While it is still profitable to use Google Adwords for traffic generation, it can be very costly for many new marketers. Cost per clicks for many popular keywords are on the rise and some long tail keywords are also becoming more difficult to get a decent return on investment.

Two other alternatives naturally comes to mind: Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. Both paid search engines offer a lower cost per click relative to Google Adwords but still provide pretty high quality web traffic.

However, there are many other alternatives out there besides these three big players. A few examples include MIVA, Enhance Interactive, ABCSearch, 7Search and Findology. They are commonly known as second-tier PPC search engines.

Here are some benefits of using these smaller PPCSE:

Lower cost per click

These smaller PPCSE generally offer a much lower cost per click than the three big players. In some cases, the cost can be as low as one cent. This means you can get targeted web visitors at rock bottom prices.

Better Return on Investment (ROI)

Generally, a lower cost per click means you can get a better return on investment (ROI) and lower cost per sale. However, proper testing and tracking is still required to ensure that the ROI is favorable.

Less competiton

Most of the top marketers will not use these smaller PPC search engines for traffic generation. These means you will have less competition and it is probably easier to gain the top positions at a much lower cost.

Less Stringent Landing Page Requirement

The top three paid search providers have some strict guidelines with regard to landing page, which you must adhere to. With the second-tier PPC search engines, the requirements are much lower or non-existent. This can make your life much easier.

Today, there are perhaps a few hundreds other pay per click search engines that you can buy traffic from. Some of them are very good alternatives to Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. Regardless of which one you use, make sure you are properly testing and tracking your advertising campaigns. This is the only way to ensure that you can maximize your ROI from paid search engine traffic.