Avoid the Google Content Network - At least at first
I find that when everyone gets started on Google and advertising with Google PPC (Pay Per Click) they either leave all the check boxes checked or start checking as many boxes as possible. This can make your first campaigns not as effective and can make them very costly to you. I want to make sure that you avoid the hard times of advertising on Google and make sure that you get the results that you desire. One setting that I encourage people (read into that tell them) to turn off when they get started is advertising on the Google Content Network.
The settings by default encourage you to advertise on the content network. Now don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the Google content network it is just a different kind of ad that you would want to run on it.
Think of it this way. The Google Content network is literally thousands upon thousands of websites that run Google Ads. So a user may be reading an article on say the New York times on real estate and they might also see an ad for real estate. So this potential buyer is not looking for real estate info exactly they are reading an article. Your ad would have to make them not want to read the article anymore and visit your website or page instead. This is possible and there can be great traffic to be found on the content network but you shouldn’t start there. You should start with only Google Search and I like the Search Network as well. That means your ads will be shown when someone is searching Google or one of their affiliate search engines. These are potential buyers that are seeking information out and these are the ones that you want to attract first as they already show a willingness to look for your information.
So when you are just getting your first Google PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns started start with just Google and their search partners and stay of the content network until you determine how things are working. Good luck!











November 28th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I’m a firm believer if your going to run ads on the content network they should always be in their own content network campaign and not mixed in with search ads. People sometimes miss this because Google has the content network option checked by default in the campaign settings.
FYI - A new PPC ROI solution called ContentCleanser Beta is now available from http://www.contreo.com. It will automatically identify contextually irrelevant websites and MFA (made-for-adsense) sites found in Google’s Placement Performance Report, saving advertisers hours from checking each one manually . More importantly, it has shown to lower one’s cost per lead on Google’s Content Network once all these low quality, irrelevant sites are excluded.