Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Any ideas how to get the good advertisers back to the Content network?
I'm not sure if you're asking about attracting quality advertisers to your site or to the content network overall. If it's the latter, I think that AdWords has become sufficiently complex that it is a barrier to entry to business owners unless they are willing to hire an outside contractor or devote a significant portion of an employee's time to the task.
My opinion is based on my own limited experience as an AdWords account holder and conversations with a number of small business owners who like the AdWords/AdSense concept but were overwhelmed with the overall process.
I had a long conversation with a local retail store owner recently and he basically said one of the advantages local newspapers still have over AdWords/AdSense is the simplicity. He wants to have a week-long sale so he calls the local paper and places an ad. He knows when it will appear, where it will appear, how much it will cost, has a pretty good idea how many people will see it, etc.
...and will also prompt these advertisers to target your website...
Does AdWords now allow advertisers to target a site with PPC ads or is it still CPM only?
And a related thought. If I owned XYZ Company and you wrote an article about XYZ Company, I'd at least have to consider whether to just enjoy your free promotion of my company and not pay to advertise on your site.
FarmBoy
A business sets up an AdWords account and has poor results, informed they have to bid $10 per phrase, etc.
The person searches for information on AdWords and ends up on a forum that has a lot of those "Avoid the content network" threads and so he avoids the content network. If he has time, he might research the matter further and learn the nuance of that approach. Otherwise, he might just avoid the content network forever.
I wonder what effort Google makes to encourage advertisers who block the content network to reconsider?
FarmBoy
One thing I do know is that when the ad copy is good and relevant, people will click on the ads. I'd just like to see as many choice ads on Content as I do on Google, right now that's simply not the case.
When new advertisers start out, they often don't have any idea what the content network even is (particularly if they start with the AdWords 'Starter Edition' - which is designed to maximize traffic and clicks, and not necessarily conversions.)
So they don't realize how very different the search and content networks are, and how they need to be bid separately (and as a matter of fact, they *can't* be bid separately with Starter Edition - which is actually just a newbie name for Budget Optimizer) and nine times out of ten, they don't know about excluding sites like myspace and youtube that will run up tons of impressions and/or clicks and produce very little in the way of ROI unless you have something that appeals to that market, and they don't know how to avoid placing their ads on parked domains, which *can* convert if chosen carefully, but most often don't, or the tons and tons and tons of MFA sites out there (that we've all seen and complained about)
It's very easy with this 'Starter Edition' to burn through your monthly budget in a week. Then Google doesn't tell you what's wrong, they just say you need to allot more budget to it.
Of course, you can move off Starter and on to Standard, but with all the changes, features, policies and whatnot, it's not exactly for the faint of heart. I've taken and passed the GAP test twice, and I'm still finding stuff I don't know about or need boning up on, and I take every AdWords seminar that comes within 100 miles of me. Most companies who aren't using agencies or consultants (such as myself) have someone managing their AdWords who has a regular job within the company, and they just tack this on - they don't have time to really learn how it works. Hence, we're back to the Starter Edition - or auto-pilot - and that runs out the budget.
I talk to tons of people at these AdWords seminars (and I've gotten a lot of business there too, heh) and they're desperate to make it work for them. The ones who are even aware of the Content Network are scared to death of it, and the ones who aren't tend to just shut everything down once they find out how easy it is to eat through their budget without getting anything back.
At least, that's my take on it.
Attracting quality advertisers to the Content network?is very much out of the average quality (converting) website operators hands. This is a task that only Google AdSense has the means to do.
Edge, thanks. I agree with you - attracting advertisers *should* be something that Google takes care of. However, in the meantime I'm watching my AdSense revenue go South. Just trying to see if there's anything I can do to turn things around.
I went through and hand picked out the advertisers for those blocks...
Keep a constant check to make sure those are the advertisers that are actually appearing on your site.
FarmBoy
Exactly Lensa, thanks. I get keyword ads like:
Looking for Keyword? Find exactly what you want today.
I don't rule out the possibility that ads such as the above may be intentionally worded so as NOT to be clicked on, they're used more for branding purposes. It's the sheer number of impressions and repetitive viewings of the brand name that is being sold, not an actual product or service.
Each of us typical publishers seems to be some sort of corral with other similar publishers based on keywords. Unfortunately, Google AdSense has not managed the quality of the herd (publishers) within each of these corrals very well. So, you are competing for ads with all different kinds of websites with similar keywords, quality of visitors, content and intent. This has been going on for awhile and some (many?) publishers within many corrals have not stood up to the quality standard many quality advertisers expect for their advertising money.
Within my corral, I estimate that there are about six quality web resources and thousands or more of the less-than-desirable to dismal websites and resources that serve ads from the same keyword corral. So, the quality of advertisers and payout has been steadily dropping for three years now likely due to low ROI not to mention advertiser frustration over the quality of referral websites. Personally, I would be irritated if I spent several thousand dollars daily on AdSense and the money went to domain parked websites, or other non-value added websites. Anybody with brand recognition (quality advertiser) concerns only wants to advertise on quality websites and resources.
Now, just for the record this is my perception of the challenges any quality website seeking quality advertisers from AdSense faces. I do not have inside information nor do I believe this the only issue. I would like to note that for my website, quality advertisers have been signing directly with me almost every week and revenues from these advertisers did eclipse AdSense revenues last year. So, at least in my corral, the quality advertisers are seeking to control where and which websites their ads appear on.
To be blunt in a different way and I do respect Google, however the AdSense publisher network has not been managed well (miss-managed?) with respect to quality publisher’s interest. Until Google AdSense improves each of the publisher’s corrals where quality advertisers would want to be, we will not see sustained improvements in quality of advertisers or revenues from AdSense.
[edited by: Edge at 2:33 pm (utc) on June 7, 2008]
[edited by: Play_Bach at 6:41 pm (utc) on June 7, 2008]
how about Google turn back the clock and end the separation of Content network/Google. Ads run the same on both, just like they did when Adsense launched.
netmeg has pretty much said this already, but from an new advertiser perspective, the content network is not that attractive. If you leave it running on 'default' you get mostly referrals from junk: parked domains and such. Search advertising is relatively straightforward, but to the uninitiated is still a complex business. But by default it will usually work OK, but even then there are plenty of DIYers who think that it "doesn't work" when their campaign is simply misconfigured.
The content network is less predictable and requires more specialised knowledge to work effectively, so you have an instant barrier to entry. A lot of advertisers I see are not even tracking PPC, let alone making the necessary ROI calculations, and so they don't have the knowledge or tools for content ads to work. So, it just ends up being a waste of their budget.
AdSense would still work because there simply isn't an alternative - anywhere.
I'm not sure what you mean but there are other medians available. There is YPN, Chitika, and others. Don't forget direct advertisers and bypass the ad brokers.
