I generally set up different campaigns for the search and content networks, but I've run into a problem with a campaign that we took over recently. The campaign had been running for years, and the search and content networks were in the same campaign. I copied the campaign exactly, and set one to run on the content network, and the other to run on the search network. The amount of traffic through the content network collapsed. The keywords, adverts and bids were unchanged, so I can only assume that the adverts were getting extra coverage on the content network by virtue of the age of the campaign. Does this fit in with people's understanding of the impact of the age of a campaign on it's distribution on the content network?
I'm only relative new dealing with the content network re 3 weeks and At the start I set my starting budget at $1,000 a day straight from the start and even now 3 weeks on my ads are getting more and more impressions per day. So I would say there is a some kind of rule about the age of campaign.
I've had to change it back, whatever the cause. There's no way that I can risk 18,000 clicks a month at £0.05 each, on the off-chance that I may get them back later when the campaign has more age to it...
Can totally understand. I'm terrified of changing any of my high earning ads. if it works stick with it. why rock the boat. Google does that enough for all of us.
How long did you let the new CN only campaign run? I did the same recently and it was about 3 weeks before the new CN campaign was back up to full distribution.
About 4 days. But there was no sign of improvement. In 3 weeks, I've lost about 13000 (very cheap) clicks, and since they have no conversion tracking (they are an information site) I'm judged on how many clicks I get them for their budget. So on my stats, it would appear to be a catastrophic month, and I'm not convinced the benefits would justify this...
Here's the impression/click data for the campaign I mentioned. Took some time to get back to it's peak levels. As you can see it took some time to ramp back up.
I think GFC has the right idea - although I can relate to your concerns. There's simply the need to weigh cost/benefit for taking your client through that whole process, even if it is a best practice - 13k clicks (with the way they are measuring the campaign) is a huge impact. I don't blame you for switching back.
It can take up to a week before your ads in the content network are going in full force. I have also noticed however that you can loose your spot at the top if you stop or cancel your ads. I had a campaign that I paused for a few days I was at 2.0 rank in the content network and after I resumed it I went to 5.0 and lost alot of traffic.