I entered some (1-5) business to business words into the box and the system came op with sites for school children, photo albums and general directories (not even the right subdomain pages on those directories). For some words only 1 site was found and in one occasion no sites at all. These were very common words, with plenty of advertisers and high CPCs - should be some on topic sites available even if it were scrapers.
Tried again with a few sample sites in stead of keywords but the results were the same.
I was also disappointed it's CPM only with no choice to set a CPC price.
I'd like to see Google give an example URL of where AdSense is being displayed on some of these sites.
I've seen some sites in this arena who seem to have quality sites and adsense is nowhere to be found. If I look long enough, I might find it on the site's forum, or buried at the bottom of the page. So far, if I break down the CPCs for site targeting (which is CPM based, just doing some math), the CPC is often double or more of search/content targeting.
First- I would recommend only searching a single search term to find sites. It does appear that the searches are being done as AND searches instead of OR searches, so the number of sites that appear for multiple phrase searches are limited and not necessarily so relevant.
Second- pick much more general terms than you would ever consider for PPC. For a specific athletic product, for example, I used the term 'sports'. Then, spending even a moment on each potential site is well worth your while. There are many scraper sites that have Adsense.
Third- don't expect high CTR. Again, I think this is probably best left to branding campaigns, and not a cheap source of clicks. Many of these sites get a high number of impressions (I have found at least one site where I placed an ad where the ad displays on almost every page 24/7!), and won't necessarily pay off if you are looking for direct traffic to result.
eWhisper- you are exactly right when you say that you can't find Adsense on many of the sites listed. It is certainly the duty of the advertiser to determine which sites are best for their ads. I only look at sites with high traffic estimations, give it a few clicks, and if I don't see Adsense I check it off the list.
By the way, interesting to note, so far I'm getting better CTR from bigger sites that aren't necessarily in the client's specific category than I am from smaller sites that are well-focused. Go figure.
My biggest problem with the tool is then trying to find AdSense on these publishers sites.
Thanks in anticipation.
I was also disappointed it's CPM only with no choice to set a CPC price.
That's because they're served across the site, not contexually on specific pages. To use an analogy:
site-targeted CPM ads = magazine ads
contextual CPC ads = targeted direct mailings
The most successful site-targeted CPM ads are likely to be ads that are:
- designed for the purpose, and...
- run on niche sites where audiences are likely to be interested in what the advertiser is selling (not unlike enthusiast and trade publications in the print world).
Also, I can't find the niche sites you suggest (and which I was looking for) because the are simply not in the list.
I can't get much broader than "business" can I?
I was surprised to hear about your results, so I did the same search myself. I got a full page of results including some of the major players out there (some quite relevant to the terms you mentioned). Are there other factors in the campaign setup that are affecting the results we see?
Also, I noted that the "Get More Sites" feature seems to be a quirky beast. It appeared to only work after I moved all search results to the 'selected sites' column, and then I was treated to a brand new full list of sites to choose from.
The "fetch more sites" returns almost the same sites - little useful.
What also struck me is what happens when you click on the domain names to see what sites they are. Half of them give a 404. You can of course blame the sites for this if you wish (they could have provided a non www version for the lazy ones), but I blame Google for not linking advertisers to the correct version.
EFV, site targeting is no excuse for not charging clicks in my opinion, like you can count coupons from a magazine. That's what has always been the advantage of online marketing: you pay for what you get.
- CPM ads have been on the Web for years, so the suggestion that paying per click "has always been the advantage of online marketing" is inaccurate.
- CPM advertisers do pay for what they get (or get what they pay for): advertising impressions.
- Some advertisers prefer CPC; others prefer CPM. Google offers both options. Isn't choice a good thing?
Thanks. ;)
AWA
What I mean is: keyword advertising and site targeted advertising are different ways of targeting your ads. I don't see why one should be CPC and others CPM only. Now that you mention it, I'm sure some people would like CPM for keywords as well...
Anyway, this was just a sidenote in my first post.
I didnt expect it to be 100%.
Now that I run it for a couple of days I'm not displeased by the results. After I've finally found some suitable sites the results are good so far. We are looking for leads, not branding and so far I've kicked out one expensive non performer. The average eCPC has been is slightly lower than our keyword CPC and I've already seen one of our ads in expanded format on one site. *knock* *knock*.
No mark for deleted sites when "show deleted" is selected? :(
What I mean is: keyword advertising and site targeted advertising are different ways of targeting your ads. I don't see why one should be CPC and others CPM only. Now that you mention it, I'm sure some people would like CPM for keywords as well...
I agree completely, and maybe we'll see greater advertiser control over the placement of CPC and CPM ads as time goes by. The recent addition of domain blocking for advertisers and site-targeted CPM ads may be baby steps, but at least they're steps in the right direction.
