A Second Look at the Google Adwords Content Network

If you have used keyword-based PPC contextual advertising through the Google or Yahoo content networks in the past and have opted out because of disappointing ad click-through and conversion rates you may give content advertising a second chance.

Contextual Advertising
Keyword-based contextual advertising is driven by an ad system that scans the text content of a Web site for keywords and then dynamically places ads that are related to those keywords on the web site’s web pages. Although both, Google and Yahoo have contextual advertising networks, and Microsoft will soon have a keyword-based contextual advertising system as part of the adCenter product, for the purpose of this newsletter article we focus primarily on the Google Adwords Content Network.

New Tools for Managing Content Network Campaigns
Over the last 6 months Google has introduced two new tools that will give advertisers and online marketers more control over managing and optimizing contextual advertising campaigns. The first major improvement is in the area of campaign management. Advertisers and online marketers can now create placement performance reports that allow them to see all web sites in the content network that are sending them traffic. The placement performance reports also provide detailed information on campaign performance, including the number of impressions and total clicks generated by those web sites and cost per conversion. The second new feature that is impacting campaign performance positively is the ability to “block” or “exclude” web sites with low conversion rates so that only high performance sites are sending visitors to the advertisers’ web site or landing page.

The major factors that have contributed to the lower performance of keyword-based contextual advertising campaigns compare to search campaigns are:
 

	The nature of keyword-based contextual advertising, which treats ad content as secondary to web site content. Ads on the page are not as actively read as search ads.
	Not running separate campaigns for search and contextual advertising. By default the PPC ad networks are forcing users to control and manage contextual advertising campaigns from the same control dashboard using the same campaign parameters (campaign structures, keyword set, ad text and bidding strategies) as PPC paid search campaigns.
	The less than perfect content targeting technology used to match keyword ad groups and text ads to related content pages and placing ads on those pages.

Content matching can be improved by creating “tightly-themed” ad groups containing a small number of related keyword phrases with relevant text ads associated to those keyword phrases. In content network campaigns advertisers are not bidding on individual keywords; the keywords work in combination with the ad group's ad text to direct the content matching algorithm to place ads on relevant web site pages.

By using negative keywords, both singular and plural, the content matching technology can be directed not to display ads on pages that contain keywords that are marked as negative keywords. Negative keywords are placed in the ad group with the regular keywords.

Benefits of Content Network Campaigns
The Google Content Network can help advertisers expand their advertising reach far beyond the search results page of the search engines and create additional qualified leads and sales. The major benefits of Google’s contextual advertising system are:

	Lower pay-per-click cost. The cost-per-click prices on properly optimized Google Content Network campaigns are about half of what they are in the Google Search Network, which means that the customer acquisition costs are significantly lower than in the search network.
	Reach. Due to its vast reach, the Google Content Network can offer advertisers and online marketers more than twice the number of leads and sales they receive from the Google Search Network.

Google AdWords Content Network Partner Sites
Previously the Google Content Network consisted primarily of small, unknown publishers, but lately more highly visible sites have joined. Nowadays, the Google Content Network includes a wide network of publishing partners that range from established online properties such as the New York Times and CNN to niche blogs and social networks such as MySpace.

Basic Steps for Google Content Network Campaign Optimization
By implementing a few basic campaign management procedures and practices and using the new tools available in the Google Content Network advertisers and online marketers can significantly improve the performance of contextual advertising in the Google Content Network. They are:

	Campaign set-up. The first step towards improved campaign performance is to run a separate contextual advertising campaign with unique campaign parameters - campaign structure, keyword set, ad text and bidding strategies. It is imperative that keywords and ad text are grouped into “tightly-themed” ad groups. Ideally each group should be around 10 keywords, but not more then 20 keywords.
	Block non-performing sites. Advertisers and online marketers must use the “site exclusion” or “site blocking” tool to prohibit ads from appearing on non-performing sites that produce very few clicks and sales and leads at a high acquisition cost.
	Ad text. Advertisers and online marketers must write ad text specifically for contextual advertising. Since content ads are not as explicitly pursued as ads in the search network they must compete with other content that appears on the page. In addition, most web users who are reading ads on content pages are not yet in the beginning of buying cycle, in fact, they are often are not even in research mode. So the goal of an ad click-through is not to make a sale, but to peak the readers' interest and persuade them to take simple actions.
	Bidding. Unlike PPC paid search, keyword bidding in the Google Content Network takes place at the ad group level and not at the keyword level, as is the case in the Search Network.
	Ad ranking. Most content network sites display from 2 to 4 ads per page, so advertisers must make sure that the keyword and ad text “theme” is highly targeted and the maximum cost-per-click is high enough for the ads to appear and to rank in the top positions on the page.
	Campaign performance monitoring. Advertisers must run Placement Performance reports frequently to get an insight into how well the contextual advertising campaigns are performing and to determine which sites do not perform well and need to be excluded.