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PayPal Express Checkout Testing New Icons? September 28, 2007

While doing some keyword research this morning I finally found a different PayPal Express Checkout icon. This icon’s purpose is the same as the Google Checkout logo in Google sponsored results. Any Yahoo search advertiser who is offering PayPal Express Checkout will have this icon feature enabled on ads within their account.

I spotted the difference not in successive searches, but in cross browser searches. I run IE 7.0 for a majority of my daily work routines, but I rely on FireFox 2.0 for testing. For AdWords advertisers who implemented Google Checkout early on, I have watched “Google Checkout” accepted logos evolve from continuous testing by Google. Since the marriage of PayPal and Yahoo (which I coined the term “Payhoo“) Yahoo ads began showing a blue cart icon, bearing significant resemblance to Google Checkout’s blue cart logo which was being used. Last week I was in Carlsbad at a Yahoo Search Marketing workshop and had a conversation during lunch with Rich Riley, Senior VP Online Division of Yahoo! about my thoughts for coming up with a better PayPal Express icon for sponsored ads. I mentioned that I had not run across other versions, nor had anyone else in the blogosphere. I’m glad to see that there is at least one variation of the logo at this time, hopefully we’ll see more improvements down the road.

Internet Explorer Sponsored Search Results for “Milwaukee Power Tools”

FireFox Sponsored Search Results for “Milwaukee Power Tools”

If you are unfamiliar with PayPal Express Checkout checkout the flow chart below. What makes this speedy checkout solution from PayPal more appealing over Google Checkout is the fact that the visitor is returned to the merchant’s website to complete the order. With Google Checkout, once the visitor leaves the merchant’s site to complete the checkout, the checkout flow does not send visitors back to the merchant’s site.