As cost per click across almost all the industries is continuously going up as a consequence of the growing online competition, advertisers need to be more careful when choosing their online marketing strategies. These days advertisers not only have to be more creative about the ways they communicate and reach their audience, but also make sure that their online marketing strategy is cost effective and the audience they target is right.

Google is most famous for its unarguably efficient and measurable Google Search Network model, where ads appear on Google and Google Network sites based on searches people make. However, we shouldn’t forget that advertisers also have the option of running their ads on Google Content Network that includes millions of websites all over the world and according to Google is able to reach 76% of US internet users.

Content Network shows AdWords ads based on website content in relation to the ads, versus search network that shows ads based on search queries. There are 2 ways to target Content Network: Using Keyword Targeting and Placement Targeting.  So which one is better and what kind of model should you use – CPC or CPM?

Keyword Targeting

Advantages:

• Easy to setup: keyword targeting for content network uses contextual matching algorithms that align your ad exposure with keyword themes inside your ad group. You just need to create an ad group with a tightly focused set of keywords. Then let Google find relevant sites to show your ad on.

Disadvantages:

• Keyword targeting for content network doesn’t give advertisers 100% control over the sites where ads are going to appear. Google’s contextual matching algorithms select websites that it considers relevant to your business, but unfortunately these algorithms are not that good and it’s very likely to show your ads on less relevant sites too.

• You need to constantly use Placement Reports to find the not-so related sites and exclude them using site exclusions, and in the big campaign where ads are showing up on the thousands sites, it can be too much work.

Placement Targeting

Advantages:

• Placement Targeting allows you to target particular websites and sub domains

• Allows a lot more transparency about where exactly your ads are going to show up before you start the campaign

• It’s very easy to keep track of your ad performance on each website and adjust your bids for each site based on it.

• You can specify which areas of the site you want your ads to appear at. This is especially important if you use the CPM model because in this case you pay for impressions and you really what to make sure that you avoid sites that show Google Ads in the footer, or below 600 pixels. 

Disadvantages:

• Placement targeting doesn’t allow specifying the themes sometimes of the pages within the website you selected as your placement, so for example if you selected MySpace as placement, you what to make sure that only those who are interested in your services/products will see your ads.

So how can you combine the advantages of both types of campaigns and avoid disadvantages? Here is your answer: now you can set up keyword targeting within your placement targeted campaigns!

For more info on how to get the best out of your content network check out our blog next week!