Content Network - Anybody on positive side?

adwords content network

[smallcompany]

I just replied to a question about how to organize search vs. content in Google AdWords.

That prompted me to post this message.

Question:

Is there anyone who has established a content campaign with any positive ROI?

I’ve just run a report that shows on which sites my ads were showing and immediately learned why I had no single sale after 281,508 impressions, 2,162 clicks, CTR of 0.77%, average CPC of $0.48 and the total of $1,030.38 CAD spent.

The first site (based on number of clicks) would give me “not authorized” on places where AdSense ads are supposed to show. I thought, maybe because I was on the site with IP outside of US, so I used Proxify with US based IP and actually got clean site with no ads at all. I am still puzzled.

The second site is a parked site (at Network Solutions) that serves AdSense ads only.

The third site says “Undefined” which is self explanatory.

The fourth site is something I would let my ads run on.

And so on, for the total of 1,543 rows in that report. Each row corresponds to a landing page which means, not necessarily that my ads were showing on same number of different sites.

This report is great because you can enter those “finicky” sites into your exclusion list and filter them out. It is just about who is going to watch and maintain that. I would rather have Google AdWords maintaining their list.

Long story short, total disappointment, and still no clue how I could make money through this part of the network, realistically.

[arieng]

Our content campaigns generate about 10:1 return. We've had to scale it back immensely to get that, but it is still a significant portion of our overall campaign.

[smallcompany]

So on each $100 spent you earn $1,000.

Very impressive, honestly.

Correct me if I am wrong, but your conversion here is $10 per each click if we take you pay $1 per click on average.

What do you sell? :)

[admagix]

From my experience, content network will be profitable for some Porduct/Services and will never be profitable for many Products/Services.

[beesticles]

My thoughts are that you have to work really hard on your campaign structure to get content to produce a return. In some ways, I think it's much more difficult than getting search to work, because you're using the keywords within an adgroup as an opaque proxy to control which sites you appear on.

You'll need to put in time to find the right adgroup structure, negatives (keyword and site) and bid levels to get a decent ROI. The question is, of course, whether that time would be better spent on something else.

[smallcompany]

I agree. Time is an issue. Figuring which types of sites would be good from ROI perspective is time consuming and hard to do. AdSense is excellent program for decent revenue creation which ultimately brings problems on. Considering number of sites and ads being in the game, Google obviously has a hard time in managing all of those.
It seems to me that as the product or service is less popular, or of a fine rare kind, with small group of consumers, those are that low quality sites with non-converting traffic (including invalid clicks) are not going after.

So, if you know a company selling shoes for the moon, let me know. :) Some of the space tourists may want them.

[mimmo]

We basically stopped almost completely the Content Network until we will be able to actively select which web sites to advertise on. There are too many non-converting web sites in the Content Network (for our product). We did exclude the ones we know, but new ones show up every day.

[trinorthlighting]

We only advertise on the pay per action side. At least then we do not have to worry about click fraud.

[budbiss]

We do not use the content network, it seems like it just wastes money for us. We sell business related equipment to businesses, but perhaps if you sell a different type of product (or service) to a different type of customer (e.g. consumers), then you may achieve better results.

[trinorthlighting]

Try the pay per action. That way if you do not have a sale, you do not have to pay

[smallcompany]

I am not sure if that works with affiliates.

[farmboy]

We only advertise on the pay per action side. At least then we do not have to worry about click fraud.

But aren't you exposed to other types of fraud with PPA?

FarmBoy

[venrooy]

I do extremely well on the content network. You have to separate your content network campaigns, from your search network campaigns if you want it to work well.

You have to keep a close eye on the websites you advertise on, and quickly get rid of those that don't convert. But once you do find one that converts, it's like finding a gold mine. And you usually can make back the money you wasted trying to find the converting site - and then some.

I have several sites that have given me a minimal of 150% ROI since last December.

But you do have to keep a close eye on it, and have good tracking in place. Because there are a plethora of sites that will clean you out if you don't keep an eye on them.

[zomega42]

venrooy, how do you track which sites are performing well? Does this mean you only use site-targeted campaigns?

[venrooy]

With google's tracking code, it's easy to know which sites are converting. You keep your keyword-targeted and site-targeted campaigns separate. That means that when you run a keyword-targeted campaign you opt out of the content network for that campaign. With site-targeted campaigns, you control which websites your ad shows up on. And you can track their performance with google's conversion tracking code.