1. It completely dilutes your CTR stats on the user interface. Since one gets about 10 times as many content impressions as search, your CTR ends up looking extremely low, even though your search CTR might in fact be quite good. CTR is EVERYTHING in AdWords, if I am having trouble identifying the performance of my many creatives content targeting is going to be turned off, period.
2. Content targeting provides you with lower quality traffic. Now Google can say whatever they want, but I have seen many sites with AdSense on them and wow, the things these webmasters try to get away with...amazing. The quality of traffic IS lower in general, there is no arguing that. On search, people are ACTIVELY searching for exactly what you are offering. You can't get any more targeted than that. So yes, you are paying a premium for content targeting, and getting lower quality traffic. Doesn't seem to make much sense now does it?
Now having said that, here is what I believe the purpose of content targeting is. I believe it is for those advertisers who have simply exhausted the amount of traffic they can receive from search, and still want/need more traffic. I was getting 10k clicks per day from search and couldn't really think of any new keywords that would increase traffic, so I decided to go ahead and try out content targeting. Now the only way I even COULD enable that option is if I knew how well all of my ads were doing. Like I said it dilutes your CTR so if you don't have a solid understanding of your performance you will be flying blind. Enabling content targeting increased my revenues by 20%. I consider the CTR and CPC of content targeting to be irrelevant. The only thing that matters at this point is increasing net profits.
To sum it up, the mindset is this: You have reached your maximum number of clicks with search. You have a very good understanding of the performance of your campaign (by watching it for weeks). But you want more clicks. This is when you enable content targeting. You IGNORE the CTR/CPC of the content stats. Focus only on revenue. Does it go up? Do net profits go up? If yes, then it doesn't matter that you are paying a premium for lower quality traffic. The purpose of content targeting is to allow you to increase revenues by just that much more. It was never designed to compete with search, that just isn't possible. If Google would explain it this way people would not have a bad opinion of it(not that the average user necessarily does).
I am sure Google has designed it to be this way. But there are problems. #1 is the AdWords user interface. I do not want to see my summary CTR stats including content impressions. It makes stats completely worthless. This is the main reason I would say to disable content targeting on your campaign until you know exactly how your ads are doing. There needs to be separate stats, one for Google search, one for 'search partners', and one for content. The more control I have, the better my ROI. Sure, Google can make things ambiguous, causing me to spend more. But in the long run if an advertiser is not making profits then he will cease to be an advertiser. Most people don't have my skill with this system and will blow a lot more money, possibly causing them to quit, which would be bad for long term growth.
Google, however, is in a very precarious position. They can't just implement the changes I am suggesting and say that is that. It's all about perception. If people see that content targeting or syndicated traffic is performing poorly compared to Google search, they might conclude that it is a good idea to disable those options. Or they may say "Hey this traffic is crap, I should not have to pay the same price for it as I do for Google search!" But that is not the case! Google needs to do something about these perceptions, otherwise demand for separate bidding systems will likely increase, forcing them to do something they don't really want to do. And all because people just don't quite understand the purpose of the system. It is up to Google to educate its advertisers.
Secondly, it really depends on the industry. I have some accounts that content match works great for.
I have others where there are a lot of news articles for, and I end up paying more for people looking for more news on the subject and not wanting to buy - which makes my ROI quite negative for content match for those accounts.
Content match does not always get more impressions than search. There are accounts that have content on, and while they might get 10k impressions/day from search, they get less than 100 impressions a day from content.
There are industries where there aren't many content type sites for, and those that exist, don't run AdSense.
Of course, there is the flipside where I get double the content clicks as the search ones - with a great ROI.
I agree that the bottom line is ROI and not CTR rates when it comes to content matching - thats why your content match CTR doesn't play into the positionign formula - G did a smart move with that.
I think many accounts can get a positive ROI with content match, but its something they need to watch closely - as it won't work for everyone.
But I find it just desperately awkward that you can't separate out search and content campaigns properly. The problem as I see it is with controlling the keywords and the ad copy used...
At the moment I have content ads completely switched off - if I could create a new campaign that was *just* content ads (no google search, no partner search) then I'd do so right now.
All the best,
Andy.
At the moment I have content ads completely switched off - if I could create a new campaign that was *just* content ads (no google search, no partner search) then I'd do so right now.
I agree completely with this statement. I would like to run campaigns that are content targeted only. The current problem is that G wouldn't know when to disable KWs and there may be some positioning issues as they use G only CTR for determining bid rank.
Although, andye, you might want to add your wish to the Google AdWords Feature [webmasterworld.com] thread.
For my higher priced keywords, I run mirror campaigns where I setup the campaign exactly the same as a current search-only one, but I add in content targetting and lower the max CPC.
BTW what kind of holiday gift do you get with a monthly budget of $75k? Hope you at least get a tropical vacation.
I have run mirror campaigns before and found that google shows the wrong ad, but perhaps I was doing something wrong.
Couldn't agree with you more ddog. I have been moaning to Adwords support about this for a while. I also tried setting up mirror campaigns as figment88 suggested. The first mirror campaign works like a gem only showing content ads, but the second gets muddled and does give any impressions at all, which is strange seeing though I lowered the CPC and threw in a lesser performing ad.
Duplicate your ad groups into another campaign. For that campaign select "content and google searches only" and make sure that the bids are LOWER than your 'Search Campaign'. So for google searches the terms will show the ads and be counted by your "search campaign" (due to the higher bids) and the result will be a 'content only campaign'
We have been doing it for some time now and it is great.
If I end up buying more search clicks at a lower price than I was willing to pay, I will not complain.
Content targeting provides you with lower quality traffic. Now Google can say whatever they want, but I have seen many sites with AdSense on them and wow, the things these webmasters try to get away with...amazing. The quality of traffic IS lower in general, there is no arguing that.
I suspect the quality varies quite a bit by topic and keywords. Obvious money keywords are going to appear on innumerable "sites of opportunity" that have been created only to generate revenues with AdSense, but ads for other keywords may turn up only on relevant niche content sites that can generate high-quality leads.
Of course, if Google were to let advertisers opt in or out of specific sites (or if it were to offer an "AdSense Select" program with editor-approved content sites), there might be greater acceptance of content ads by advertisers.
On search, people are ACTIVELY searching for exactly what you are offering. You can't get any more targeted than that. So yes, you are paying a premium for content targeting, and getting lower quality traffic. Doesn't seem to make much sense now does it?
Actually, it does. Your local appliance or carpet dealer buys Yellow Pages ads to attract people who are searching for appliances or carpets at any given moment, but it also runs ads in newspapers and other "content" media to stimulate demand and to reach prospects who don't search the Yellow Pages when they go shopping.
Now having said that, here is what I believe the purpose of content targeting is. I believe it is for those advertisers who have simply exhausted the amount of traffic they can receive from search, and still want/need more traffic.
Bingo. This seems to be a point that many online advertisers fail to grasp, although (as suggested in my comments above) it's taken for granted in the offline business world where search (the Yellow Pages) is just one component in an advertising and marketing strategy.
Enabling content targeting increased my revenues by 20%. I consider the CTR and CPC of content targeting to be irrelevant. The only thing that matters at this point is increasing net profits.
That's a great testimonial, IMHO. As you say, Google has done a poor job of communicating this. They should hire you to write their promotional materials for content ads!
Enabling content targeting increased my revenues by 20%. I consider the CTR and CPC of content targeting to be irrelevant. The only thing that matters at this point is increasing net profits.
That's a great testimonial
This only makes sense in high margin areas (or where conversion is very high). You can't just assume you are going to make a profit at any acquistion price.
For the record, it should be noted that unlike Google, Yahoo/Overture has just started a program where you can have only contextual ads running. But, they themselves note, their reach is not extensive as Google's AdSense. And, as they tell their marketers, that's a good thing.
For the record, it should be noted that unlike Google, Yahoo/Overture has just started a program where you can have only contextual ads running. But, they themselves note, their reach is not extensive as Google's AdSense. And, as they tell their marketers, that's a good thing.
Not really, if it means they're serving ads on general news and entertainment sites instead of targeted niche sites. (If I were selling cruises on the Vistula River in Poland, I suspect I'd get much higher-quality leads from a cruising site or an Eastern European travel site than from USA TODAY.)
For broad topics that reach a mass market, Yahoo/Overture may be a better bet than Google, but Google is clearly a better solution when advertisers want the Web equivalent of ads in special-interest publications.
There are *LOTS* of great publishers out there with a huge market that you can get - and sometimes these are even more targeted then a search engine result :)
......... they themselves note, their reach is not extensive as Google's AdSense. And, as they tell their marketers, that's a good thing.
This quote reminds me of a book that I read called something like "Job interviewing for dummies" In the early 90s when I started looking for my first job. The chapter was titled something like {What to do when you are asked to list your weaknesses? } The answer was "Turn it around and make it appear as a strength"
Have you guys seen how much better the darn adsense target algorithm has gotten? { this is the algo that tells adsense what ads to serve in content pages } We publishers have seen great improvement over time.
On the other hand, it is really hard to compare something that has been running for six months, to something that it is still under NDA beta testing.
Amazon doesn't earn me a whole lot but it adds to the value of the site as the books on my topic usually can't be found in an ordinary bookstore.
But I am so impressed with how well AdSense blends with my topic. Once I blocked the secondary kind of ads that just bring up their own search for the item I feel like I have ads that fit the theme of my site and have been really pleased with how well it's going.
I do hope that Google keeps the standards up on what they approve for AdSense. I've heard rumblings here to the contrary. If the sites go downhill and people start opting out of AdSense it will hurt us all.
Their content ads are way off in almost all of the searches I was doing. Considering that the category title would be an easy way for AdSense to be matched, I shouldn't be seeing ads for taxes while doing searches for flower delivery.
In many cases, I think smaller content sites, since they are so tightly wound around a single theme, are delivering much higher quality content ads than the larger sites. The problem is, they don't serve the same volume of ads, and the larger ones matter significently in looking at the overall effectiveness of content ads.
In many cases, I think smaller content sites, since they are so tightly wound around a single theme, are delivering much higher quality content ads than the larger sites.
I suspect they're also delivering higher-quality leads in many cases, just as special-interest magazines deliver more targeted readers than general-interest publications do.
The problem is, they don't serve the same volume of ads, and the larger ones matter significently in looking at the overall effectiveness of content ads.
I think this probably depends a lot on the topic. If you're selling Vistula River cruises in Poland or torque wrenches, it's unlikely that too many of your ads will get served on the portals or news & entertainment sites. But if you're selling George Bush or John Kerry bobblehead dolls, you'll have a lot of waste circulation on sites like Washingtonpost.com where clickers may be curious or amused but not inclined to buy.
My problem is that i cannot calculate my ROI on Google Adwords because my conversion page is not a page on my site. It is a page on my payment gateway provider site.
Something like appending something to the right of the URL and is it okay with Google if i do it.
Plz write in.
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