Does the Display Network Still Suck?

I'm about to venture into the Display Network... but am wary.

[shoffy]

In the past I've had little to no success with the Display Network. I'm not an advanced user, but I do have some knowledge that I avoid some beginner mistakes.

Would anyone be kind enough to review my strategy to promote a site that offers an email solution for commerce?

1. Separate Campaign for Display Network
   
2. Excluding gmail.com & myspace.com (any others?)
   
3. Creating small (10-15) keyword clustered AdGroups
   I know I can go as high as 50, but at that point, I seem to get some very strange results. Do plurals matter? Different word orders (email marketing, marketing email)
   
4. Enabling Automatic Placement
   
5. Adding Topics
   
6. Enabling Remarketing
   
7. Reviewing automatic placement after 2 days to find relevant sites, exclude non relevant
   
8. Use managed placement tool to find other relevant sites
   
9. Stop using automatic placements (is this wise?)
   

I'm also curious about the "topics" tab. Is there a way to ONLY target those topics? Such as, keep automatic placements but only display on sites I denote in topics?

Thank you for your time and expertise in advance. I am wary of the Display Network because, as you know, you can waste a lot of budget fast. But I need to find new avenues to get impressions as we're dealing with such a niche market.

I look forward to hearing from you.

[RhinoFish]

#2 -- your product sounds like b2b, don't exclude gmail, the biz folks emailing about email commerce solutions should be great targets for you.

#3 -- use the contextual targeting tool within adwords to help you form the cluster.

#5, #6 -- i'd do a separate campaign for #6 for sure, likely #5 as well - because your message may differ from keyword targeted, esp for remarketed. with remarketing, don't chase too hard, use the limits available.

#9 -- sites add new content, things change, don't stop it, just manage it.

once you add remarketing tags, revisit the topic only targeting.

Display Network is a strong place to advertise - don't worry - but do use your bid and budget settings to control your spend / ROAS.

experiment with banners too.

have fun!

[justshelley]

No...the display network doesn't suck (like it used to)

I teach a few strategies for successful targeting in the display network including:

1) combining topics and high traffic sites (possibly top 100 or top 1000 sites)
2) combining high traffic sites and keywords
3) separate campaigns for: branding, lead generation, high priority managed placements vs low priority manage placements, retargeting, geo settings, desktop vs mobile or iPad targeting
4) separate adgroups for: different ad types (example :text and image ads), testing new ads
5) gmail managed placement tactics by combining the placement with one keyword per AdGroup

If you understand how Google's display network works, its easier to make it do what you want it to do. You seem to be on the right track though by trying a variety of tactics.

[shoffy]

Thank you both so much! Very helpful!

I especially appreciated these tips:

- Keep Gmail (yes we're b2b) so that was enlightening. I worry about excessive impressions... is putting it in it's own campaign silly?

- Separate Topics and Remarketing into their own campaigns. I'm still new to the feature, so I'll have to look into this further as to "how" but thank you for the point in the right direction

I did use the contextual tool and it was interesting. Created groups 2-4 phrases in size. Some seemed to be redundant. But perhaps that's the point?
- Put text and image ads into separate groups

[netmeg]

I have a B2B client who was getting so many *conversions* from gmail that yea, I put it in its own campaign.

[shoffy]

Very encouraging netmeg! Thank you! I think I may search for to see if there are any tips on how to write ads that are particularly effective in Gmail.

[LucidSW]

1. Yes, keep search and display separate.

9. Yes, stop using automatic placement. Most display campaigns should be managed placement which means points 2, 3, 4 are not good strategies unless there's a very good reason to use automatic placement but most times, there isn't. Instead of spending time excluding sites, spend it researching sites where you do want to show.

[shoffy]

Quick follow up - I'm still new to the AdWords remarketing concept.

Is it possible to only show up in the display network if the visitor has visited your site before?

[LucidSW]

Yes, that's the idea of remarketing, to only show your ads to those who have visited your site before.

[shoffy]

Thanks Lucid. I think I may have been unclear w/ my question though.

What I'd like to know is can I do anything to prevent ads from showing on the content network unless they've been to my site first?

For example, I don't want to appear on a low quality site. However, if some who has visited my site and goes to a low quality site, I would like to appear.

Maybe I'm repeating myself. Thanks for bearing w/ me.

[justshelley]

Its possible to put the code on your website on every page (like on the global footer) and then build your list from people who visit your site from paid search clicks, SEO, referrals, email campaigns and other promotions. You can then set up that audience/list for remarketing ads in the Google Display Network.

[RhinoFish]

justshelley is correct, but to take it a step further, you can also build a more specific remarketing list (or lists). instead of every page, you might add the "build a remarketing list" code on certain pages, even on your facebook page for instance. so you can tailor interesting strategies in addition to the "have visited any page of my site" list. see here for more ideas:

from adwords help files...
Strategies for setting up remarketing campaigns
[adwords.google.com...]