I've been branching out from my usual search advertising and trying Google's ad for content option. So far, my experience is that the CTR dramatically drops (below 1%), and conversions aren't as high either. Any suggestions on how to use content ads successfully?
CTR and Conversion will drop but as long as you can still maintain an efficient ROI then it's still a viable option.. and yes, you can maintain an ROI with content ads.
Also, you do not need to concern with the low content CTR as they do not affect your Quality Score. When dealing with Content network is always important to track conversion and compare with Search network conversion to decide content bids for the next period or even to drop out of content network in some cases (if very low conversion occurs)
You have less control over it unless you specify a massive list of sites not to list on by checking against logs. You are better to stick with no content search in most cases, as people visiting those sites may click on your ad, but didn't actually search for that keyword phrase at that point in time so are less likely to follow through with your offer.
Based on my experience, I would say this would be good advise if you are in a niche that people will find in the high paying keywords lists. The further you get away from mortgages, ringtones, web hosting, etc, the more content and search become equal. If you are not in a main stream niche and you opt out of Content, you lose a good supply of traffic.
Excellent point! This really is a niche' specific question. ajvan, can you tell us what niche' you are in?
spoken like a true businessman. I completely agree with Art and as long as you can maintain a positive ROIT you're good to go.
I'd be cautious with that niche. It's a main stream category. If you could develop some content or product offering that is aimed at corporate clients you will find less Adwords competition, lower cost, but lower traffic.
And the CPC for those corporate keywords is usually significantly higher than the CPC for keywords targeting consumers.
The number one spot would be expensive but you might get a respectable showing at $0.05 since you won't have hundreds of advertisers bidding against you as with mortgages, ringtones and other main stream topics.