Google Content Network Best Practices
November 3rd, 2008
From time to time, clients ask me if I think they should try advertising on the Google Content Network (GCN) as part of their search marketing program, saying they’re unsure if it’s worth spending money on low quality traffic. It’s true that people who see these ads are not actively searching for the product. On the other hand, how is this much different than reading an ad on a billboard?
Relevancy in advertising may have spoiled us a little but not enough to do away with the power of persuasion. So what I usually tell clients is, yes, it’s absolutely worth trying. Not only is it worth trying, but if one tries hard enough, there is a great deal of high quality traffic to be attained.
Main Reasons Advertisers Lose Money on the Google Content Network:
- Ads appear on irrelevant pages, which lead to bad clicks, which lead to low conversion rates.
- The language in the ad does not divert the user’s attention from site content.
- Initial setup is wrong. A content campaign should be its own campaign (or account), separate from search campaigns.
To expound on this last point, you want it to be separate for bidding and budget efficiency and so you get a more accurate click-through rate (CTR) for your campaigns. Because the overall reach of the Google Content Network is so large, you’ll usually have a low CTR, and you don’t want this number skewing the direction of your regular search campaigns. Some say there’s an additional advantage to having Google Content Network as a separate account, because one important factor for quality score is the overall click-through rate (CTR) of the entire account, and CTR from the content network will obviously bring that down. On their help page with content network optimization tips, Google claims this isn’t true and says: “The performance of your ads on content pages does not affect their performance on Google or on the search network.”
Things You Should Know About Keywords:
- Keywords in content ad groups need to describe the kinds of landing pages you want your ads to appear on.
- The keyword list should be words that appear most frequently on the kinds of pages you want to target.
- Use small tightly-themed ad groups with no more than 30-50 keywords. Even 10 keywords is fine.
- Only broad match is taken into account; there’s no need for exact and phrase matches.
- Keyword bids are irrelevant; bids go according to the ad group’s default (content) bid.
- Negative keywords are important and can be used to block unwanted traffic.
Things You Should Know About Ads:
- Ads need to distract users away from site content.
- Try using more competitive language and use words like “Free” in your ads whenever you can.
- Quality score for the Google Content Network is not as strict as regular search campaigns, so you can be more creative. Ads do not have to match keywords, though landing pages should still be relevant.
- Magic ad positions in Google Content Network are 1-4 while in search, it’s more like 1-2 and sometimes 1-3.
- Create separate ad groups for each media type in Google Content Network campaigns i.e. separate group for image ads.
Things You Should Know About Reporting:
- Run Placement Performance reports - these give stats on what specific sites perform well or under-perform in your content campaign.
- Use site exclusion to block sites on the Google Content Network that are costly and not performing well toward your goals.
- Try using Site Exclusion Tool to block categories of sites i.e. parked domains - although it’s still possible to convert on these types of sites.
- Run these reports every so often and try taking out the best sites and testing a site/placement targeting campaign.
A Great Tip When Running Site/Placement Targeting Campaigns:
- The Google site-finder is a flawed tool that does not give you all the sites you could be using.
- Right next to the link “Add Placements,” you’ll see another link, “Edit Placements and Bids.”
- Click this link, and paste domains (you find on your own) into the box that didn’t appear when using the site-finding tool.
Try Using Demographic Targeting:
- Most useful for sites that report demographic data, such as Youtube and Myspace.
- Example of usage: You can set it so your bids will be 120% for ages 18-25 who are of the male gender.
- Important: Using demographic targeting will not exclude other sites from displaying your ads; it just allows you to bid more/less for sites that have demographic features.
New Enhanced Site/Placement & Keyword Targeting Features:
- Google now allows you to couple groups of keywords with site-targets.
- In other words, you can choose sites you think will work well with your product, but can set it so ads will only show up if the keywords (or keyword mix) you chose are present on the page. This allows for additional targeting.
Whoever is reading this, I hope you find these tips helpful. Your comments, criticisms, along with any additional “tricks of the trade,” are all welcome.
Posted in Search Marketing, Testing/Optimization by Guest | |
on November 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Wow. Thanks for the very practical advice. This will certainly help improve my quality score.
on November 5th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Wow Dani!! Great information. I am sure many people will benefit from it!
on November 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Great tips! I am going to create some content campaign and will use your tips. Now going to subscribe to your RSS.
Good luck and waiting for more content on Paid search.
on December 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for the advice. I have been searching for some good pointers on using the content network for awhile. It seems everyone is focused on search, which is fine, but i figured there has got to be some real money to be made from the content network and either no has cracked the code yet, or they are just holding on to their secrets. Nevertheless, I’m off to test. Thanks again.