Let me be the first to say that, yes – the content network can be confusing if you’re new to it. It doesn’t help that Google includes it by default in every new campaign and that it must be disabled manually from every search campaign. I hope this will be helpful to those of you who still struggle to understand it, and that you can set up your first profitable campaigns on content with the use of this info.
First of all, when creating a new campaign for the content network – disable the Search network. You want your content network campaign to only bring in contextual traffic.
Second, you don’t wanna load up thousands of keywords to a content campaign without some organization to it all. So let’s get started with my personal list of tips…
1) Keep the number of keywords per adgroup low (15-30, no more than 50) and closely related
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2) Google ignores phrase and exact match on Content, so you need to rely on your negative keyword list to narrow down the matches. So if one of your keywords are “widget investments”, your ad may also show up on sites talking about forex investments and property investments. In that case, you need to add “forex” and “property” as negative keywords. This to better target your ads, reduce the amount of curious (but not serious) tire-kickers, increase your CTR and conversion rate.
3) Build up a large negative keyword list for each adgroup (and it may not be wise to re-use the same neg. kw list for all adgroups because you may accidentally block out things unintentionally). Put just as much care into building a good negative keyword list as you do building your regular kw list. The purpose of the negatives is to filter away sites that may have SOME of your words on them – but are irrelevant to your offer.
4) Google looks at the keywords in your adgroup as well as your actual ad in order to figure out where to place your ad, so make sure your ad contains (or is themed to) the keywords for that adgroup. Google will then, based on the most common “theme” of your keywords, assign your adgroup to a certain category on their network. You can download a list of these categories here.
Whenever I plan a new content network campaign, I use that list as a base for picking out the categories most suitable for my campaign. I then do some keyword and URL research that would be a good fit for those categories.
5) You can split-test two identical campaigns – one with CPM bidding, and one with CPC. ROI can be very different on the two bidding models, but one isn’t always better than the other.
6) I also recommend trying out site-targetting in another campaign. It requires some more work to find good sites, but there are some real goldmines to be found. I’ve found particular pages yielding 80%+ CTR on my ads.
7) Content QS is pretty much all about CTR. The trick is to find a middle ground between bringing in as many clickers as possible while filtering out non-converting tire-clickers at the same time. In short: be inventive and use shock value if need be, but also stay somewhat honest about what you are sending the clicker to.
You can have multiple campaigns and adgroups with some of the same keywords used in all of them – just not IDENTICAL adgroups or campaigns.
So one adgroup could be:
“blue widgets”
“dumb widgets”
“widgets discounts”
“widget facts”
“witgeds”
And another one could be:
“red widgets”
“dumb widgets”
“widget facts”
“widget scams”
“holiday widgets”
9) Always keep an eye on your placement reports and weed out sites with abysmal CTRs / conversions. Set aside a day or two and do some research on what sites you can target with site-targeted campaigns. It can be time-consuming to find a good list of sites or even better; specific pages to target – but it can REALLY pay off. I’ve found pages that have seen consistent 80% ctr for a very specific offer.
10) I personally also block certain sites like myspace and about.com right off the bat. They tend to bring nothing but millions of impressions and shitty ctr / no conversions.
Planning and Managing a Content Network Campaign
You need a completely different keyword approach for search vs. content. In search, you’re looking to bring in traffic based on more or less a specific product or solution the user was actively looking for.
In content, you’re trying to bring them in as they are not necessarily actively looking for an ad or a link, but you wanna have your ads present on the pages and sites they visit.
Therefore – you should research two different keyword sets. On content, you will usually have a larger negative keyword list, for example.
Having it in its own campaign also makes sense from a management point of view. You can give each campaign its own ad-scheduling and budget. Budgeting a search campaign can also be very different than budgeting a content campaign in the same niche, for the same product.
For both search and content campaigns however; always set up smaller, tight adgroups with closely related keywords (if doing keyword-based content). For placement-content, break it up into several site adgroups based on site themes and demographics.
Text ads or Image ads
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I have personally always had more success with image ads in my content campaigns, but by all means – you should test text ads also. In some cases, audiences could be prone to banner blindness and take your text ads more seriously. So come up with some text ads, but also take the time to add some image ads to your adgroups. Your options are to create your own, have someone create them for you, or to use the default creatives as supplied by your network (although they’re normally not that good in my opinion).
Keyword Grouping and Adgroup Setup
I see people using keyword lists based around adding a prefix or suffix to the same root keyword.
This is an approach suitable for search campaigns, but not really for content. When deciding on keywords for a content adgroup, try to think in terms of making an adgroup for a certain sub-group of your demographic.
Using the eating vegetables example, let’s say you’re promoting an offer for a free 1-year supply of veggies. For this adgroup, we then ask ourselves:
- What types of people will be more likely to be interested in this offer and give us conversions?
- What sorts of websites do these people frequently visit?
- What keywords are most prominent on those websites?
The answer might be a list more like this:
- cooking
- vegetable
- vegetables
- veggies
- vegetarian
- vegan
- eating
- eating vegetables
- steaks
- sirloin
- carrots
- broccoli
- cucumber
- cauliflower
- boiling
- recipes
- recipe
- steaming
With a negative keyword list such as this, to supplement it:
- -growing
- -grow
- -grows
- -harvesting
- -harvest
- -planting
- -plant
- -plants
- -farming
- -farm
- -farms
- -candy
- -cookies
- -dining
- -restaurants
(assuming you don’t want your ads on sites devoted to restaurant guides, farming, or recipes for sweets)
You could get a hunch of what sites you could be placed on, by using the free Adwords Digger (requires an opt-in but you can opt-out once you’ve downloaded it). This would give you an idea of whether or not you’re on the right track with your content adgroup keyword selection.
Another great resource is Google’s new Ad Planner.
If you have such a massive list of keywords for your campaign as a whole, I would definitely try to weed out a bunch, and start out with grouping the most obvious ones. Chances are, your big list has tons of 3 or 4+ word longtails, and it will be a nightmare to write out negative keywords for them all. Remember – all content keywords are considered broad match, and phrase/exact is ignored!
So to save yourself some work, start out with the most obvious 1 or 2-keyword words and spend your time focusing on who and where, instead of generating variations off of one root keyword.
Other Good Resources
David Szetela’s Content Advertising Series. Nice articles that goes through the fundamentals as well as more advanced tips.
Also check out Adhustler’s article on his content network strategy and SlightlyShadySEO’s content network article for some great tips.