DON'T DISCOUNT AOL & MSN FOR AD BUYS

Would it surprise you to know that AOL and MSN have higher conversion rates than Yahoo and Google? A recent study by WebSideStory shows that ads on AOL and MSN may be more effective at driving sales than ads on Google and Yahoo. This study included traffic from both organic and paid keyword search for Business to Consumer E-Commerce sites (all Categories).

MEDIAN ORDER CONVERSION RATE February 2006

AOL	6.17%
MSN	6.03%
Yahoo	4.07%
Google	3.83%

Each of the major search engines posted conversion rates well above the median average for all search engines of 1.97%. Analysts believe demographics may account for the difference in conversion rates. Fuller portals like AOL, MSN and Yahoo with rich content and broad services may appeal to a demographic more likely to be in shopping mode, while Google has a much higher share of pure browsers.

It's crucial for search engine marketers to know a search engine's demographic when allocating ad budgets.