Hello, Which is the most profitable from these two? Search network or display network? And is it possible to choose where to put your display ads? I know that some years ago you could choose websites for your ad to be displayed so is it still possible?
To view on which websites your ads were displayed go to Campaigns tab --> Networks tab --> Automatic placements: show details A possible methodology would be to move well-performing "placements" from the "Automatic placements" group to "Manage placements". Then when "Automatic" is not generating enough conversions to justify it - turn it off through: Settings tab --> Networks --> choose "Show ads only on pages that match all selected targeting method" As a rule of thumb Search is more profitable, at least before massive optimization is done. Display can be useful and profitable as well, but you really need to "cull the chaff from the straw" 'cause there's plenty of "straw" there...
Search will convert better if you're targeting the correct keywords, it allows you to go straight to a user interested in buying. Content/display requires a different adcopy/product strategy as the user will generally not be actively seeking to buy, clicks are cheaper and volume can be higher but with a lower conversion ratio.
Thank you for the information. Btw do you know any tool which could help in finding best sites for your campaign?
Google Ad Planner, Quantcast, Compete, Alexa and I'm sure there are many more. The 1st specifies which publisher/website/"placement" shows Google ads and from which type (text/banner/video, sizes etc) I have better experience with Text ads, while the Banner ads tend to be clicked by what seems to me as easy-clicker-teenagers (or some kind of fraud...) I think it's important to exclude placements very fast, since most of the traffic sources are poor performers. As DirectAdvertising put it, Display is "push" marketing (the user encounters your ad "by chance"), while Search is "pull" (the user is actively looking for something you might have)
To find the best sites, run a test campaign on the search network for a couple days. Then run a site report to see which sites are producing the best results. Then do another campaign targeting those sites only.