Quality Differences Between the Search vs. Display Network

Making sure your account is setup on the proper network can make a huge difference in determining the success of your Google Adwords or Bing AdCenter account. There are a couple different network options to choose from  when creating campaigns which mostly revolve around the 3 listed below:

1. Search with Display Select – Combines both the Search & Display networks and is usually auto selected when creating new campaigns.
2. Search Network Only – We tend to start clients off with the Search network only to provide the highest quality traffic in the beginning.
3. Display Network Only – When wanting to focus more on banner ads, the Display network should be used with options such as Remarketing.

If you really want to see the differences in on-page data, take a look at your Google Analytics account and you will notice the major difference with the network types. When looking at the pages / session, avg. session duration, and bounce rate, you will notice that the Search traffic from the PPC accounts have the best numbers.

Almost every time you will here notice how much the Display network has much higher bounce rates and lower quality of traffic. Even the best Display campaigns with the most bells and whistles setup for optimization tend to have higher bounce rates when compared to the Search network.

However, the Display network can generate conversions knowing that the conversion rates will be much lower than the Search network.

When it comes to the traffic generated from the Display network, the cost per click is usually much cheaper than the Search network. Therefore, when comparing the real quality of the traffic from each of these networks it is best to look at the cost per conversion.

Usually, the Search traffic will cost more and have a higher conversion rate, while the Display traffic will be cheaper and have a lower conversion rate. It is very possible to have the same cost per conversion from both networks, to which we have even seen some scenarios where the Display traffic generated a better cost per conversion than the Search based on how much cheaper the traffic was.

So in the end don’t ditch the Display network because of how poor the traffic can be, but try to harness its lower cost per click amounts so that you can still generate conversions for your targeted cost per acquisition.

We at TheSEMarket can help you figure out which campaign network types will be suite your needs for your Google Adwords or Bing AdCenter account. Don’t hesitate to contact us today to speak with a PPC management specialist.