Adwords advertising, remove content match?

[cgchris99]

I have some ads using Adwords. A lot of them do very well. However, I have been doing some homework and notice one of them, the conversions are very low.

The clicks are very high but conversions are low. So it is costing more to have the ad then what we are making. I am thinking it is the content ads that are causing the problem.

As a general rule, do I turn off the content match?

Thanks for any info

[DavidDeprice]

Yes, absolutely. You should always turn content off. In some (rare) instances, content match visitors do convert well, but that's exception. But, the smart way to do it is to have one content only campaign where you bid 5-6 cents (that's top).
I have been a witness to many cases when people turned off content, lost 20-50% of the traffic, saved as much money on ads and their sales stayed the same. AdSense traffic does not convert nearly as well as true search (the difference is 500% in my experience, ie. 5 times less efficient), and you would be fool to pay for it the same amount you pay for true search. My advice, if you still want AdSense visitors, run a separate campaign and track results.

[Steve6]

What about search partners? As I understand from other threads, the keyword CTR shown in the Ad Group pages is the combined CTR for both google.com searches and the search network, but only the google.com CTR is used in the bidding equation. I also wondered about the conversions of the google.com vs search partners.

So I disabled the search network as well as the content network from my main campaign, and turned on search network (as well as content network in my low-bid "Content" campaign. Sure enough, the CTR and the conversion rate from the searches in the Content campaign are much lower than in the regular non-Content campaign.

Perhaps that's because:

1. The search network sites have much more targeted, distracting results; and
   
2. The sponsored results usually are way down in the page.

(I was looking at a well known shopping search site.)

[DavidDeprice]

Well, there is no search involved with content partners. The percentage of adsense publishers who put on search boxes is really small and that traffic is OK. But content traffic isn't. Not because it's some sort of a fraud - it's just the principle behind.
Let's say you are searching for "LA dentist" or something more specific, like "LA dentist, open on sundays". There is a damn good chance you will end up in the dentist chair, because you were looking for a service. But not so if you click an Adsense campaign. Let's say you read some LA news that has to do with dentistry. You may see the ad that says "Affordable dentistry, 9 Offices in LA, work on Saturdays and Sundays". You can click the ad just because you were curious. After all, you weren't looking for a dentist, you just stumbled upon this ad. Are you going to go to a densits? Probably not, you'll just read the site and forget about it for a while (or forever).
I am really surprised that however evident this is, a lot of advertisers don't turn context off and choose to pay for it the same amount of money (per click) they do for a true search visitor. It's insane!

[patient2all]

As a general rule Search Partners are at least as good as Google Traffic in my opinion.

They include Ask Jeeves, AOL, Lycos and many Cable and DSL providers' pages. Many of these constitute potential customer's home pages. In some cases, these were the home pages set when people got their computers/ISPs and they don't know how to, or see a need to change them.

Your ads will appear just like SERP results on many of them, if you have a top 5 position based on your Google CTR. When these people see your ads, they are searching (as opposed to Content ads).

-----

Now some may disagree with me on this next point, but I think the poor quality of recent Google SERPs is helping AdWords on Google pages. Think about it, the top SERPs for many keywords consist of blogs that Google seems to favor. These have simply become Spam vehicles in many cases, but they manage to fool the Google spider into thinking they are real content with nonsense phrases like spam email uses. I get Google Alerts and see top 10 SERPs like:

"swarmy temperatures rise www.example.com coax living from brilliant time at york information metformin", etc with thousands of different www.example.com mentions!

The thinking on Google's part is that if a site is mentioned in blogs, it's being talked about. Yes, by the spammers!

This makes your concise 100 word AdWords ad look very attractive to searchers.

Don't change a thing Google, at least AdWords is more consistent than the SERPs. In Google SERPs, I was #2 on a keyword last night, now I can't find the site. Another site of mine on the same subject (a free page that I long forgot about) is now #12 on the keyword.

I'd rather pay for AdWords and have a consistent income.

Starting to go OT, goodbye.

patient2all

[DavidDeprice]

Search partners are OK. Nothing spectacular, but the volume of traffic not that big to say anything definitive. But AdSense (click the ad) traffic converts very poorly.

[roycerus]

Search Network: If you want to concentrate on strict ROI

Content Network: Branding

Consider that dentist example. If later you want to go to a dentist. It's very possible that the person will remember your site if you have a brandable domain name like dentamend.com or something.

Regards,
R

[DavidDeprice]

Well, this is where all the so called experts are totally wrong. I am not even going to go into branding - that's off topic (and a waste of money - talk to any direct marketer). Let's talk context advertising. I am an AdSense publisher myself and I get paid anywhere between 4 cents and two bucks per click. My average used to be around a dime, then when up to 20-25 cents and now somewhere in between. The theory does like that - let's say you run a PPC management company. Suppose I don't get enought search traffic for the term PPC (by the way "PPC" tops at 5 bucks according to Overture bid tool, I suppose AdWord and AdSense costs are comparable).
So you decide to run context ad campaign (pay for AdSense ad blocks) bidding on "PPC" - that's the stupidest thing to do because you can bid on cheaper terms that have nothing to do with PPC but are somehow related. Advertisers who pay 5 cents a click and end up being advertised on my website get access to the same peole as advertisers who pay 10 cents, 20, or a dollar.
Imagine you call your local newspaper, say The Sacramento Bee and ask them for their ad rates. The first question they'll ask you is what section you want to advertise in, correct? They are not going to say
"Ok, so you want to put an ad in our Real Estate Section. OK, it's 20 bucks if your house is in Rocklin, 3 bucks if your house in West Sacramento, and 100 bucks if your house is in Granite Bay". No, you pay for section, size and frequency.
Back to PPC. I've got a friend who runs a PPC consulting company. He bids on terms that are of interest to webmasters - HTML terms, etc. He never bids more than 5 cents, but he has almost 600 terms he bids on. Say you bid on CSS, but your ad says "Want to increase ROI of your PPC campaign?" When person clicks it, he is not going to know what keyword triggered the ad. He'll click only if he is interested in paying for PPC consulting. But the difference in paying for PPC and for CSS is 100 times.
I know of instances when context ads are profitable, but it never happens when you pay for expensive terms.

[grigoroo]

Given that people generally click on ads when they are interested in buying something, there's going to be some likelyhood that a click on a content ad will lead to a purchase. If you run an ad for "LA Dentist" and it runs on a page about an LA Dentist getting arrested, the likelyhood that you'll have to pay for a click is low, unless the reader happens to be interested in finding a dentist in LA. (Maybe it was his dentist.) Obviously your CTR is going to be low for LA Dentists on the content network, but the clicks can still be valuable. Of course I'm assuming your ad reads like an ad for a dentist. No clicks, no pay. That's how it works.

Pay attention to how your ad might be picked up on content and you should be fine. It's all a matter of context, isn't it?

[DavidDeprice]

I am not talking theory here - talk to any practitioner - Adsense clicks convert on average (for me) 5 times worse than true search AdWords clicks. That's just facts.

[DavidDeprice]

"Given that people generally click on ads when they are interested in buying something"

Dream on, brother. If you were to experiment with my LA Dentist ad example, you'd find out from your logs that people from Boston, Paris and London click the ad more than people from LA. That's why Google and Yahoo jumped on the local search scene - it's a necessity. Not sure if this is available for AdSense yet, but I am sure it will be.

[ownerrim]

However, I think the problem with poor conversions from the content network has to do with the fact that there are sooooo many ripoff scraper-type sites in the adsense program. Everytime you turn around, there's more of them. These guys provide fraudulent clicks and many of them steal content. And the fact that the adsense program is mostly "hands off" (automated) makes it a wild west situation. There are many cases of adsense publishers reporting blatant violaters (check the adsense forum) and nothing ever being done about those violate the terms.

Just curious: is anyone here interested in this new Site targeting/CPM approach that adsense will be rolling out?

[Tropical Island]

I am an AdSense publisher as well as an AdWords search and content advertiser.

Many of the ads I see on our local South American websites are poorly written. From looking at the ad you have no idea whether these ads are local or not so people assume they are local and click on them.

All our own content ads have our location in the title and they convert quite well in most cases.

If I have a scuba page and you are a scuba school in some other location, and don't say this in your ad, then don't complain about poor ROI. Put you location in your titles for CONTENT. Your ads will convert much better.

[europeforvisitors]

It makes no sense at all to generalize about the value of content ads, because what works for you (or doesn't) may work (or not) for someone else. That's why testing was invented.

It's worth noting, however, that some AdWords forum members have reported poor results with the content network, while others have reported [i]better[i] ROI with the content network. As with so many things, "it depends."

I will point out that, on my editorial travel-planning site, I've been seeing many of the same advertisers for a long, long time. Some of these are companies that have run direct-response advertising in other media for years (decades, in a few cases), so they've had plenty of experience in calculating ROI.

My gut feeling tells me that contextual advertising works best for keyphrases and ads that are likely to turn up on niche (a.k.a. special-interest) sites and that don't attract the easy-money crowd.

As for CPM ads, I think they're going to be hugely popular with advertisers, ad agencies, and media buyers who have experience in other media. These people know the value of targeting by audience, and they understand that (for example) a direct-response ad for a company like The Tire Rack is likely to perform better in MOTOR TREND than in USA TODAY. Site targeting will allow them to reach special-interest audiences much more effectively than traditional CPC search and contextual ads can.

[ownerrim]

"My gut feeling tells me that contextual advertising works best for keyphrases and ads that are likely to turn up on niche (a.k.a. special-interest) sites and that don't attract the easy-money crowd."

I think you're exactly right about this and this is why cpm-site-targeting has the potential to be a great thing. Unfortunately, a lot of the sites in the content network are easy-money sites that sprout like weeds. Hopefully......cpm will reduce the lure of easy pickings and likewise reduce the incentives to build these things.

[Jon_King]

>>"My gut feeling tells me that contextual advertising works best for keyphrases and ads that are likely to turn up on niche (a.k.a. special-interest) sites and that don't attract the easy-money crowd."

You are accurate Ownerrim, based on my experience not theory, there are cases where content makes more for my client than search. DD, I guess you have never had the same experience.

[cgchris99]

Is there a way to tell which ads come from which type of search. Or do I need to create different ad groups and put one in content and one in search to find out?

Thanks

[DavidDeprice]

I know of no industry where there are a lot of searches performed, where contextual ads convert better based on real statistics (these things are easily tracked). If you do, please tell me what industries these are.
I do, however, have to admit that I know of a few niches were contextual ads are outrageously profitable - but these are all niches where there are little searches.
These niches are self-help, motivational speaking/reading and info products.
A buddy of mine runs PPC campaign for a very smart guy from Salt Lake who used to run his own pizza shop. He created a $300 infoproduct that tells pizza joint owners how to market and increase profits. The conversion rate is about 1 purchase for 400 visitors. So he gets 300 bucks (almost all of it profit) for a 20 dollar investment - that's pretty good ROI.
1 purchase for 400 clicks is a very poor conversion, but since nobody searches for infoproducts for pizza shops (nobody knows these courses exist), context is the only way to go. And ROI, as mentioned, is spectacular.

I disagree that contextual ads convert poorly due to the fact that they run on scrapers, although that may be a contributing factor. Open your Yellow Pages and count how many plummers listed there - it may be well over a hundred for a good. Then open a local newspaper and see if you can find any of the same ads. You'll probably find few to none. There is a very good reason for that and it's obvious - you'll start looking for a plumber only when you'll want to fix something.
Then do the same with, say, grocery stores - they take out huge ads in newspapers, but in Yellow Pages you'll find only their address and a phone number
Same with AdWords vs. AdSense. If you sell a product or service that people search for - forget context. If you sell something that people don't search for, for example "Goal-Free Living Workshop", than you have to go with contextual ads.

[elsewhen]

David... you seem to be on a mission to convince everyone that advertising on the content network has little value.

i run several campaigns in several different industries. i methodically split EVERY campaign into content/search.

most of my campaigns have postive ROI for both content and search... after the test results come in, i turn off some of the adgroups for search and more for content. nonetheless, i still make lots of profit from the content network.

without splitting, it might not be worthwhile because you wouldn't be able to drill down and turn off the poor performers.

i agree with EFV... it all comes down to testing.

[elsewhen]

Is there a way to tell which ads come from which type of search. Or do I need to create different ad groups and put one in content and one in search to find out?

cgchris99... refer to the following two threads for more info on how to find out where your ad-clickers came from:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[elsewhen]

about ROI... even if you find that the content network provides lower ROI than the search network, is that a reason to turn it off?

from my perspective, its not such a question of margin; all that matters if you can get a positive ROI.

i put my adwords account on a rewards-type credit card so i only have to pay once a month... i make money from my sites much sooner than that.

if you could spend $1000 a day on the content network and make $1200, why wouldn't you do it? (assuming that the source of your revenue is stable and reliable, ie. your own ecommerce store).

who cares about the conversion rate, and how it compares to the search network. in the end, i really don't care if my margin. if i can make 100% ROI on the search network - i'll take it... and if i can make 20% ROI on the content network, i will take that too.

[DavidDeprice]

No, I am not on a mission to stop context advertising. I am not only Adwords advertiser, I am also an AdSense publisher. I am glad that you have success with your context ads - this is very good news because it pretty much means that you can grow your business exponentially.
However, I my experience that most online marketers who pay for context ads have the same success as offline marketers who pay for newpaper ads - most of them don't even break even. This by no means means that newspapers are "bad". Neither is AdSense. The fact that you managed to make it profitable for yourself indicates that you are a deft marketer who knows how to do things right.
If you have any adsense-specific tips for running a successful campaign, I'd love to hear your tips.

[europeforvisitors]

Same with AdWords vs. AdSense. If you sell a product or service that people search for - forget context.

That simply isn't true, for a couple of reasons:

1. Researching a purchase is a multi-step process.

The DoubleClick "Search Before the Purchase" study has some revealing statistics: Of the online buyers who used search engines to research purchases (roughly half of all purchasers in the study), the majority conducted their research weeks in advance of their transactions. Furthermore, most searches conducted multiple searches before purchasing (from 2.5 searches in the fitness/sports category to 6 searches for travel purchases). This means that the advertiser who relies solely on search ads is missing out on the majority of prospects who don't just open Google.com, click an AdWord, and make a purchase.

For a summary of the DoubleClick study, see DoubleClick's press release at:

[doubleclick.com...]

2. Targeted audiences convert better.

Audience targeting and editorial context matter. That's why offline advertisers are willing to pay a premium for the right demographics or the right special-interest audience. That's why you see ads for expensive whiskies in THE NEW YORKER, direct-response ads for alloy wheels and performance tires in ROAD & TRACK, and ads for ElderHostel trips in retirement publications. And it's why "content sites" in the right sectors earn significant money from affiliate programs. Such information sites reach prospects who are likely to be interested in what advertisers or affiliate vendors are selling. And because they've already conducted their pre-purchase research in many cases, the prospects who click ads on such sites may have a greater likelihood of becoming purchasers than do people who may click a SERP's ads while looking for information.

It's true that Google's potluck approach to content advertising makes it hard for advertisers to reach targeted audiences through AdSense. Fortunately, site-targeted CPM ads will soon give advertisers a way to avoid scraper sites, DomainPark, gmail, and other generic or low-quality venues.

[DavidDeprice]

I don't see a contradiction here. Look, there are two types of searches here. First, you search for something very very specific - see an ad click it and buy (or not).
The second type is you "research search". Let's say you are planning a trip to London. So instead of searching for "trip to London" you may want to research London's cafe's or theaters or musicals or whatever else you are interested in. And if you see a relevant context ad (say, "Cheap hostels in London, start at 10 pounds a night"), you probably get a decent conversion (especially if you are the poor student who wants to stay in a cheap hostel).
Since I sell discounted software, I can tell you that context works very poorly for me and all other discounters who sell software.
The only time when I know context offers decent returns is when the product sold is expensive. My guess would be that advertisers who sell Mediterrenian cruises probably can make good money advertising at your website. But I seriously doubt that you can sell a 19.95 dollar guide to traveling Europe and make a profit. Care to comment if my assumption has some ground for it?

[Jon_King]

>>I know of no industry where there are a lot of searches performed, where contextual ads convert better based on real statistics

DD, I know of several.

'My personal experience' does not necessarily intellectualize to 'all'.

[europeforvisitors]

My guess would be that advertisers who sell Mediterrenian cruises probably can make good money advertising at your website. But I seriously doubt that you can sell a 19.95 dollar guide to traveling Europe and make a profit. Care to comment if my assumption has some ground for it?

I think you're absolutely right.

Of course, some vendors might be willing to accept little or no profit on the initial sale just to acquire a customer, just as mail-order houses do when they make an irresistible offer in a magazine ad.

This brings us to an important point: Not every advertiser is an e-commerce or affiliate site that's looking for an immediate transaction. In many cases, the advertiser may be looking for qualified leads. (An advertiser pointed this out on the AdWords forum a long time ago: He said that, compared to what his company spent to get leads from traditional media, PPC ads were a bargain and would still be a bargain at 50 times the price.)

Bottom line: Different advertisers have different needs and goals. For some advertisers, contextual ads are a good investment; for others, they aren't. (The same is true of search ads, banner ads, print ads, broadcast ads, direct mail, or any other medium.)

[BriGuy20]

if you're talking about shopping search engines, some of the major ones (plus a few second tier players) actually show up in the extended search network instead of the content network. I say this because my logs were filled with referrals from these shopping sites even though I didn't have content network ads turned on.

I can't really give specifics on here, but PM me if you want a list of a few of the sites in my logs.

[DavidDeprice]

Jon_King - why don't you name them. I honestly don't believe there is ANY industry where context conversion rate is higher that true search, except for things that don't get search for. For instance, I know of people who pose as clairvoyants and claim to be able to predict future events and make tens of thousands of dollars through context ads, but "my own future" is not something you search for.
I think that there very few ways to do context ads right.
First would be the margin. The second would be understanding the lifetime value of your customer. For instance, the lifetime value of a customer to a good chiropractor is 2000 dollars. Isn't that incredible? Because most chiropractors charge anywhere between 25 bucks to 80 dollars for an appointment (last time I checked with was a few years ago). And if you spent 500 bucks on an ad and got two people show up at your office, you might be fooled into thinking that you are losing money, while you'll make several times that much through repeat business and referrals.

[Loki99]

“I honestly don't believe there is ANY industry where context conversion rate is higher that true search, except for things that don't get search for”

David you’re wrong.

Some of our best conversions come from context.

There’s just one simple rule:
You just have to know where the site(s) sending you traffic(adsense) - gets their traffic from.

[spaceylacie]

This brings us to an important point: Not every advertiser is an e-commerce or affiliate site that's looking for an immediate transaction.

Good needed point.

About Affiliate Sites(not e-commerce):

I'm an Adsense publisher and I have a tip for Adwords advertisers who are just using Adwords to promote an affiliate program.... Please stay away from our content, it wasn't made for you. We put many hours of hard work into building our sites. If we wanted affilate ads on our sites, we'd put them on there ourselves.

Affiliate Only Adwords Advertisers: Turn off content, please. We don't want you either.