) Media.net
Advertising on Media.net is similar to advertising on Google’s display network.
Media.net partners with some of the best blogs, websites, forums etc. and displays ads on their web properties for their customers.
Just as Google incentivises publishers to join the Google Adsense program in exchange of commissions per click, Media.net also pays their publishers on every click generated from their websites.
Since Media.net offers a better pay rate to publishers, many site owners have signed up with them.
So if you feel you want to try display ads on websites, you can give Media.net a shot.
Just note Media.net is mainly for advertisers targeting North America and UK based audiences. It does not have the same global reach like Google or Microsoft Ads.
5) Quora
Quora is one of the my recommendations for PPC advertising. Essentially it is a questions and answers forum.
However, Quora has grown to become an authority forum online and its pages dominate search results for several keywords.
We had covered advertising on Quora in a previous article. You may want to read that to learn exactly how to advertise on Quora and the options available to you.
In a nutshell, you can advertise your products and services based on a topic such as web hosting or digital marketing. That way your ad gets displayed on all question pages related to those topics. You can of course choose your target location and other specific demographics of users.
Quora also offers a promoted answers option where you can answer someone’s question related to your industry and then promote that answer through pay per click ads.
6) Reddit
Reddit can be really fruitful to PPC advertisers if you can find a sub-reddit that deals with the exact product or service you are trying to promote.
Sub-reddits are what makes advertising on Reddit unique. They are basically threads or forums to talk about a specific topic.
So there can be a sub-reddit on women’s shoes. There can be a sub-reddit on yoga or digital marketing or any possible topic you can think of. There are sub-reddits that go really specific within a topic.
Reddit allows you to target these sub-reddits with your PPC ads. Advertisers usually make a list of all sub-reddits which deal with their industry and display ads in them.
You can target any product or service, whether it is B2B or B2C as long as you find an ideal sub-reddit for yourself.
7) LinkedIn
For Business-to-Business products and services, there is nothing better than LinkedIn at the moment. You can check basics of advertising on LinkedIn in our article posted some time back.
LinkedIn has incredible global reach and it is being used by advertisers from various countries in every continent.
LinkedIn also offers various unique advertising options such as InMail, Sponsored Feeds etc. This is apart from the standard PPC Ads based on keywords and demographics provided by you.
The only thing to keep in mind is that LinkedIn can get quite expensive. The per click rates are one of the highest in the industry. However, it is still worth trying out as the results can be outstanding.
8) Facebook
Facebook is the go-to place for PPC Ads for consumer products.
They are the global leaders in social media usage and engagement. Facebook has the most number of advertisers for any social media company.
The targeting options available in Facebook to reach your exact audience is simply unbeatable. Facebook knows everything about their users and their intuitive advertising platform has helped many start-ups reduce their cost per acquisition considerably over time.
What Google Ads is to search marketing, Facebook Ads is to social media marketing.
You can advertise on Facebook regardless of where you are based and who are your target audience.
The only thing to note here is that Facebook works better for B2C advertisers and B2B companies may have mixed results.
9) Pinterest
When it comes to organic digital marketing, I feel Pinterest is better than other networks for companies, blog owners, ecommerce sites etc.
However, even for PPC advertisers, Pinterest can provide better than expected results.
Pinterest does have a reputation for being more women-centric and mainly for promoting consumer products.
However, it is a much more wholesome social media platform than people realize. Pinterest has the best user engagement of any social media company.
The only thing here is that Pinterest is still mainly used by North American and European advertisers. They do not have a global reach like Facebook or LinkedIn.
10) Outbrain
Outbrain is one of the leaders in digital content marketing.
Outbrain is the place to advertise if you want to promote any content on your website or blog.
Their widgets with customer articles appear on some of the biggest websites globally. All you need is a proper article and an image.
If your goal is to increase traffic and engagement on your website, then Outbrain is recommended.
It does not matter if your article is related to consumer products, business services or anything else. Outbrain has an excellent reach and cover all verticals.
Bonus – Amazon
Although I have provided my top ten PPC advertising platforms above, I just wanted to provide one more as a bonus.
For those vendors who sell their products on Amazon, please note that Amazon itself is the best place to advertise for you.
I have given my reasons for why Amazon is where you should advertise in a previous article. Please do go through that and PPC advertising on Amazon should give you better results than other platforms if you are already a seller on their ecommerce network.
Final thoughts
Think about trying multiple PPC networks as split testing your ads.
In any advertising campaign, you would create at least three ad variations and test which one connected with your audience the best.
Similarly, try out a few PPC platforms to check which one suits your business and provides a higher ROI.
