Succeeding in Content Network

[Mike]

I've been successful in getting campaigns running profitably in the search network. Over the years with various clients I've tested the content network, and always found that it spends way too much and brings way too little revenue.

Today I started a new test and I'd like to make it work this time. A few minutes ago I tried out the placement tool to pick sites to target, and so far the first 10 or 15 sites I've looked at are less than desirable, to say the least. I started adding them as negatives but I'm wondering if I'm fighting a losing battle -- there are hundreds of these sites that are clearly all about tricking people into clicking an adsense link.

So besides the obvious things like writing good ads and having good landing pages, anyone have some thoughts on how to avoid showing up on the garbage sites, and how to succeed on the content network?

Thanks

[AussieWebmaster]

if you are using adwords try the ad placement tab... let's you choose specific sites

[BasicECommerce]

Some items lend themselves to Content Network more than others. You're trying to get someone who is not in the shopping frame of mind to buy something (impulse buy). This is one more reason why the Content Network should be treated as a branding tool and not a CPA tool. Ad viewers may remember your site when they search later.

Other than that, the best luck I've had is to flood the AdGroups with negative keywords and include negative publishers.

-BEC

[Webmaster T]

if you are using adwords try the ad placement tab... let's you choose specific sitesIf the site is in the program. I had over one hundred and exactly 1 was in the program. They should be letting me know which are in the program so I don't waste 4 hrs. of time going to many of the sites to add excluded pages back in using this method. The Webmasters building the AdSense sites should know you can only exclude individual pages that are two directories deep. Most of the entire sites I exclude are making this mistake. They do not enable you to do page excludes.

[Laughinglunatic]

I have had success with content and site match in some areas, less in others. I always separate my content campaigns from my search campaigns. Ads and keywords should be managed differently for content, and it is a slow meticulous process of building the campaigns into a successful part of your program. The problem is, you need a lot of room for trial and error.

I do spend a good amount of time excluding websites.

[Discovery]

A different angle: Go SuperMicro

Some adsense partners have content pages that are high value and stay relevant for a long time. "How To Change a Tire" article will likely change very little over time and be worthwile to create a custom placement adgroup for. Whereas "Joe Biden Fashion Tips" article may have little value or long term staying power.

If you have a decent number of months to run placement reports on, use that data to find 10 high performing content partners.

Research the site and find a page with valuable content you would like to target.

If these sites are structured with pages within the root directory you can target the exact page, meaning; you can add that URL with the page.html in your placement target list and not the whole domain.
If the pages are more than 1 directory down and out of reach, then review some of categories in the website and corresponding pages and use negative keywords to try and exclude them from running our ad and leaving the target page the most likely one to get the impressions.

IE
highperformingsite.com/palinglasses.asp - Enter directly
highperformingsite.com/election/ - Enter up to the first directory and then use negative keywords;

Now that you have the target page, create an adgroup with content keywords and placement... Turn OFF all other content placements.

Optimize your ad and landing page to be in blissful harmony with the target page. Of course use a small set of keywords that targets the content and use negatives to filter it down even further.

If you think about it 10 highly targeted pages with your ads running on it can give you a high degree of control and produce a great return. Over time you can continue to build out these micro placement campaigns. This can be a lot easier than throughing your ads into the content chasm.

Be sure to check the target pages out from time to time though, that content could change, or move!

Discovery

[Laughinglunatic]

A different angle: Go SuperMicro

Wise advice Discovery. My tendency for micro is carefully selecting websites that the content of the entire site matches the audience I am trying to reach (I have not attempted the drill down by page strategy). That does sound like a well thought out method.

To me site targeting opens up very niche marketing, while the open content network does cause me much pain and work. However, doing both correctly can compliment a search campaign. It took me about 4 years of search marketing experience before I actually condoned the use of the content network...

[Discovery]

Yes, many are not willing to risk content advertising. For years we simply called it learn and burn. The biggest game changer was knowing the adsense partners. With that all sorts of control and change could come about and it has.

Google is by far the least risky content program to use.
Yahoo is still a disaster, and I worry about Google's plans to work with them.
MSN does not have a syndicated content network, but a network of their top tier content sites which works very well for us.

Another note about placement campaigns - Be very careful when building out placements within adwords editor. AE does not produce errors for improper URLS until after you attempt to upload them. Reverting could take a long time.

Also, AE and the Google interface has accepted URLS like

thisdomain.com/sub/dir/article/ppc.asp

Yet, no impressions or clicks come through, which is likely because the URL is not valid. Perhaps others have more experience here that they can share.

Discovery

[AdWordsRep]

I've been successful in getting campaigns running profitably in the search network. Over the years with various clients I've tested the content network, and always found that it spends way too much and brings way too little revenue. [...]

Hi Mike - I thought I'd jump in briefly and point to a bunch of 'articles' about the content network, of which many advertisers are not aware. Below is one link of twelve - you'll find links to the others on the left of the page:

Content Network > Best Practices:

https://adwords.google.com/select/afc/practices.html

Some other potentially useful resources are available on the Google Business Channel over at YouTube - as detailed in this Inside AdWords blog post from back in July:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/07/content-network-video-series-on-google.html

I hope these resources prove to be of real use to you. ;)

AWR