How The Two Platforms Measure Up

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Reach -- Major Advantage: Yahoo

As shown in the chart on Page 1, Yahoo outscores Microsoft in search market share by more than 50 percent, so advertisers are going to spend more on Yahoo Search Marketing. Additionally, adCenter has not been running as long, so there is not much history for advertisers to rely on.

Top-Level Campaign Settings -- Advantage: Yahoo

Although Yahoo's campaign management platform is less than six months old, its years of paid search advertising experience have given it a true advantage in designing the new Panama platform.     

Panama features an interactive dashboard that lets you quickly take the pulse of your PPC campaigns. Without having to run a single report, you can see what's happening at the campaign, ad group and keyword level. You can also view trend line charts for indicators like ad impressions, costs and conversion rates across different time periods.   

Yahoo has essentially "flattened" hierarchical campaign data so you can quickly get to the data from any level. Once you decide what issues need your attention, you can quickly drill down within a click or two and take action. This is a very clever user interface.

Microsoft's adCenter has a good, clean and logically organized campaign interface, which most companies managing their own ad campaigns will find easy to navigate. For anyone managing larger, more active campaigns, however, adCenter's performance can be a source of frustration. Common repetitive tasks like updating keyword bids still take too many keystrokes and sluggish screen loads to accomplish. 

Account Structure -- Even Score

Both Microsoft and Yahoo are using essentially the same campaign/ad group hierarchy that Google has made into a standard. This is good news for advertisers because it makes porting Google campaigns onto Yahoo and Microsoft adCenter easier, and it simplifies reporting across networks. 

Next: Ad Copy and Rotation