Content Targeting Question

Huge increase in ratio Content to Impressions

[webmaus]

I have a small test campaign running specific to a geographical region. Today it has shown about 75 search imprssions to over 300 content targeting, yesterday the ration was even more skewed. Is this normal or just an anomoly? The search impressions have a CTR of 5.4%, content targeting has zero. How does Google decide where to serve content targeting ads? It seems strange that such a small campaign with a low CPC would be served up so many times on content pages when the search terms are at such a daily low.

I apologise for this newbie question but have read the past forum threads looking for an answer and either missed it or am still so new to Google Ads I over-read the answer without understanding it.

[eWhisper]

This depends on the keywords and how popular the sites are that are using AdSense.

I have some KWs that it's common to see the content impressions 10x the search impressions on a consistent basis.

It's also possible if there was recently a news story about your KWs that suddenly content ads jump significently. It's common for us to see a news article on local paper sites that uses AdWords cause us to have a huge temp jump in impressions.

[sem4u]

Some AdSense listings do not seem to match the content too well. This could cause a jump in impressions with a low CTR. Also, with content pages many users are simply interested in the content and may filer out the ads (like not seeing banners anymore).

If there is a huge jump in content impressions/clicks then I tend to turn off content ad(s) and have a look in the logs to see where the visitors come from. Based on those facts I will either turn the content ads on or leave them running.

Also, it depends if the content ads are creating a positive ROI or not.

[danny]

If the CTR on the content ads is zero, then you're just getting free "branding impressions", aren't you?

[jackcu]

I've noticed the same thing over the weekend. Impressions on content sites have gone up dramatically. However, as the CTR from these doesn't get taken in to account in suspending an ad for low click through, I figure I'm getting free exposure as noted above.

Cheers,

Jack.

[webmaus]

Thank you for all of the above answers. I followed your advice and checked to find out that the regional paper did run something specific to my KWs that must have triggered the content ad to be run so often. After I posted yesterday the click through rate on the content ads went way up and this morning I took your advice and suspended the ad until I could check the logs. The click throughs were for buyers rather than lookie-lous so the ad is running again. I will keep an eye on the logs though, to make sure that no one is playing with the link *grin*.

I now know to check local news in a targeted area, thank you very much for that suggestion. One almost has to be a social scientist to put all the marketing necessities into the correct order these days.