I know some of you already know this, but thought that I wanted to share it with all the people that doesn't yet know about this fool proof way to generate hordes of 1c clicks from Google Adwords. It's very simple - You first get some banners of the offer you are promoting. (I suggest sending traffic to your squeeze page with this method.) Make sure you get banners of all different sizes. (see all the available sizes on Google Adwords Images) Next, get as many keywords related to your niche as possible. Use Google Keyword tool for this. You literally need thousands of keywords. Then Start a google adwords campaign, select content network and images. Now start a new adgroup for each image size you have. Set all the manual bids to 1c. You will start getting hundreds of 1c clicks soon. If you campaings take too long to get accepted, email support telling them. If you have a compelling squeeze page you can get cheap signups easily this way. I hope this was helpful.
What kind of conversion do you see though? I still get headaches from PPC but the stuff converts. Content network is just not the same IMO.
i noticed that if you change the bids to 1 cent after setting up the campaign it actually works. but you can't set it at 1 cent in the settings area. sorta weird..
Ranking on the content network is calculated by your bid and CTR. If you bid one cent, chances are you won't get many impressions, much less traffic. Of course, this is the only foolproof way to pay one cent a click, you simply bid one cent. You may be right that not many advertisers use image ads. However, that is not the reason you don't see them as often. The reason also has to do with ranking, calculated as explained above. All types of ads, image and text, are on equal footing. So simply having an image ad does not automatically get it shown. It still has to prove itself with high quality, ie: high click rates. If a text ad is better, it will show more often, not less just because there's an image ad to fill the spot. Keywords. Selecting thousands for the content network is simply a bad idea.
from my experience, only cheapest one i was able to get 25cents. per click. and def, it impossible to get down to cheap cost per click for high quality/popular keywords. it's just impossible , due to competition. Leather Wallets
This is a method that a lot of gurus use, although it can be quite a hassle to make tons of banners. A effective method is to make banners that look like text ads. Once your first ad (banner) is made in photoshop, open a new document, copy your text from the first banner, paste into the new ad, resize text, and repeat until you have multiple sizes.
That is why you use Image ads. The competition is not that fierce and you can use thousands of keywords. It is posible, I have done this many times before.
Again, you assume because there appears to be less advertisers for image ads that you are competing only against others using image ads. Doesn't work that way. All ads of all types compete against each other. The content network also determines a theme from your keywords. They must be tightly related. Google themselves says to use 5-20. So having thousands means they cannot be closely related, you are making it harder for the system to properly show your ads on appropriate sites. It may work for you but I think you could do a lot better. I'd sure like to take a look at your campaign data.
Intresting but i would like the CTR for the campaign... thousand of keywords seems a lot be bid for content. When I bid for content usually I go for a specific site. Not keywords.
LWM is right, having thousands of keywords for the content network is redundant. Firstly, you would need to divided them into hundreds of adgroups, as for content only 50 are considered. Secondly, content doesn't use keywords like search, your bid isn't being matched to one specific keyword, it's matched to the theme of the adgroup. Also, you'll find a lot of adsesne publishers opt out of carrying image ads, as they take up more space, without paying them more than text ads. Having said that, image ads can work well, especially if you're selling a physical product and have a good image that makes an attractive ad. But I wouldn't choose it as an option just because I think it's going to be cheap - I'd use it to get targeted traffic that converts
And that's the way you should do it in my opinion. No many seem to do this. Maybe they don't know. Of course, keywords is the lazy way to do it but not always the profitable way. I've done a CN campaign for a client which gets a 1.6% CTR and 8% conversion rate. They don't pay one cent a click but they are very happy with the results, ie: they make a very nice profit.
I've definitely seen much lower costs for content network image ads. The lowest I've ever been able to get is around 10 cents but the methods works, it's much cheaper than going with Search Network but the conversions are definitely not as good.
I agree that the conversions are not that good, but it is still a viable option for some. YOu just have to track and refine your results.
I would postulate that the reason your conversions are not that good is because you are not properly targeting with those thousands of keywords.