Selecting Content Network - Failured in My Case

Impression Increased up to 10,000 with Not Even single Click

[bava_seo]

Hi,
I Have done an experiment today by selecting Content network for one of my xyz Campaign, you know what happened - Shocked, Surprised.
Actually for an xyz campaign there will be 200 impressions everyday, But today i have enabled content network for the same xyz campaign and went out for a while and come back after 3 hours to check out what happening in my xyz campaign - shocked, surprised there were 10,000 impressions with in 3 hours with zero clicks. Immediatly i disabled Content Network from the settings.
I would like to know How Content Network is Helpfull in this google adwords. your tips,suggestions,opinions are most welcome.

[Habtom]

This could be a narrow way of approaching the issue, but since I disabled Content Network, then only I was able to make a fair amount of profit. The Content Network shot up the ad costs, but couldn't generate equivalent amount of sales.

Habtom

[bava_seo]

Hmm.. Exactly your are right with Content Network we cant make Good CTR & Minimum CPC - Obviously We can't Increase our sales, Profits with no return of Investments (ROI).
Better to disable Conent Network

Bava_seo

[SanDiego Art]

If you monitor your Content Network campaigns and set appropriate bid amounts, it can be just as if not more profitable than the Search Network. This does of course vary by industry and advertiser, but it is possible to profit off the Content Network.

I'm not sure why you were in such a rush to disable it though. You didn't SPEND any additional money and got 10,000 impressions on contextually relevant websites. Even though you didn't get any clicks, you basically got free "banner" advertising on a variety of website in Google's Content Network.

When using the Content Network, I would definately recommend creating seperate campaigns (disable the Google and Search networks - leaving only Content Network enabled). That way you can control the Max CPCs you are willing to pay. I would set them LOWER than what you pay in the Search Network, as the traffic is usually more curious than in "buying" mode.

Again, if you aren't getting clicks, what do you care? You aren't paying for anything until you get a click... (assuming this isn't SITE targeted)

[toddb]

you do not have to make a seperate campaign as the content network has a different bid on it then the keywords.

[RhinoFish]

10,000 imps, no clicks... with just a 1% ctr, you'd have snagged 100 relevant visitors... and 1% is most often well within reach. have someone else who knows ppc give you their opinion on your targeting, your ctr tells me something's likely amiss here...

assuming you are targeting correctly (you ctr says differently), keep in mind that creatives are a competition for attention - position yourself with relevancy and uniqueness, not loudness (bold, blinky). keep this analogy in mind... you walk into a room, perhaps an art gallery (or a lab, or a store, or living room - chose a room that's connected to what you're selling) and there are roughly 10 other people scattered about, you immediately notice the girl in one corner because she's wearing a neon yellow felt hat and a pink jumpsuit... she's caught your eye, but you quickly judge that you really don't want to "click" with her... as you continue to scan, you make judgments about everything you see, even if you don't explicitly focus on each individual or object in the room... in your mind's image of that room right now, write down the adjectives of what interests you most. those are your banner ad design goals.

here's one example of those goals... as you scanned that room, you undoubtedly looked for people first, not the objects like furniture or the flooring - it's our nature to observe people first. make it a goal to always have at least one banner in your quiver that has a human face on it, my internal studies show it makes a very significant difference. the human eye is attracted to other human eyes, it's how we greet in person before we examine further and begin to make judgments of interest - it's how we connect and notice people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there are subtle ways to stand out without the neon hat routine, one is to be different than all the others. video ads are currently one such opportunity. i don't personally know anyone else using the video ads on google's content network, but they do very well for me. perhaps the lack of others doing it is why i get such good play rates and clicks at a very low cost per visitor (for a very high margin product). not every theme is well suited to video, but it's well worth the effort in many areas (especially if you own video content already). G's video ads are like banners ads on steroids - if you've found success with banners, i strongly suggest you give video some thought.

i also hear people say that banners don't work, that's just not true. experiment with loads of banner variants, G's system makes it easy to do so, whether your content and search are split into separate ad groups or not. i'd urge people to break their banner mold, do something different. admittedly, this is hard to do becasue of habits and ownership traits we develop as humans. farm out a few new banners and see what others come up with. allow those folks lots of creative freedom and see what comes. once in a while, when farming out creative, do something to prevent the artists from conforming to your current style - like don't tell them what website the ads are for. in any case, farming out creative is inexpensive and inspiring, new ideas flow into your ad inventory coffers quickly. i like the elements section of DesignOutpost for banner creation experiments, but there are plenty of sites like it where banner artists will chase new designs for you and you only pay for those you choose to award as the winners in the creation competition.

i could on for days... :-)

here's the kicker... so can you.

the richness of opportunity waiting for advertisers in the content network play is an amazing thing to behold. keep playing in it, the feedback loops G has in place will practically force you to try new things as experiments, and that's when it begins to really become fun. your failure you've had here should be viewed as one more step taken, towards your eventual success. so keep walking, there's fun just ahead.

[edited by: RhinoFish at 1:27 pm (utc) on Oct. 2, 2007]

[SanDiego Art]

You don't HAVE to have seperate campaigns but I think it makes management and performance reviews easier when they are separate. For example, on the Campaign Overview screen - if you had a bunch of Content impressions mixed in with the Search, you really don't know how well you are performing because the CTR can get so skewed by the relatively high impressions on the Content Network vs. the Search. While it doesn't affect your Quality Score, these "extra" impressions cloud the numbers at a quick glance. Yes, you can run Reports and filter, but I'm talking about easy, quick spot checks from the main screens.

Just a recommendation...

[nakita_dog]

One of the most important AdWords rules is to never mix search and content in one campaign. Sure you can set different bids for the search and content parts of the campaign, however you cannot tell the content network to only consume 10% of the daily budget while giving 90% of the daily budget to the search network.

Keeping the networks separate allows you to control the content network's ability to consume your entire daily budget in a blink of an eye.