As far as running a PPC campaign is concerned, the first name that pops up in the mind of most people, is AdWords from Google. While this is often a very good ad network, it’s also a really expensive one. Even if you are meticulous with your keywords selection and targeting, it’s not unusual to end up paying more for the AdWords ads than the revenue you generate from the ads themselves. As a result, it is the high cost that drives people towards seeking alternatives to Google AdWords. Fortunately enough, a lot of viable alternatives to Google AdWords do exist  and if used correctly, a lot of them can easily outperform Google AdWords (especially when it comes to returns on investment). 

Here are some great Google AdWords alternatives for you to consider:

Facebook Paid Ads

Facebook paid ads are an excellent alternative to Google AdWords, especially if you’re targeting a younger audience. Facebook is still the world’s favourite social network and billions of people have an account with it. Facebook ads offer many targeting options ‐ you’ll choose age, location, gender, hobbies of the audience to observe your ads. However, do have in mind that with Facebook generally the press through is lower, so ensure that you don’t get discouraged if you get fewer clicks on your Facebook ads than on other networks ‐ this is a pretty common scenario.

Yahoo!/Bing Ads from Microsoft

Bing and Yahoo are Google’s competitors not only within the area of search engines but also in online ads. Yahoo!/Bing Ads, formerly referred to as Microsoft AdCenter appeared after the ad networks of Microsoft and Yahoo! came together to compete against Google AdWords. Yahoo!/Bing ads isn’t an inexpensive alternative to AdWords but you ought to also consider it because it’s specialized. Basically they offer search advertising (i.e. ads are placed within the search results of Bing search engine) and if you manage to properly identify your keywords, you’ll see great results.

Amazon Product Ads

The biggest online marketplace is additionally an enormous ad board. With Amazon Product Ads, your ads are positioned on product pages. This makes the positioning very targeted because if a user is going through a few product ads almost like yours, your ads are likely to catch his or her attention. Since Amazon sells everything but space ships, it’s an honest alternative for nearly any niche because in all likelihood there’ll be numerous products in your niche to publish your ads alongside.

Clicksor

In addition to the large three AdWords alternatives (i.e. Facebook, Yahoo!/Bing ads, and Amazon), there are many smaller ones that also serve many impressions a month. One of them is Clicksor. It isn’t the most cost effective alternative because it’s $0.05 cents a click minimum but it’s an honest one because its conversions are known to be excellent. If clicks are expensive for you, check the other sorts of ads offered by Clicksor, like pop unders and interstitials that are CPM or mixed CPM + clicks.

7Search

In terms of cost, 7Search is one of the most cost-effective ad networks. It has low per click minimums, high conversions (though this relies on the niche) but also high numbers of fraudulent clicks, as some marketers complain. Nevertheless, even with these allegedly high numbers of fraudulent clicks, it’s still a really good alternative to Google AdWords.

AdBrite

AdBrite is another big ad network and a few marketers claim that it works rather well for them. Costs vary depending on your keywords, so as an alternative to Google AdWords, it is quite decent. AdBrite offers a great amount of flexibility in targeting, numerous ad sizes and kinds (text ads, banners, BritePic, which are cute photo ads), and decent conversions, giving you almost everything you need from a Google AdWords alternative.

Dynamic Oxygen

Compared to the other Google AdWords alternatives mentioned here, Dynamic Oxygen may be a relatively unknown ad network but it does come with some excellent offers. Similarly to Clicksor and AdBrite, Dynamic Oxygen provides more types than just PPC. Its PPC division isn’t very expensive ($0.03 minimum bid per click) but conversions might be a drag because Dynamic Oxygen doesn’t have a lot of sites to match your ad with, so your ad might end up in sites that aren’t completely relevant to your niche.

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser is very similar to Adsense and AdWords. It is another big network of publishers’ sites. Bidvertiser’s relatively low CPC coupled with moderate to good conversions makes it stand out among other Google AdWords alternatives. It isn’t an alternative for every niche but overall may be a good selection.

Infolinks

Infolinks is great for intext ads. Its clicks are cheap, but targeting may be a little bit of a drag. It has a requirement that you simply spend a minimum of $15 a month, which isn’t much (many marketers spend ten times more each day on ads), especially compared to the $50,000 a month minimum at Chitika, for example.

BlogAds

If you’re focusing on featuring your ads on popular blogs instead of ads on search engines or other sorts of sites, BlogAds is the perfect place for you. They concentrate on ads on popular blogs, so you would possibly want to see if the blogs you’re trying to find are listed there. They also do social media advertising, so if the vast majority of your audience is to be found on social media, you’ll consider this as an alternative to succeed in it.

BuySellAds

BuySellAds is an ad marketplace. It’s not a PPC network but you’ll buy ad space on sites of your choice. Prices can vary depending on the traffic of the location but it’s possible to shop for an above the fold spot on a comparatively high-traffic site for $15 a month or less. This renders BuySellAds more profitable than PPC. If you select the sites well, you’ll do great because for a flat fee per month, you stand a chance to get targeted clicks at less than one cent per click.

Adknowledge Miva

Adknowledge Miva is another wonderful ad network to think about. It offers cheap PPC with decent conversions. They have an enormous base of publishers, which suggests that you stand a far better chance for your ads to be run on relevant sites. A lot of webmasters have raised concerns about fraudulent clicks but that’s an inevitable aspect that comes with every ad network.

It is impossible to mention which of the Google AdWords alternatives is best. In some cases one might do brilliantly, in others it might be a complete failure. This is why you are better off testing with a small budget and finding out if a network works well for you. You can try out multiple ad networks on the same landing page and find out which one has the best conversion rates. And don’t forget ‐ you must keep measuring performance on a consistent basis. Even if an ad network has performed well in the past, things can change and you would not want to needlessly spend money on highly priced clicks that don’t even convert at a decent rate.