How To Get Better Results From Content Network PPC Campaigns
By Anna Johnson on February 14th, 2010For many, if not most, search engine marketers, running pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns in the content networks (e.g. websites that run Google Adwords ads as part of Google’s Adsense network) is a risky proposition. If you’re not careful, you can very easily lose a lot of money on low quality clicks that don’t convert into sign -ups or sales.
Yet, if advertising in the content networks was so ineffective, no-one would advertise in them. The reality is, however, that plenty of Internet marketers participate in the content networks… so, at least some of them must know what they’re doing, right?
So what’s the secret to getting a positive return on investment (ROI) from advertising in the content networks?
One major ‘secret’ is to target websites, rather than keywords. It’s sort of obvious that advertising in the content networks requires a different approach to advertising based on keyword searches. But, perhaps because search engines such as Google make it all too easy to expand a search campaign to the content networks – literally as easy as clicking a check-box – Internet marketers have fallen into the trap of applying the same principles to content advertising as to search.
They’re not the same thing! When it comes to advertising in the content networks, you want to target websites for your ads. It’s logical: if you can advertise on websites that appeal to the same target audience as your ads, then you’re likely to get more, and higher quality (converting) clicks, and a higher ROI.
Now, for the very best results on a per-site basis you would tailor ads to a particular site – yes, approach individual sites rather than advertise in a content network. But if you want to go for scale and lower cost, rather than precision and a higher cost, you can still advertise in a content network and go some way towards matching your ads to a given website.
You simply find the sites you want to advertise on, notice the unique words and phrases in the content of those sites, and then use the same unique words and phrases in your ads.
For example, if you sell dog insurance and want to advertise in Google’s Adsense network then you might find sites aimed at dog breeders that run Google Adsense ads. Then, in targeting these sites, you might look for keywords that are unique to the dog breeding community and include these in your ads.
This approach requires more time and effort than simply checking a box to extend your search campaign to the content network… but the higher pay-off will likely be worth it.
