Strategy for ad groups in a content campaign

[SEMblahblah]

How do I structure ad grps in a content campaign? The ad group theme can be created merely by 4-5 k/ws. In that case, do I have only these 4-5 k/ws or expand the ad group by adding more no. of k/ws (still keeping the ad group very closely knit)? Would the no. of impressions received differ in each of these cases (assuming the ad copy, lp, etc used would be the same in both cases)?

Secondly, is there anyway that Google assigns quality to a content ad group like it does to a k/w in the search campaign? It can assign "bids too low", etc to a k/w in a search campaign if it does not find it very relevant..how does it take care of the same in a content campaign?

[edited by: SEMblahblah at 9:10 am (utc) on Sep. 22, 2008]

[netmeg]

In my Content campaigns, I keep the ad groups very small - just enough keywords to accurately represent the theme or focus that I'm going for. I also believe the *name* of the ad group is very important - remember, there's no user generated search terms, so you have to give Google as many clues as possible so they can figure out how and where to display your ads.

You don't need match types, and I personally don't believe you need long lists of long tail keywords either.

If you have image ads, break them off into another campaign, because you have to bid them differently (you have to bid enough on an image to outbid three or four ads in a single AdSense block)

There is definitely a quality score for Content Network. This is what the AdWords doc says about it:

Is a Quality Score calculated for my contextually-targeted ads?

Yes. As part of our goal to improve and maintain advertising quality within AdWords, our performance review system frequently evaluates the quality of keywords and ads in campaigns that are opted in to our content network. The system then assigns Quality Scores to your ads that influences their rank and price on the content network.

How we determine Quality Scores for the content network

A Quality Score is calculated for your ad each time it's eligible to appear on a content network placement. The following factors are considered:

• The relevance of the ad and keywords to the placement[/li]
  
• Your ad's performance history on that and similar placements[/li]
  
• The quality of your ad's landing page[/li]

Quality Score is calculated in this way whether or not you have selected placements in your ad group, and whether your content network setting is 'Relevant pages only on the placements I target' or 'Relevant pages across the entire network.'

How Quality Score affects your ads on the content network

Quality Score is used to rank your ads on content network placements. The better your Quality Score, the higher your ad position.

Quality Score also affects your eligibility to enter the ad auction. Lower-quality ads may require a higher bid to compete in the auction. Fewer impressions on the content network may mean your Quality Score isn't high enough for your ads to be shown at your current maximum CPC or CPM bid. If you'd like to receive more impressions without working to improve your ad quality, you'll need to increase your maximum bid.

Full page found here:http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48863

[SEMblahblah]

thanks netmeg!

[avalon37]

Has anyone else seen conversion decline on the Content network lately?

[SEMblahblah]

one more thing netmeg...say i'm running a standard keyword based content campaign and I identify some site to be performing well...so do I add the same to a separate site targeted campaign or do I use the feature where you can have both keywords and placements in the same ad group. I'm basically trying to figure out the best use of this feature (both k/ws and placements) in a content campaign.
But would this be the best thing to do if I want to target all other placements by just keywords (as they stand now) and target just this one placement separately?

any help would be much appreciated!

[edited by: SEMblahblah at 10:06 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2008]

[netmeg]

If it was really performing well, I'd separate it out to a site targeted campaign, where I can get a clearer picture of how it's doing and can play with the CPC and daily budget till I get the best performance possible out of it.