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Optimizing Google Content Campaigns
Posted by admin | Posted in Internet, Marketing, PPC, search engines | Posted on 19-05-2009
It’s been awhile since I posted something useful, so I thought I would post how I run/optimize my Google Content campaigns. Personally, I love Google Content, I would run it almost always over Search, if I had to choose. I haven’t been running it recently, just because I have been focusing on media buys. However, Google Content is a great source for traffic, usually cheap, when you can get it.
There are 2 kinds of Google Content campaigns, keywords and placements. This post will focus soley on keyword campaigns.
Campaign Structure
As an example, I will use “Golf Clubs” as the product I am promoting. I start by creating a content campaign, with search turned off, and choose 1 country. I like to make countries their own campaigns for tracking purposes. I make an initial ad group with 50-75 keywords around a loosely related topic like “golf clubs”. Then I write 2-3 text ads and upload 2 image ad variations in the standard ad sizes. If you are using tracking/propser 202 make sure to use the {keyword} variable at the end of your URLs. After this ad group is done, I’d make another ad group for Putters and repeat the ad types.
Bidding
I normally bid very high initially. This way I am getting impressions, clicks, and developing a history. After a few days your CPCs will start to fall and you can continue to make optimizations.
Focus on CTR
Your ad CTR is pretty much the biggest factor on what your CPC’s will be. You need to work on getting your ad CTR as high as possible. This means writing good, original text ads and making quality image ads. If you copy everyone’s text/image ads, your CTR will be low or eventually fall off. You also need to block low CTR sites, which we will get into in a minute.
Landing Page Tweaks
In terms of landing page optimizations for Google Content, you need to have original text or you will get slapped quickly, I try not to use Wordpress for Google Content as I find I usually get slapped faster, but this isn’t always the case for everyone. In the footer you should have links for the Sitemap, About, Terms, Privacy, and articles pages. I usually build back links to the site as well before I launch the campaign. I find if I treat the site like I am going to “SEO it”, it performs much better in Google Content.
Eliminate Underperforming Keywords and Sites
This is the biggest thing for making a campaign successful. I usually try to let a campaign run for 3-5 days before I start making tweaks. After about 5 days I start to elimate keywords that aren’t doing well, as well as blocking sites that are performing poorly. If you use tracking/prosper202 and out the {keyword} variable in your destination URL, then you should be able to track performance of your content keywords. If you have a keyword that is flat out tanking, eliminate it. Then run a placement report so it shows by domain, then sort by CTR and elimate all the domains with low CTR. You are effectively raising your CTR by doing this which will lower your CPC’s and raise your quality score. I usually eliminate anything under .1% unless it is converting very well. Also, if you have placements that are not converting well, eliminate them too at this time.
I almost always start my campaigns by blocking sites like gmail.com, myspace.com, and ezinearticles.com. They tend to really bring you down. Once you start eliminating sites, you will see a nice drop in CPCs. I usually end up with several hundred blocked domains in a campaign after a few weeks.
All in all, that is pretty much what I do for content campaigns. I find the content network to be pretty easy to run/optimize if I am not getting slapped around.
Great post Brandon. I’m keen to learn more about GCN.
I wonder if I could ask a few questions..
1) You say image ads for standard sizes - what do you call standard? All that GCN allows or is there a couple of those that are more common?
2) You bid high… in relation to what? Say if “golf cubs” is estimated $2 to get position 1-3 in search, how much would you bid in relation to this?
3) And for your backlinks - I assume you are waiting for google to index/cache the site then?
Looking forward to more posts like this..
When I say standard, I make like 300×250, 728×90, 160×600, and 336×280 and see if they work. If they do, I make all the other sizes.
I usually try bidding in the high $1 range on content to start out. Usually that’s overkill, but it gets you receiving traffic. Tweak from there.
I build the back links from social media sites like mixx, reddit, digg, wait a day or two then create the content campaign. I feel it adds more credibility and makes the site look natural.
in regards to the “SEO it” comment, what you are saying makes sense. Care to expand on how it “performs” better? Is it simply a lower CPC, a more favorable ad distribution, or something else?
Yea, so Content campaigns run on a QS system just like Search, they just don’t publish them to you in the interface like search.
So by getting back links, doing title’s and meta’s, proper coding, header tags, etc… you’re increasing your relevancy for those terms, increasing your QS, which will prevent you from getting slapped, have lower CPCs and give you more impressions
Also here are instructions on how to optimise Google Content Conversion rate using the new interface http://totochie.com/?p=65
A small note about blocking sites. I found that ezinearticles.com is often among the best converting sites in my content campaigns. In the health and beauty niche I would not recommend disabling it right from the start. Also the CTR is seldom stellar, but often much better than myspace.com.
Good stuff Brandon. Short and sweet. Doesn’t get much easier then that. So much people make things seem like voodoo but in reality they’re quite common sense and simple.
Nice post man. I agree about the Content Network being better (for me) than the Search network. Clicks on Search are just too damn expensive these days.