Curiosities About Google Content Network

[mk23]

I’m just trying to get a better understanding of what happens when “content network” is selected in AdWords instead of “search network” in the campaign settings. Of course when I use “search network,” I take advantage of exact match, phrase match, and negative match. But if I have an account set up just for “content network” ads, would there be any point in taking the time to make the keywords exact match, phrase match, and negative match?

Because the ad is showing up according to the content of the site, and not what the visitor typed in, do these match features even work with “content network”? Should I just enter my keywords in the broad match format? Thanks for any ideas.

[AdWordsRep]

I’m just trying to get a better understanding of what happens when “content network” is selected in AdWords instead of “search network” in the campaign settings. Of course when I use “search network,” I take advantage of exact match, phrase match, and negative match. But if I have an account set up just for “content network” ads, would there be any point in taking the time to make the keywords exact match, phrase match, and negative match?

Because the ad is showing up according to the content of the site, and not what the visitor typed in, do these match features even work with “content network”? Should I just enter my keywords in the broad match format? Thanks for any ideas. Hi mk23 - since this question has gone a day without an answer, I thought I'd jump in with at least a little basic 'background' info. I am a bit pushed for time just now, so may make this short and try to fill in the blanks later. ;) I hope others here will jump in as well, with their personal experiences.

Anyway, one key piece of info is that delivery of ads to the content network is not based on individual keywords. Rather, it is based on an overview of all keywords within an Ad Group taken together. Essentially the AdWords system will look for the concept(s) represented by the list of keywords, and then deliver your ads to pages of content on these same concept(s).

Given that this is the case, it'll probably be clear that the ideal way to organize your advertising for the content network is to create extremely targeted Ad Groups in which the ad is a clearly and crisply written ad about one thing, and the entire keyword list that brings up that ad is made up of words about precisely that same thing.

When you do this the concept of the Ad Group becomes crystal clear, and it is much easier for the system to put your ad on the right pages.

Throwing moderately related words (or even worse, unrelated keywords) into the keyword list only serves to water down the system's ability to 'understand' the central concept, and is therefore to be avoided.

Luckily, this is also the best way to organize your advertising for the search network too. Ad Groups with a razor sharp focus on one thing are the way to go in my opinion.

I bring this up since many advertisers are not aware that when you are opted in to 'just the content network' your ads will still show up on Google.com - which is, of course, a search site. ;)

Just my $0.02

Hope that helps somewhat.

AWR

[mk23]

Thanks for the helpful info - I'm sure your busy after the "big transition" yesterday.

[AussieWebmaster]

Well explained AWR... had a long day and did not get to that one until now, so glad you were handy.

You put it as good as I have seen anywhere. Stack the AdGroups with similiar terms and write the creatives to cover the group as a whole. Keyword Inserts really don't work well... the keyword that gets the most work in the group generally becomes a 4 word phrase that captures two concepts if looked at separately.

[ztalk112]

Thanks AWR for reiterating the fact that contextual ads are triggered based on an AdGroup’s theme, not by the individual keywords in that AdGroup.

Further to which, I'm interested to learn more about a strategy I've read a little about here for use with campaigns created primarily for the content network.

The strategy involves creating AdGroups that target the content of existing news and feature articles already posted across the web that look likely to attract your target customer.

One example of this strategy might be using the headline of an existing article as a keyword phrase.

Do you have any tips on how to implement such a strategy effectively?

Thanks in anticipation.

[ApogeeWebLLC]

Because the ad is showing up according to the content of the site, and not what the visitor typed in, do these match features even work with “content network”? Should I just enter my keywords in the broad match format? Thanks for any ideas.
I'd avoid being too broad in a content campaign. One note about match types: I've noticed that negative keywords don't work for content sites. For example, we had a client where we had keywords like recipe and recipes as negatives yet their ads were plastered on recipe sites. We turned off the content option.

I recommend splitting your ad groups across separate campaigns, one for search and one for content. Read this article for more info (it's also on the Search Engine Guide site):

http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/sem_articles/contextual_advertising_google.html

(Posted the link rather than the whole article)

-Rich

[AussieWebmaster]

Rich last post with link drops... otherwise take it to beta area