Forum Moderators: martinibuster
the more you guys look for the profitable niches, the more advertisers will hold back on choosing content targetted ads :)just bear that in mind!
This got me thinking.... what makes a visitor that clicks an adword ad in a SERP a better visitor to say an Ecommerce site than one that visits from a content site adsense ad? What makes it more prone to buy? What makes it better for the advertiser?
IMHO, a visitor searching to buy a red widget will be just as likely to convert from an ad in a SERP for “red widget” than as a result of an ad in a content page that has a review about a red widget.
Am I missing something?
Don’t you guys think that the actual copy of the ad makes the most impact along with properly targeting key phrases?
Advertisers may feel that, if a user arrives on a page with little information, the user will click on an AdSense ad just to find the information he's looking for--whether or not he's thinking of buying anything. This is different from user behavior on Google's SERPs, where information-seekers can click on search listings.
The idea of "content ads" is to display ads alongside articles and other information. Let's say I've written an article on opera workshops in Poughkeepsie. A user reads the article, thinks "An opera workshop in Poughkeepsie sounds cool," and clicks on the ad because he's interested in what the advertiser (poughkeepsie-opera-workshops.com) has to sell. He's a real prospect, not someone who clicked on the ad because he couldn't find any information on a page that was created merely as a vehicle for AdSense ads.
I guess a less knowledgeable user would not understand that a commerce site is not a very good place to find detailed information.
If the ads are running on an ecom site, if a shopper doesn't find the items they're looking for in particular on that site, they've got ads running right there to look further. Those ads have added to the value for visitors.
Ultimately, what makes it a win-win proposition is if the advertiser is having conversions. But that's strictly up to them if the ads are running on relevant sites that are bringing in targeted visitors.
Same thing that SEOs have. You can bring targeted traffic to sites but if the site owners are in the drivers seat with the site, it may or may not convert. Is the SEO to blame then? What if the site has poor navigation, poor photos and is dog slow to load? That's not the responsibility of anyone but the site owner or whoever they delegate that to. It is NOT the fault of who's sending them traffic, whether it's an SEO, a PPC engine or running AdSense.
When visitors come from an ecom site chances are they're all ready to pull their credit card out by the time they click.
When visitors come from an ecom site chances are they're all ready to pull their credit card out by the time they click.
One problem with the way ads are served right now is they are based on search terms or content. People are usually not in a buying mood when they use a search engine or go to a non-commercial site. If they could capture some demographics, they could try alternate ads especially during holidays to try and spark impulse buying. How many of us go to a store looking to purchase one thing and come home with something else.
One problem with the way ads are served right now is they are based on search terms or content.
That isn't a problem; it's the whole idea. Let's say John Doe is interested in a luxury cruise to South America with Platinum Cruises. He searches Google, finds a review of Platinum Cruises at carlottas-cruise-reviews.com, and is sufficiently impressed by the favorable review to want more information. Now, he can go directly to the Platinum Cruises Web site, or he can click on an AdSense ad for a travel agent who sells Platinum Cruises. If he clicks on the latter, the travel agent has a lead. For the travel agent, the conversion rate is less important than attracting prospects who, if they buy, will generate commissions in the hundreds of dollars. To use Cornwall's phrase, the travel agent isn't "making money on the turn"; he's buying leads, and Adsense can provide those leads at less cost than an ad in THE NEW YORKER, CONDE NAST TRAVELER, or THE ROBB REPORT.
IMHO, Webmaster World members tend to be so focused on e-commerce or affiliate sales that they often lose sight of the larger advertising picture. The real future of contextual "content ads" isn't with traditional PPC advertisers--it's with the mainstream advertisers and direct marketers who already pay a great deal of money to obtain leads through traditional channels. (There was a discussion of this on the AdWords forum a while back, where one advertiser said that PPC leads would be a bargain compared to traditional leads even at much higher rates than he was currently paying.)
Using your example, most likely that review site would be run by a company offering cruises or travel services. A good percentage of those visiting such a site are probably interested in getting a cruise. So, they fall into the motivated buyer category. It's just like the car example above where you try to keep his attention on that area until he hopefully buys from someone.
What I'm referring to are sites where the owner has no commercial interest in the subject matter. Most of the time people visiting these plus the SE's themselves are not looking to purchase anything. IMO there should be a mechanism to help them spark impulse buying. The same marketing technique that works very well on a travel review site or ones that attract people with intense interests in a topic won't necessarily work as well on these others. For example, if I'm visiting my favorite pet of the day site, you're wasting your energy showing me different products for dogs, cats, or whatever when I have a pet frog. Change those ads at certain points of the year like at holidays for gifts, now you're hitting those of us you totally missed by showing ads for which we'll never be interested.
The lord of the Adwords Manor said:
the more you guys look for the profitable niches, the more advertisers will hold back on choosing content targetted ads :)
just bear that in mind!
been called lots of things, but never that :)
I think the problem comes when sites are created solely as AdSense vehicles.
exactly...
There is a whole new army of Content Spammers been birn since Adsense arrived.
I am fortunate enough to know some of these people, and a number of them are building pure auto generated stuff for content targeting, nothing else.
I have no problem with content ads on a site which had 10k impressions, and still got 10k impressions this mth.
But no way am I gonna let my brand/clicks be solicited by spam boys/girls..
But hey, what does it matter what I do, as I am only paying the bill, nothing more.
as always time will tell, the fly-by-nights will dissapear, whilst the quality content sites will do well.
the question is, will the model last long enough for this clean up to take place.
Shak
Using your example, most likely that review site would be run by a company offering cruises or travel services.
No, it's most likely to be an editorial or "content site" about cruising, a newspaper travel section, or a destination site that covers cruising as a subtopic.
A good percentage of those visiting such a site are probably interested in getting a cruise.
That's especially true if they've found the review or article by searching in Google or another search engine, in which case they may be looking for what might be termed "decision support."
So, they fall into the motivated buyer category.
Exactly, because the site's editorial content acts as a filter. By telling readers what they'll experience on the cruise, the review filters out people who aren't likely to be buyers (e.g., the traveler on a beer budget who's just learned from the review that a Platinum Cruise costs $700 per day and up, or the hip 25-year-old who's just learned that the the cruise line caters to white-haired country-club types).
Still, the "motivated buyer" is only one small part of the audience for targeted advertising. Mainstream advertisers obviously love highly motivated buyers, but an L.L. Bean or a European Waterways or a Smith & Hawken won't stay in business if it only goes after people who have made a decision to buy. Such companies aren't just looking for sales; they're also looking for leads, and especially for prospects who meet certain demographic requirements. That's why those companies run ads in the back of magazines like THE NEW YORKER: Today's prospect may be tomorrow's customer, and the way to reach qualified prospects is to advertise in appropriate media. (IMHO, this is why Google needs to give advertisers more control over where their ads run.)
There is a whole new army of Content Spammers been birn since Adsense arrived
A year or two ago I remember doing a search for a LOTR related term {yes I am half geek} and having to go to the end of the page to find a website that was not full of obviously computer generated gibberish. Keyword after keyword of computer generated drivel linking to affiliate sites selling LOTR swords. It was upsetting enough to remember so long afterwards.
You can bring targeted traffic to sites but if the site owners are in the drivers seat with the site
I also would like to say that prequalifying the visitor by adding parameters to the ad is the best thing the adword advertiser can do. Granted, it might affect the CTR, but your conversion rate would be much better. Things like "buy it now for $XX.XX" "Minimum $X,XXX,XXX" I got one ad that shows up in my site with that minimum tagline, if it weren't for that it would be a 100% match for most of my users. However, the majority of my visitors are looking for smaller accomodations. Maybe the advertiser should try running the ad without the minimum tagline for a while. After all christmas is coming and loanuniverse has to buy presents :)
There is a whole new army of Content Spammers been birn since Adsense arrived.
Not to mention crooks who frame other people's editorial pages with AdSense ads.
But no way am I gonna let my brand/clicks be solicited by spam boys/girls..
I suspect that quite a few mainstream advertisers feel the same way. Companies that are protective of their brands don't want their ads turning up just anywhere. An L.L. Bean, an IBM, or a British Airways has a different mindset than the mom-and-pop affiliate who doesn't care where ads run as long as they generate commissions and an adequate ROI.
as always time will tell, the fly-by-nights will dissapear, whilst the quality content sites will do well.
Maybe, maybe not.
the question is, will the model last long enough for this clean up to take place.
I think there may be a very real opportunity for a major Google competitor to offer what AdSense could (and should) have been: an ad network where publishers are vetted for legitimacy and quality before they're allowed to join.
I think there may be a very real opportunity for a major Google competitor to offer what AdSense could (and should) have been: an ad network where publishers are vetted for legitimacy and quality before they're allowed to join.
Only overture could pull this off in the near future, but the window of opportunity for them is closing fast, if it hasn't close already. They will need to make it at least as good of a proposition for webmasters than adsense is now, and then hope that word gets around.
I have to say that I am yet to see a site running adsense that you could not make an argument for it being there. I think there was only one that I visited and saw about a dozen ads all over the place with adsense being one of three skyscrapers. That one made me do a double-take, but since the adsense ads are CPC, then I guess is not a big thing. Nevertheless, I agree there has to be some content quality monitoring.
I am yet to see a site running adsense that you could not make an argument for it being there.
Same here, but then I only spend time on quality sites (and have enough nous that I only rarely get sucked into spammer sites)...
The days advertisers can choose the publishers sites will be the day that the content spammers get their come uppance.
I'm all in favour of publishers making a buck, but the sites have got to be quality and not born out of some cookie cutter.
Until then we'll always opt out of content matching.
This problem could be solved if the opt-out URL filter thats in AdSense was added to Adwords. You could then opt your AdWords out of upto 200 websites.
That would be a help, but it wouldn't be a complete solution. Why? Because (a) advertisers don't have time to play detective and identify every site that might be running their ads, and (b) the inevitable flood and churn of autogenerated spam sites, etc. would be impossible for advertisers to cope with.
IMHO, advertisers need the ability to choose the sites where their ads run. Without that feature, AdSense is going to have trouble attracting big-name mainstream advertisers.
1-Google would be letting the advertisers get a hold of the publishers running their ads, which would leave the door open for them to establish direct deals bypassing Google.
2-Due to the adaptable nature of the technology the list is ever changing.
3-While I am sure that there could be a way to code it so that the list could be generated from the logs, for example a button that will produce a report titled:
Your last 1,000 content ads were served at:
X1 = 450
X2 = 200
X3 = 150
…………
X35 = 30
Do you want to stop your ads at any of our content partners? {select and click the content partner that you want removed}
This would be a lot of work and I don’t know if Google would want to do this.
Google would be letting the advertisers get a hold of the publishers running their ads, which would leave the door open for them to establish direct deals bypassing Google.
That's true, but advertisers can already do that with large, high-profile publishers (the publishers with whom it would make the most sense for them to advertise direct, and who are easy enough for the advertisers to identify).
A smart advertiser not only would go around to secure itself a premier position, but might try to get hard coded into the publisher pages.
Yes, so much :)
Maybe it's because many of the adsense publishers are not involved in ecommerce or have not spent tons of money on online advertising. Maybe it's because this is a forum for publishers, not advertisers.
But you guys are absolutely nutty if you think banner ads/adsense convert as good as PURE search traffic.
If you have good traffic, that converts to SALES, surely, you were demanding a good amount of money for your ad space before?
If so, what price were you demanding for your ads before adsense?
Why were you not able to convert your traffic into sales through affiliate programs?
If I am advertising for "diet pills", there is a big difference between a visitor searching for "diet pills" on AOL and clicking my add than a surfer reading an article in a newspaper that contains the term "diet pills".
You say, why do they click if they are not interested? Because they are curious, annoying, freeloaders :) I have had millions of click throughs on very specific banner ads and text ads (Free Auto Loan Quote) The conversion rate was always much lower than search.
Try to think as an advertiser paying dollars, not pennies per click. You have only 2 choices. You can either show your ads within the search results of major search engines-triggered by the keywords you select, or you can have your ad displayed on websites that have some relationship to your product.
I'm pretty sure NO ONE here would choose choice B. So, while adsense works in some cases, it is obviously not AS effective as search ads.
Adsense works as a concept because there is limited amount of search inventory available. The jury is definitely still out, however, on whether advertisers will be willing to pay HUGE money per click on these ads.
I have had millions of click throughs on very specific banner ads and text ads (Free Auto Loan Quote) The conversion rate was always much lower than search.
To get millions of click throughs you must have been running some serious run of network campaigns or in some of the biggest sites... I can only wonder how many of those were entertainment sites.
If so, what price were you demanding for your ads before adsense?
Why were you not able to convert your traffic into sales through affiliate programs?
Fact is the market has changed and the publishers have benefited. Will this increase the cost of internet advertising? Probably, just ask Burst and Fastclick, they only get 50% of my ads now. You don't really expect publishers to feel bad about advertisers that were willing to pay only $1.00 CPM 6 months ago, do you?
Adsense works as a concept because there is limited amount of search inventory available. The jury is definitely still out, however, on whether advertisers will be willing to pay HUGE money per click on these ads.
In addition, things like the geographic US regional targeting now in beta would make it more apetizing for mid-tier companies to jump in. 150,000 advertisers is nothing. I want to see 500,000.
But you guys are absolutely nutty
Me: I am just waiting for the IPO :D
Maybe it's because many of the adsense publishers are not involved in ecommerce or have not spent tons of money on online advertising. Maybe it's because this is a forum for publishers, not advertisers.
Some of us have plenty of experience with advertising and direct marketing--enough to know that, as one AdWords advertiser pointed out, leads acquired through AdSense are far cheaper than leads acquired through traditional methods.
Note my use of the word "leads." Yes, in the real world, advertisers do pay for leads.
But you guys are absolutely nutty if you think banner ads/adsense convert as good as PURE search traffic.
Sweeping statements are always suspect, IMHO. In any case, the question of whether non-search ads convert as well as search ads is irrelevant, because most well-run businesses don't rely completely on customers who walk in the door with the intention of buying. If that were the case, mail-order companies wouldn't send out catalogs and buy ads in THE NEW YORKER.
If you have good traffic, that converts to SALES, surely, you were demanding a good amount of money for your ad space before?
You forget that AdSense is contextual advertising, which means it allows pairings between advertisers and publishers that wouldn't normally occur. Let's say I publish an editorial site about travel in the Midwest, and I have a handful of articles on Mississippi and Ohio River cruises. It wouldn't be practical for me to solicit travel agents or cruise lines that offer river cruises, because I don't have enough pages or traffic to justify the effort for the advertiser or for me. But with AdSense, it becomes efficient for that advertiser to reach readers of my articles on Mississippi and Ohio river cruises.
The great thing about AdSense from a publisher's point of view is that it helps to monetize pages that normally would be loss leaders. And the great thing about AdSense for advertisers is that it aggregates highly targeted prospects from may different sites.
Why were you not able to convert your traffic into sales through affiliate programs?
Where did you ever get that idea? Some of us make several times as much from affiliate programs as we do from AdSense--and yes, we're doing it with editorial or "content sites." Readers of niche editorial sites are often buyers--just as they are in the special-interest magazine world.
If I am advertising for "diet pills", there is a big difference between a visitor searching for "diet pills" on AOL and clicking my add than a surfer reading an article in a newspaper that contains the term "diet pills".
Forget the newspaper reader. AdSense wasn't designed for general news and entertainment sites; its real strength is on special-interest sites. That's why Google just cut a multimillion-dollar deal with About.com: It knows that the person who visits About.com's Weight Loss site is an excellent prospect for "diet pills," because that person is almost certain to have a weight problem and is looking for a solution.
You say, why do they click if they are not interested? Because they are curious, annoying, freeloaders :) I have had millions of click throughs on very specific banner ads and text ads (Free Auto Loan Quote) The conversion rate was always much lower than search.
Sounds like you need to work on your media-buying skills. :-
Try to think as an advertiser paying dollars, not pennies per click. You have only 2 choices. You can either show your ads within the search results of major search engines-triggered by the keywords you select, or you can have your ad displayed on websites that have some relationship to your product. I'm pretty sure NO ONE here would choose choice B. So, while adsense works in some cases, it is obviously not AS effective as search ads.
Again, conversion rates aren't everything. If you're selling $10,000 luxury cruises or $100,000 printing presses or $10 million construction contracts, you aren't going to get a lot of sales from people who click on a link and fill out an order form. You're looking for leads.
Google would be letting the advertisers get a hold of the publishers running their ads, which would leave the door open for them to establish direct deals bypassing Google.
One of the biggest problems I see with Google's Adwords/Adsense model is that an advertiser does not have the right to know where the ads are running. This does not happen in the real world. An advertiser pays its money and has complete control or choice over where its advertisements appear.
(The following is the closest real-world analogy I can come up with and it might not be perfect, so take it all with a big grain of salt.)
We've all seen "bundled" advertisements in daily and Sunday newspapers. A 'bundler' contracts for a certain amount of space; for example, let's say full page ads in Sunday newspapers in the top 25 markets. The bundler then resells snippets of space to multiple advertisers, usually in a themed fashion (Unique Inns, Franchise Opportunities, Great Spas, etc.).
Now, contrary to the Adwords/Adsense model, the advertiser knows in exactly which publications the ads will appear (How else can you plan a campaign and justify an ad budget?). And, in most cases, the advertiser has the flexibility to pick and choose among markets and publications ("Yeah, let's run my ad in these 20 markets, but I already advertise in my local area so don't include it in these three newspapers.").
Now, in this real world model, the advertiser can of course approach each publisher individually -- but that's part of the bundler's service: identifying good markets and vehicles, negotiating rates, preparing ads, managing accounts, etc. The advertiser benefits by getting maximum exposure for the buck without having to research and manage multiple accounts.
In rolling out the Adsense part of the package Google has moved from being a search engine publisher selling space on its own property to, in fact, a bundler or agency buying and selling space across multiple properties. There are years of established practices that outline protocols within the advertising business (not buying a pig in a poke is one). As "the growth in Google's Adwords keyword business has, at least for now, started to slow," (NY Times article cited in msg 13 of this WW thread [webmasterworld.com]), Google must decide how it is going to manage this business, as a publisher on the one hand (Adwords), or as an advertising agency (Adwords/Adsense), adhering to established business practices.
I've gone on much too long and become much too long-winded. To wind it up, the bottom line to me is: As long as the advertiser is footing the bill the advertiser has the right to know exactly where and how the money is being spent.
Just my 2 cents (which won't be spent on the Adsense side until I know where it's going).
Jim
Just my 2 cents (which won't be spent on the Adsense side until I know where it's going).
Your position is understood, and I am sure that if enough advertisers take a similar stand, the market forces will for ce Google to give in. I am afraid that this will not be the case for competitive areas or even for not so competitive areas.
In rolling out the Adsense part of the package Google has moved from being a search engine publisher selling space on its own property to, in fact, a bundler or agency buying and selling space across multiple properties. There are years of established practices that outline protocols within the advertising business....
Well things do change.......
1, Separate bidding for Content Ads - Search prospects are better than content prospects , so its not fair to pay the same price for search and content clicks
2, Ability to have different set of copies for search and content ads - will help to tailor ads so as to minimize the freeloader clicks from a content site
3, Ability to opt-out from specific publisher sites - will help avoiding auto generated content spammers.
hehe, hve you tried advertising with adsense?
Also, I was respoinding to a statment made that said "why would adsense convert less than searches, so it is not irrelevant
<<Search prospects are better than content prospects , so its not fair to pay the same price for search and content clicks >>
Of course. This is the flaw and this is the point that loanuniverse was questioning. I was just stating the obvious.
<added>
<<Forget the newspaper reader. AdSense wasn't designed for general news and entertainment sites; its real strength is on special-interest sites. >>
How can one forget about this when they are paying through the nose for ads on these sites?
How can one forget about this when they are paying through the nose for ads on these sites?
They shouldn't have to pay through the nose for ads on those sites. Still, for many advertisers, that's a non-issue because they're selling specialized goods or services--and their ads aren't likely to turn up on a general-interest news and entertainment site.
You need to pick your tools according to your audience, your product or service, and what you're trying to accomplish (e.g., getting immediate orders or obtaining leads). AdSense may not work for you, especially when you're offering free insurance quotes to a general audience, but that doesn't mean it isn't the best thing since artisan bread for many niche advertisers.
Why in the world do you think that mopst advertisers won't show up on newspapers and the like?
There are articles about everything. The "diet pills" example I used was real
BTW, don't do insurance quotes for years :)
As for "diet pills," that's a perfect example of a topic that probably doesn't work well with AdSense because there are a zillion newspaper articles about dieting and advertisers have no control over where their ads appear. But there are thousands of topics that are perfectly suited to AdSense because they're unlikely to turn up in significant numbers on general news and entertainment sites. Amateur-radio transceivers, barge cruises, drugs and other treatments for rare medical conditions, and industrial finishing equipment are a few obvious examples that come to mind.
Again, you've got to pick the right tool for the job.
The jury is definitely still out, however, on whether advertisers will be willing to pay HUGE money per click on these ads.
They should pay whatever gives them an ROI that they can live with. Some keywords might not be worth paying the current minimum per click bid, some might be worth paying hundreds more than it.
In the long run, advertisers should be able to either achieve a satisfactory ROI on the ad campaigns or should bow out. The technology is available to determine ROI so it's just a matter of implementing it, monitoring campaigns and acting accordingly.
If a keyword doesn't generate a sufficient ROI for advertiser A, but it does for advertiser B, then advertiser A should bow out after a trivial investment. If no advertisers can achieve a sufficient ROI for a keyword then they should all bow out or lower their bids until the ROI is sufficient.
I realize that this is a simplistic view of AdSense, but it stands to reason. If Google had separate bidding for SERPs and AdSense publisher pages it would no doubt put a lot of advertisers' minds at ease and make the decision making process easier.
