I currently have only search campaigns running. However, I want to turn on content as well - I heard that putting content in different campaigns (even if you're going to use same keywords, ads, etc) is better.... What do you guys think? What are the cons of having search AND content in the same campaign?
There is no reason to have them as the same campaign and I don't understand why google stills bundles them in together, Content campaigns use keywords in a different way - takes the theme of the group of the whole rather than individual keywords, so you won't want to use quite the same ones. I also think the ads themselves should be slightly different - people searching for a specific thing and people looking at a website are not going to react to ads in quite the same way.
That would be a long list...the right question is "what are the benefits of having search and content simultaneously live for a campaign"? The answer...none. Also, magda is correct. You'll want to use different ads in content than you do for search. Content is an entirely different platform.
Whilst on the subject (as I havent dealt with content campaigns until now)... - How long does it usually take before your ads will be shown on the Content Network? Are all ads checked before hand manually? - How do you know what the minimum bid has to be in order to be shown? (You know via the Search as there's a quality score minimum bid)
24 - 48 hours. 48 being the high side, most are 24 or less. Yes, they are all reviewed and no, there's no minimum required bid shown. If you don't get activity in 24 - 48 and you know there's volume associated with what you've picked odds are your bids are too low. Often you'll see a handful of impressions with average positions of 10+ - that's also a good indicator your bids are too low.
It is odd that they allow them to run together. But I think it's a money grab on their part. I used to think it was fine to run them together too, but it's not anymore. There's way too many differences in managing the campaign and keeping them separate simplifies things dramatically. With content, you treat each adgroup as a keyword, (like when you're managing the search campaign), but with search you don't really care what the adgroup is doing, you look at the individual keywords more...
content and search are complete opposites. I think google should take the checkmarks off because search is to content as dog is to cat. They cannot be ran in conjunction with each other. This is a major foul up with Google, but I think its only till recently, maybe the past couple years, that people have caught on and began to realize this. I highly recommend to read up on content, before exploring content as a venue. Also get in contact with google and request a training session and a content specialist to get your 1st campaign up and running. Resources https://adwords.google.com/select/afc.html https://adwords.google.com/select/afc/optimization/page1.html https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=81
Is it a good idea to have a separate account just for content network? I know they calculate search and content's ctr separately but still I would like to see a high ctr on my search campaigns account.
thanks, but i'll be promoting the same product using the same keywords, so i'll have same keywords in two accounts only difference is one for search, the other for content. does google allow this? do i need a different domain name?
Separate accounts for content and search are complete unnecessary for most users. Just keep search and content in separate campaigns and you'll be fine.
yes google will allow it, just make sure it setup under an MCC account. No you wont need another domain, you can use the same one. Content will NOT be the same keywords
Outside of exceeding account limits with massive content campaigns (which most users never would) why would you need/want a separate account for content? There's no benefit that I'm aware of and it would actually make reporting/tracking more complex than just using separate campaigns in the same account. Also, I've seen great success in using the same keywords in search and content (although I tend to add more in content ad groups than I do search ad groups)...it's the ads that typically need the most significant changes.
If you are running just 1 search campaign, then yeah... just create a content campaign, but for those who have 20 search campaigns in one account then adding a content campaign can make the overview screen look all messed up at a glance. Your 20 campaigns, might have daily averages, but if you add content to the mix, then at a glance monitoring is impossible. You have to put content into its own account at this point. I have also seen mirrored search campaign in content work as well, but from experience and working with hundreds of clients, I would say the success rate of mirroring is about 1 in 10. Only 1 client will get lucky enough to mirror search campaigns and have a successful content campaign, and even those who have successful mirrored content campaign have even better success when content is used properly. I don't disagree that it is possible, but its not wise and could work even better if created properly in the first place. Lastly, ad testing is CRITICAL in the content network
well when you have to look at a lot of accounts on a daily basis you need to be able to see if something is out of whack within minutes. Content will make this process harder, but I know 90% of you just have one account with one campaign, so this advice only really applies to those with larger campaigns and those who are managing multiple clients
I see a few I typically just use a prefix in the campaign name that signify where the ads run - "CO" included with the campaign name for example lets me know that's a content only campaign. That makes it easy to identify certain types of campaigns in all platforms - web interface, editor, offline apps, etc. I guess it's really just a matter of preference.