Let us give you a quick introduction to the Push Ad format and Google Search ads. 

‍

Push Ads are an ad format that appears on a user’s device similar to an alert or device notification. Push Ads or Web Push notifications ads allow advertisers to send, or push, their promotions directly to the user’s device in a non-intrusive way. Push ads are unique because users must opt-in to receive them, resulting in a much more engaged audience.

Google Search ads allow advertisers to display their website or landing page listing at the top of the search results, and drive more traffic to them.

Simply put - both ad formats will increase the volume of traffic, which means more money for the advertiser, in theory at least. Let’s compare them. 

How Easy is it to Start with Paid Ads on Pushground and Google?

On our platform, all you need to do is create an account (which is totally free, btw!) and add funds - our minimum is $100. 

Creating an account on Google Ads is easy too! You just need to go to ads.google.com and sign in with your Gmail username and password.

🥇 One point for each! Pushground 1 - 1 Google Ads 🥇

Available Payment Methods

Pushground offers multiple payment methods. From the most traditional ones (wire transfer, credit card payment), to some that are less common but are increasingly used, such as Capitalist and USDT (Tether). 

Google works differently - they’ll charge you in your credit/debit card or bank account. 

They have something called automatic payments or “direct debit” (similar as a credit line) and it works like this: 

They will process your payment after you've accrued advertising costs. You'll be billed 30 days after your last automatic charge, or when your costs reach a certain amount (known as your billing threshold), whichever comes first.

It is a comfortable way to pay for your advertising, but keep in mind automatic payments through a bank account (direct deposit) are supported in certain countries in Europe and the United States only.

And for that reason: 

One point for Pushground, half point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 2 - 1.5 Google Ads 🥈 

How easy is it to create a campaign?

Creating a campaign in Pushground is definitely easier than in Google ads - even if you’re new to the industry you can create your first campaign in less than 10 minutes. 

First think you’ll need to do is choose an ad format - classic or in-page push ads:

Then target the country, device, and operating system:

Pro-tip: always create 1 campaign for 1 device and 1 OS - it will be easy for you to optimise it. 

Set up the bid and the daily budget:

Pro-tip: start with a bid slightly higher than the recommended one, and see how it performs for you - if there are conversions​​, leave it like that, otherwise start increasing it, slowly.

The final step is to upload the creatives, and you are ready to publish your campaign - before it goes live our moderators will review it, but the usually it’s a lightning-fast process:

On the other hand, creating a Google Search Ad Campaign can be confusing for a beginner. First, you have to choose your objective - sales, leads, drive traffic to your website, brand awareness, or something else:

After that, you will choose the traffic format - search, display, video, etc.

You’ll have to place the link to where you want to send traffic to, plus the keywords that you are going to target. 

Google Ads is amazing for some businesses, but it is really not the best and easiest experience for a newbie in PPC traffic. Because of that: 

One point for Pushground, half point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 3 - 2 Google Ads 🥈 

Targeting Options

In Pushground we have multiple interesting features that help advertisers target the audience better. 

One of them is the user freshness option - it indicates the time passed since the user's allowed to receive push notifications on their device:

Another unique and one of the best features -  white and black lists:

Pro-tip: ask your personal manager for supply_id and site_id white lists and start your campaign only with them - this will give you an advantage over your competitors. 

To discover all targeting options in Pushground, check this documentation. 

On Google Ads, you can choose from a good range of targeting options too:

You can target countries, states, cities, and areas. 

You also have the option of including Google search partners’ traffic in your campaigns - it is advisable to try this traffic too. Sometimes, the price for a lead can be cheaper than in Google.

Audience segmentation is also an important part of your campaign’s settings - choose all the audience segments and add them to your campaign. Start with the “Observation” option just like Google recommends it and, once you have enough data, pause the segments that are not profitable for you. 

And of course, you can target your audience by gender, by device, etc.

In terms of targeting, Google has more options than push ad traffic networks, because it also has more information about users as well as their behaviour. 

That’s why: 

Half point for Pushground, one point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 3.5 - 3 Google Ads 🥈 

Great Tools You Must Know about

In Pushground we have a wide range of tools that will make your life much easier, but if we have to choose 3 in particular, they are the following: 

1. Auto-optimization by creativity - if this option is checked, after the learning period our algorithm sends traffic only to the creatives that are profitable.

2. Automatic Rules - make custom rules that will automatically optimise your campaigns. We strongly recommend using them every time when you are launching a campaign. If you have trouble with creating the custom rules, please talk with your manager. In this article  you can find some useful rule examples. 

3. Our API - those of you who have coding skills can use it for automatic optimisation of the campaigns. If you are not a coder, do not punish yourself, just hire a developer and explain what you need to automate with the API.

Truth to be told, Google Ads also has cool tools that will help you improve your performance and profit:

1. The Keyword Planner - use it to discover new keywords that will help your campaigns reach people who are interested in the products or services that you are promoting.  Also, it will give a prediction about the search volume and other historical metrics, plus forecasts for how they could perform:

2. Google Ads Editor - it is a very convenient tool that will help you to create campaigns faster and easier. It is totally free and can work offline and with multiple accounts. You can also track important metrics for campaigns, such as click-through rate (CTR), cost, position, and conversion information. It is a highly recommended tool that will improve your Google Ads experience. Download it from here.

3. Google Ads mobile app - it is available for both operating systems - Android and iOS, and again it is free to download and use it. 

By using it, you can receive real-time notifications, such as weekly performance summaries or ad approval declines. If you need support, you can also contact an expert directly from the app, or you can use an optimization rating to review high-impact recommendations to improve performance and apply them quickly and easily. A must-have tool from Google if you are running campaigns in this platform. 

4. Google Ads API - According to Google, The Google Ads API is the modern programmatic interface to Google Ads and the next generation of the AdWords API. It enables developers to interact directly with the Google Ads platform, vastly increasing the efficiency of managing large or complex Google Ads accounts and campaigns. Some typical use cases include:

• Automated account management
• Custom reporting
• Ad management based on inventory
• Manage Smart Bidding strategies

Media buyers use it for faster optimizations, auto-rules set-up, sending conversions to Google, etc. Again, if you are not a developer and do not know what you are doing, hire a developer who will help you with the API. 

Pro-tip: Even if you are not running campaigns on Google Ads, use their Keyword Planner for different angle inspiration and creation. Combine it with Google Trends for a better performance. 

Pro-tip 2: Use your tracker’s API and connect it to Pushground’s API or Google API, or both. 

‍

Again…half point for Pushground, one point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 4 - 4 Google Ads 🥈 

What kind of offers can you run on each platform?

On Pushground, almost every offer is welcomed - you can promote casino, gambling, nutra, ED, mainstream and adult dating, VPNs, sex cams, software downloads, pin submit offers - all these verticals can be promoted successfully with paid push ads. 

Of course, there are some minor limitations - you can't run adult dating or sex cam offers  on mainstream traffic, but with adult traffic type, it is ok to use even explicit images for your push ads. 

‍

On our platform you can also use redirects - meaning the clicks will be redirected to a 3rd party domain (offer’s domain) different from your tracker or pre-landing page domain. 

On Google Ads, you can promote a lot of things, but their policies are indeed more strict. Let’s take forex and crypto offers for example - according to Google rules, in order to promote these verticals you must be certified by Google, and their products, landing pages, and ads must meet all local legal requirements of the country they want to get certified for. This certification is required for all ad formats and extensions. 

Redirection is against Google policies and that is the reason some people say Google isn't affiliate friendly.

This is why: 

‍

One point for Pushground, half point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 4.5 - 3.5 Google Ads 🥈 

What about the traffic quality?

Our case studies prove the quality of our traffic - it converts easily and even new affiliates can achieve a good ROI fast - you only need to test, use good creatives and learn how to optimise your campaign. 

For best results our team recommends to use push ads with lead generation offers - sweepstakes, dating, etc. or with install offers - games, VPNs, casino and gambling apps.

Another advice to our readers is to try our Premium Push traffic (Pushground+), but take into account that it can only be used for mainstream offers. 

When it comes to Google’s traffic quality - it is clear their quality is premium - it converts and if the funnel is good, ROI will be high.

‍

One point for Pushground, one point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 5.5 - 4.5 Google Ads 🥈 

Traffic Volumes

In this page you can find Pushground’s daily impressions and CPC rates - we have massive volumes in the United States, India, Brazil, Germany, Poland, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines - for the full picture check the link above. 

Google is a traffic beast, and they dominate the search engine ads (SEA) in almost every GEO except China and Russia. In terms of volumes, it’s kind of impossible to beat Google! 

‍

Half point for Pushground, one point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 6 - 6 Google Ads 🥈 

Traffic Price

One of ours most expensive GEO is the US - the CPC price there is around $0.23 when using Pushground+ traffic type:

With that price and daily budget of $20 you will be able to receive somewhere between 80 and 90 clicks.

According to Videnglobe the average CPC price on Google Search Ads for E-commerce is worth $1.16 and this industry has one of lowest CPC prices. So with a budget from $20 you will be able to buy a maximum of 20 clicks, but most probably even less. 

‍

One point for Pushground, half point for Google Ads! 

🥇 Pushground 7 - 6.5 Google Ads 🥈 

Help and Support

This one is important too. 

Our platform is rich on information:

1. We have the Ultimate Guide to push section - here you will find articles on how to create and run your profitable Push Ads campaigns. 
2. FAQ - we're answering the most frequently asked questions. Check it before,  or ask your personal account manager.
3. Blog - another excellent source of articles dedicated to affiliate marketing - you will find a lot of materials on our Blog, and we are sure you will receive useful information from them.
4. Live Support and Personal Account Managers - they will help you solve any questions, as well as setting up your campaigns and optimising the traffic. Make sure to text your AM and ask for the best insights and trends! 

Google Ads help and support is also top-notch - they have live support, a help Community and a very detailed help section:

‍

One point for Pushground, one point for Google Ads! 

Final Score:🥇 Pushground 8 - 7.5 Google Ads 🥈 

Summary 

As you can see, both platforms are great. Depending on your experience, needs and budget, one or the other will be a better fit. 

We recommend starting your PPC journey running Push Ads campaigns, as they’re easier, faster and cheaper to run. From there, everything is possible! 

‍

See you next time! 

‍