Jeremy Mayes recently discussed the ad placement option in Google AdWords’ Content Network. He seems to think this is going to be good and, in his words, more efficient. But will it?
I think it might. The gist of the new feature allows advertisers to specify a particular web property they want their ads to show up on only when a certain keyword appears on a page or to raise your bid when a particular keyword when it appears on a certain web property. With the last option your ad will appear across the entire content network, but clicks will cost you more on the property that you specify when setting up the campaign. This allows you to make value judgments about particular content sites within the network. It’s actually a pretty useful feature. But how should you use it?
As stated above, there are two ways to use this feature. First, if your keyword is a low-volume keyword but there is a specific website that it would work extremely well for because of its narrow niche then you can specify that you want your ad to show up on that site on pages that use your low-volume keyword.
The second way to use this feature is to identify specific websites where a keyword is extremely valuable and to offer to pay more for clicks from that website. If you notice that you are getting a lot of clicks from a particular web property and that those clicks are converting well then you might use this option. Lower your bid across the content network but use the placement feature to keep your bid at the higher amount on that web property that is leading to greater conversions.
