Rob, I love your thread! Keep doing what you're doing. You should read this, it may help: http://diorex.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/google-content-match-goldmine-or-minefield/ Content + Search = Bad combination if used in the same campaign? Tim
According to Google, your content network performance does not affect the search campaign.... but I wonder if the reverse is true... that a bad performing search could affect a content campaign? You are likely getting some impressions with your search and with only a couple of clicks total within a month, then this is going to result in a poor CTR and quality score... which could be why your keywords have dropped in quality.
That is the intent of my little tracking program, to find sites I can do site targeting, and to block sites I don't want to be on. Technically I can afford to buy one of the fine programs out there, like the one you suggest, but I wanted to learn how to do it myself. Maybe create one user friendly enough to share. If not, then I can make a more informed decision when I decide to buy one. Thanks for the link. I was familiar with most of the articles information, but it's always nice to read it from someone else's perspective. Never hurts to sharpen the blade. True dat. I was fearful my qs to drop over time just for that reason. It still fluctuates a bit, going from 0.10 to $10 minimum bids, and anywhere in between. I'm only up $130 this month net profit ($32/day). Right now google is not producing any conversions, but my impressions are finally starting to crawl back up. My average position is now 4.1 (it was closer to eight before). I'd like to get it back between 2-3, when I was getting 40-100k impressions/day and making $200/day. Yahoo ctr has dropped, so I up the bids to $5 this morning on specific keywords to improve their average position. Right now they are between 4-5 at $4. My sister's account is now up $160 net profit. She is actually making more money that me right now. I'm really happy, because at that pace she should make about $1100 this month net profit. My originial target for her when we started. Thanks for all the tips this week. I'll have to sit down this weekend and read this forum looking for some more great tips. If I find some good related threads, I'll share them here.
Hey, Rob, I forgot to ask if you have now separated your search campaign from the content campaign? ... from what I've read this sounds like the best method so you won't be hit with a quality score issue again.
But what he advocates is actually searching for pages on which to advertise first--i.e., google some of your keywords and find sites that are listed that use adsense, and then set up a site targeting campaign with them. Quality score: From what I understand of QS and the content network, the primary factors are 1) the "quality" of the site in terms of pages of content, not asking for emails or at least making it clear why you are asking for them, disclosure statement, and privacy policy; 2) the relevance of your landing page to the keywords you are targeting Search network performance shouldn't have anything to do with that. One suggestion I read that makes sense (don't have link now) is to have only one ad group per content network keyword and then also have a targeted landing page for each keyword. You could even just pass the keyword through if you had to, though the kind of pitch you make to visitors might change as well. Something Google themselves recommend is to make your content network ads different from your search network ads, for instance, by having a stronger call to action on content network ads, taking into account that these visitors should be at an earlier stage of the sales cycle than search visitors. Do your ads have any text like "fill in a free form to get quotes" or something like that that prequalifies visitors who are willing to fill out forms?
Well I did a little digging this weekend and found this post at google http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/websites-that-may-merit-low-landing.html relevant quote Which led me to this page http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/websites-that-may-merit-low-landing.html relevant quote The first posting above came out on 9/18, about the same time my impressions took a dive and I now have my bids up to $7 (which still isn't high enough ) Also, my site did look pretty close in appearance to getsmart.com for a while, before switching to lending tree. So I have redesigned my site this weekend to be quite different from both getsmart and lendingtree. I don't like doing that since it doesn't provide a smooth visiual transition from the landing page to the affiliate. I'm gonna start working on the content a bit too. Re-writing the plr stuff from scratch. Try to make the site unique as possible, both visually and content wise. I also took the suggestion from techbuzz http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=4705047&postcount=370 about modifying my tracking script. Basically all I did was change the referring domain name letters into numbers. So a=0, b=1, c=2, and so on. Although I'm not worried about lendingtree figuring out where I advertise, it's good practice to start doing this now for other campaigns. Next I will up my bids to $10. Start tracking where the conversions are comming from exactly, and then focus on site targeting campaigns. I don't think I'll make any money for a while, but I think it will be a good investment. Check out my new website design at lendingarea.com, let me know what you think. And if anyone has any other suggestions to get this campaign back on track, I'm open to anything. Thanks for all the help.
Actually, I think it much more likely an affiliate manager at CL (or other sites you use) would review and share or borrow your data. I've read a few stories where affiliates either found out that an an AM shared data, or more directly, the AM gave them a 'tip' that other affiliates were having good luck with certain keywords or sites. Even if you're the one receiving the tip, it reflects on the character of the AM. Like this... ('Word of Caution' paragraph) He's also developing a similar tracking system for his campaigns. See my=Rick's comment. Collaboration?... I'm in. As far as your script. You could always give each visitor a unique ID in the DB and then store all the data for that ID... referring IP/site, Adword data, keywords, etc. Then you pass the unique user ID as the sid= or subid=. Fairly straigtforward and this is how the pro scripts do it I believe. I like the overall look. One thing, when I first landed on the page, having never seen it before, I noticed that my focus was immediately drawn to the top nav bar. Maybe since there is so much color variations and the 'exciting' green going on? I think your goal is the focus to first land on the Lending Tree form, or house with arrow. Maybe that's just me. How about something like this: Or this: Good luck and keep us posted.
I still believe your lower quality score is due to the bidding on the search network and not from the "appearance" of the site. Have you called Google and inquired about your quality score change?
You know, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but my eyes were not drawn to the lendingtree form either. I think you're right about the top nav bar stealing the thunder. Through several iterations of the nav bar being on the top/side/bottom, with/without lighted buttons, etc... I guess I just got blind to it after a while. I like the white text nav bar idea. Maybe try that or move it below the form? Thanks (again) for the suggestion. I agree with you, so I've turned off the search network altogether. Now my campaign doesn't show a quality score column at all. I was just reaching out for any/all reasons why the campaign dropped dead in the water so suddenly. As for calling google, I might just do that. Of course, I'll probably get the standard letter with the generic response on "optimzing my keywords and landing page".
I am looking for a way to track my links. If you get your script working for you can you post it? Or post how to do it?
Yeah, sometimes even over the phone they can be vague but you'll always get more info from them by talking to a real person instead of sending an email . You can reach the adwords dept. at 1-866-2-Google and they will evaluate your campaigns for free ... they are usually pretty quick and I haven't had to wait long on the phone. Let us know how it goes!
Hmm I wrote my own link tracking script like you guys are talking about that hides keywords and generates tracking ids, it's really rough as it's only for me but I was wondering if this is the sort of thing If i cleaned up and expanded I could sell as a premium script?
My guess would be search network - it is a great performance and from my experience content network usually isn't so great.
Thankyou for sharing this guide I hope i will get some $ from Google Now i go to register account at google-adwords