Setting up a PPC campaign targetting Google Reader

adwords, campaign settings, PPC settings, Placement settings, Google Reader

[PPCQuery]

Hi:

I have set up a managed placement campaign in Google Adwords.

There is only one placement that I am targetting - Google Reader.

In the campaign there are multiple adgroups, each with keywords.

For some reason the campaign is not delivering any impressions! Its been weeks now!

In the placement i have tried both versions of the url -
www.google.com/reader
reader.google.com

Neither helped!

Anyone else experienced the same issue? Any resolutions for this problem?

Thanks

[LucidSW]

Many things affect how many impressions you will get.

First, if you are targeting a specific site, obviously if those sites are not visited a lot, you won't get many impressions.

Second, your ads are ranked according to your quality and bid. You may simply not be bidding high enough for the quality of your ads. In other words, competitors are out-ranking you. Two solutions: increase bid or increase quality. The second option is always best.

Third, if you use managed placement, you shouldn't use keywords. Although in your case, you should from what I can tell looking at Google Reader to see what it actually is. I question why you want to advertise there. I don't even see ads so maybe that's the problem.

[PPCQuery]

Hi:

Google Reader is a heavily visited site! And our bids too are reasonably high...

The ads we are using are the same as what we use on other websites... and they are doing quite well!

Regarding the last point... we prefer to use keywords because not only do we want to target a website, we also want to be sure the ads are contextually targeted. You may be aware that this is a change Google effected earlier this year...

regards
rahul

[LucidSW]

My point is, there is likely nothing on Google Reader that is contextually targeted. It's a dynamic site, right? So if nothing on the page relates to your keywords at that moment (doesn't quite work that way but let's say it does), your ads won't show.

Since the site is dynamic, yes, use keywords so that your ads show when a related story appears there. But I still don't see any Adwords there so I think that's the problem.

Define "reasonably high".

[PPCQuery]

Reasonably high here is Rs 18 per click...

I am Google Reader user, and it does show Adsense ads!

Regards
Rahul

[LucidSW]

You can't think of a high bid by what you think is high. Your bid has to be taken in context of the going rate. If I advertise insurance, you would of course think that bidding $5 is high if your idea of a high bid is 50 cents. But in the cutthroat insurance industry where they pay $50 for a lead and it can be worth thousands, it's nothing.

You have to figure out what value other advertisers are placing on clicks for advertising on GR. If it happens to be more than Rs 18 (what, about $0.35 US?) - and it likely is - you are already behind and we have not yet taken your ad quality into account.

Increase your reasonably high RS 18 bid to 60 or more, you may start showing - if that bid and ad quality warrants outranking others advertising on that site.

[eWhisper]

I'm pretty sure that Google reader does not serve any ads.

Google reader is a place to read feeds. If the feed itself has ads in it, then the ads can be displayed within Google reader - but the feed itself is serving the ad - not G reader.

You need to target the sites who are using AdSense for Feeds with placement targeting.

In the placement targeting tool, you can filter by the different types of placements. Choose just feeds and then find the placements you want to target. Of course, these ads will show in their feed regardless of the technology used to read the feed (Google reader, Outlook, etc).