Content-Network-Only campaigns

How to group the initial keywords

[mmitdd]

Hi guys,

I would like to ask some advice on setting up a Content-Network-Only campaign.

Let's say, for example, that I want to promote a digital product about "How to cure your acne."

Since this campaign would only run on the Content Network, I would like to reach the people who are interested in getting rid of their acne in general. I have done my initial keyword research and have found keywords that are the names of popular anti-acne drugs, anti-acne creams, general anti-acne keywords etc. For example:

Accutane, Roaccutane

Proactiv, Clean and Clear, Hydroderm

get rid of acne, how to cure acne, acne treatment gel

I use Adwords Editor to create the campaign and I was wondering if creating one adgroup for each keyword (about 200 in total) would be a good decision. This is very simple to do with a spreadsheet and Adwords Editor.

On one hand, I understand that, in Content-Network campaigns, adgroups need to contain several tightly-themed keywords, in order to help the system "theme" my ads. On the other hand, I'm afraid that adding several very different keywords in the same adgroup (like Proactiv, Clean and Clear, Hydroderm and 30 others) would confuse the system.

Also, what about creating an adgroup with terms like:

accutane
buy Accutane
Accutane Side Effects
does Accutane work
order Accutane online

I have seen very contradicting data on this subject - from online forums, Google Editors and my own campaigns. For example, I have had Content-Network-Only campaigns with one keyword per adgroup that didn't receive traffic and others that did.

I know that the answer could be something like "run it and see what happens", but I was hoping for some more "authoritative" advice. I'm willing to do what needs to be done. I just need to know what that is.

Any words of wisdom? :-)

Thanks guys...

[justshelley]

I've tried several tests lately. Some things I've learned:

sometimes the best practices suggestions from Google works great like using ten to fifteen keywords that are only one to three words long (flowers, florist, send flowers, order flowers online).

but then again, sometimes it works better if i only use two and three word long words in my group where the theme is really obvious (send flowers, order flowers, flowers online, buy flowers).

you have to be more careful about your negatives. in other words, don't get carried away with negatives. don't use blog, article, news, report, etc. as negatives.

don't use more than 50 words in your adgroup (and 50 keywords is way too many for a content adgroup)

in your case, i would remove "does Accutane work" and change "order Accutane online" to just "order Accutane" and I would add the keyword acne

[netmeg]

Content Network works completely differently from Search, and I set things up totally differently.

More ad groups, with fewer (but more tightly focused) keywords in each group.

I don't worry about getting every permutation of the keyword in the ad group - remember, this is Content, not Search. People aren't plugging in search phrases; Google needs to be able to figure out where best to place your ads. So as long as your general theme is represented well, you're probably okay.

The names of the ad groups seem to be extremely important as well.

There are no match type issues, so remove everything except for broad.

Unless you are specifically targeting to that market (and maybe with acne you are) remove myspace and youtube - you just get a ton of impressions and maybe clicks.

Watch everything *very* closely with the Placement Reports.

[ppcbuyers]

Netmeg is right, you must steer Google algo in the direction of the sites you want your ads to appear on. I use 15-30 keywords (generally one and two phrasers) per ad group, often times using duplicate keywords in ad groups. I go directly to the sites I know I want my ad to display on and pull a list of their most frequently used keywords to create my list.

Read some of David Szetel's articles at SEW, he's got some good tips as well.

[mmitdd]

Thanks guys - that helped a lot.

Cheers.

[KaloVast]

Personally, i prefer placement-targeted content network campaigns. I can search google using the keywords that best suit my product, and then elect to place my ads on the higher-ranking sites that focus on my keyword or phrase, and also offer Google Adsense. I have found the placement targeted method to be MUCH more beneficial to me than the standard keyword content network way.