Overall, with our clients we see that the Pay Per Click ads on Google Search convert better (with a better ROI) than ads on the Google Content network. Ads on Google Search show up on the top and right hand side of the page when you do a search in Google, content network ads show on websites running Ad Sense (such as news and blog sites) that have content relevant to your keywords.

One of the biggest challenges I have had with running ads on the content network is that a major news story or popular event can trigger ads to receive a huge spike in impressions and clicks but not necessarily an increase in conversions. Without the ability to see which sites were driving all of the clicks, the only option was to scale back your bids on the content network or turn off the content network altogether.

Now with the Placement Performance report, you can see which content network sites are converting well and those that are not. You can use the site exclusion tool to eliminate sites that drive a lot of clicks but little conversions. And increase ad spend on the sites that drive the quality traffic that results in conversions and high ROI. This is accomplished with the site targeting feature.

I have also seen similar trends with ads on the Yahoo Search Marketing content network, where a news event triggers ads to receive a large increase in impressions, resulting in a large number of clicks with very few conversions. Hopefully Yahoo will continue to their strategy of copying the Google PPC platform and add this feature!

Actually, Yahoo recently did take one step to improving their content network by introducing Quality Based Pricing, realizing that all clicks from the content network are not created equal, something Google has been doing for a long time with their Smart Pricing.

So rather than shutting off your ads from showing on the Google content network when your cost per acquisition is high and ROI low, use this new transparency to improve your content network strategy by optimizing your ad for specific sites or weeding out sites that drive a lot of clicks but do not convert.

Have you ever heard the quote "If we don't take care of our customers, someone else will." Well, unfortunately there are not that many players in the web search game and you cannot afford to ignore Yahoo's 28.5 percent share of the market. Maybe Yahoo has just become complacent with no threat from #3 Microsoft and the realization that they will never catch Google.

"Oh, we only check that email once a week" - Around here we call that a crap sandwich, C'mon Yahoo.

If the idea of a quality score sounds familiar, it is because Google has been using a similar method for quite a while to determine ad rank and minimum bid prices. In fact Yahoo recently updated its entire sponsored search system to be more like Google, so it is not surprising that they are following Google's suit and incorporating a quality score.

I was curious if Yahoo, like Google would periodically visit landing pages, look for relevant content to you keywords and factor that into the quality score? The answer for now is no. I spoke with a Yahoo rep and they stated that the landing page will only be viewed once during the approval process, and the quality score would be determined by the relevancy of ad text to keywords and click through rates compared to your competition. This means it will be important to have all of your keywords broken out into very specific ad groups.

I expect (and hope) Yahoo will eventually change their methodology to periodically visit the landing pages of ads. This is a great way to ensure relevancy for its users and overall keep pace with Google.