Secrets for Success in Google’s AdWords Site Placement Campaigns
As a manger of PPC campaigns, it is my responsibility to find the best ROI for our clients paid advertising dollar. For a while now I have been experimenting with the content network and how to best manage and optimize a campaign there. If you have created a content network campaign, you will most likely know that it can either be a great source of cheap traffic, or a huge money pit! Here is my approach for creating a successful content network campaign.
1. Separate your Search and Content Campaigns.
A rule I stick to and discovered long ago was to separate my search and content campaign. It can be quite tempting to simply “flick the switch” and turn on the content network. Resist the temptation. Even though Google doesn’t include content numbers in your quality score calculation, separating the two will allow you to see your data more clearly.
2. Bid Less
A good rule of thumb is to bid between 50% - 75% of your search bit for the content network. Try this to start and increase if necessary. Monitor your placement position and try to aim to have your ad placed anywhere between 1st and 4th positions.
3. Monitor the Reports
Set up a “Site Placement” report in your AdWords account to run once a week and monitor the results. Take some time to go to these sites yourself and see what kind of content they offer. Does your ad have any business being there? If not, add the site to your blocked sites list. Compile a list of sites that DO talk about your products or services and set aside. Make sure you include any site that has also driven you conversions and low bounce rates (in Google Analytics).
4. Create a Site Targeted Campaign
Take your list of positively performing sites and create a site targeted campaign with them. System won’t allow you to add a site? Proceed to Step 5.
5. Contact Your Google Rep
If your one of the few who have an agency rep, call them and ask your representative to develop a “site pack” for your client. A site pack is a list of sites that Google has in their inventory and can add to a site targeted campaign for you. Make sure to send your Google rep the list of sites you have created yourself. Once you receive the site pack from Google, go through it with a fine tooth comb and evaluate each site they have suggested. Check for relevancy to the content your website, product and service represent.
5. Repeat step 3 and optimize your bids and sites for conversions and quality traffic (low bounce rate etc).
February 5th, 2008 at 2:29 am
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Send me an email, and some rates if this appeals to you.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Thanks a lot, this will help me for my adwords. Really great article Thanks again!
February 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Good tips, especially the 2nd one, that is very important.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Thanks for the tips.
I started working with a company around 6 months ago and turned off the content network within Adwords, simply because no one was evaluating what was happening and the cost/conv. wasn’t good enough at the time.
Now that I have improved the search network ads, we are ready to approach the content network again. I do have a few questions for you below:
1. Separate your Search and Content Campaigns: Do you do this by simply creating a seperate campaign, so that you can track them seperately?
4. Contact Your Google Rep: What does it take to get a Google Rep these days? We are spending over $7,500/month and I have requested a Rep with no luck. I’ve known people in the past who simply work out of their homes with a smaller budget that have reps?
Thanks for the Adwords Tips!
BJ
February 6th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Nice tips, i definitely use your tips in my adwords campaign as am also new on this field as it compared for my resent work as search engine optimization specialist which i become successful. That’s why your posted topic was very helpful on my studying as an adwords specialist. keep is up and thanks…
February 6th, 2008 at 8:45 am
[...] wrote up a nice post explaining the “Secrets to Success” for creating site placement campaigns and content network campaigns over at Spark Internet [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 8:55 am
@ Warhammer
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it
@ BJ Wright
Sounds like you were in my shoes with the content network. It isn’t the easiest system to optimize and there are a lot of good blog posts out there discussing the merits of the content network. A dedicated Google rep comes when you are a Google Qualified Company (2 members with certification and over $100,000 in spend over a 3 month span). Even then… it isn’t guarnteed you will have a rep assigned. Try calling a regular AdWords expert and work with them to get a site pack developed for you. Explain what you are trying to do and why you need their assistance. For the most part, they are a friendly bunch!
As for seperating the campaigns - yes, I create my search campaign first with long and short tail terms. Then create a content based campaign with more of the general terms. make sure you carefully examine and test your ad copy on the content network also - ads for search and content are viewed different by the end user.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:12 am
$100,000 in a three month span! That’s a lot of clams. No wonder I never heard of a site pack before. What do you mean by “two members with certification”?
February 6th, 2008 at 11:17 am
@ property sale
“two members with certification” means that you need to have two members of your staff/team who have taken the certification exam to be a Google AdWords Certification
https://adwords.google.com/support/select/professionals/bin/answer.py?answer=12241&hl=en_US
https://adwords.google.com/support/select/professionals/bin/answer.py?answer=18572&hl=en_US
February 7th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
awesome tips… i really appreciate the advice.
February 7th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
2nd tips is great … thanks for all the tips.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I am just starting out with Google AdWords but will bookmark this information for future reference. Thank you.
February 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Thanks for tips! This are very useful. I’ll try to follow what you have shared.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
These tips are really cool. I will surely follow all the 5 tips, lets hope for the best. I will waiting for your next post where you will unleash more secretes.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Your tips sound great. Maybe if you give some case studies, it would be helpful in implementation.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:37 am
the greatest campaign is number 2, even your product is good but the price is very expensive its useless.
February 10th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hey
From what I’ve experienced with Adwords I believe the quality of clicks received from the content network is much lower than the clicks received from the search pages.
Maybe I was wrong but I always preferred to pay more for a better click. Now, after reading this I will consider testing more the content networks.
And I think you made a small error here: u said jump to point 6 but there is no point 6 :)
February 10th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Analyzing your reports and improving conversion is very important. Also, another tip, is to separate landing pages, from other pages.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
@ Seventies Hairstyle
Unfortunatly, case studies are property of our clients… but the methods used do work, trust me :)
@ Articles Garage
As long as you are getting a positive ROI, then any click is a good click. The content network does take experimentation and doesn’t work for all clients/accounts but can produce some excellent traffic and conversions for some.
@ MySpace
Landing page optimization is an entirely different post… even blog for that matter. You are correct however, using landing pages is half the battle to creating a successful campaign.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Everybody is looking for success. Some are able and some are not. Its depend on your way what you chosen. So, this information will help those people who is interested in success.
April 25th, 2008 at 4:23 am
One of the best tips for content network on Google. I was wondering how and if I can improve the clicks from the content network or just disable it.
The only problem is with parked domains. I get lots of clicks from those domains I can’t ban them. Any idea on this?
Thanks