Launching a campaign on the Google Content Network gives you opportunity to reach another very targeted audience; often in a very different consideration phase than users on the search network. In competitive verticals like insurance, travel or finance, CPCs on the search network are high and it’s difficult or costly to remain visible.  The Content Network is a great tool to build brand awareness targeting users with both Image and Text ads, extending your business’ message in a manner not possible through the search network. More impressions on the ever expanding content network, means competition and cost are often lower than other online channels. Using the Google Content Network to compliment other online marketing efforts can help lower overall costs and maximise business exposure.

Introducing the Contextual Targeting Tool

The Contextual Targeting Tool, can help build tightly themed keyword lists for campaigns to run on the Google Content Network. When you enter words or phrases in the Contextual Targeting Tool, the tool suggests a set of keywords related to your terms, and groups them into themed ad groups. Currently the tool is only available to a limited number of advertisers and agencies, however, data can be accessed though your Google account manager. Hopefully we will see this available to all in early 2011.

Content Campaign – Planning and Setup

Content Network campaigns should always be kept separate from Search Network campaigns. Here are some things to consider when setting up your new Google Content campaign:

- Set a daily budget. Make sure this is set conservatively in the beginning, then increase over time. There are a huge number of impressions available daily on the content network, so it’s easy to spend a lot in a very short time.

- Try different ad formats to see what works best for your business. Depending on your business’ objectives and available budget, there is a lot of choice. See all ad formats: https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/adwords/select/afc/ads.html

- Make ads catchy and interesting. Remember, users are not searching for your products as with Search. So your ads need to stand out. Compelling, attractive and well-written ads will capture a users interest and provide a valuable experience.

- For local products, offerings or location specific services, consider geo-targeting. It’s applied in the same way as it is on the Google Search Network.

Content Network – Keyword Themes

Start by creating keyword themes.  Identify keyword themes you would like to target; this will be the basis of your content ad group. Here’s an example of how a theme of keywords for a content ad group could be set-up

Content Ad Group Theme: Travel Insurance

Keywords: cheap travel insurance Australia, vacation insurance, compare travel insurance Australia, travel cover, travel insurance, travel insurance Australia, travelinsurance, annual travel insurance, holiday, Australia

Identify keywords that are likely to be mentioned on a website when a user is reading about “Travel Insurance.” Google recommends that each ad group use 10 to 20 keywords in any given Ad Group. Don’t try fit too keywords into each group, just create another ad group, even if it seems too similar. To help discover and build keyword themes, use the contextual targeting tool, if this is not available to you within AdWords, other great resources including: Google’s Wonder Wheel and other search engine that use clustered search results.

Displaying the Right Ads

The quality of advertisers ads is extremely important on the Content Network. The objective when advertising on the content network is to effectively capture and engage users who are not actively searching for your product. Therefore, the message must be clear and should help pre-qualify users. An ambiguous or misleading message will result in a poor brand experience and will waste your money.

Setting Bids

There are a number options when bidding on the Google content network. The two most common are CPC and CPM but CPA bidding is also available. This can be set under campaign settings tab > Bidding & Budget. CPA bidding will only be available once your new campaign has history including a significant number of conversions recorded.

As a general rule, start conservatively with your CPC and CPM bids. You can increase them over time if you are not getting enough clicks / impressions. For CPA bidding, be generous in the beginning. Take the CPA from Search Campaigns and add 25% to it. This will be a good starting point. As the system achieves your goals, you can lower the CPA target to increase profitability

Optimising your Content Campaigns

Excluding / Managing Sites

A Placement Performance Report will give insight into all performance metrics of websites where ads were displayed in a Content Campaign. Usually ads wont appear on a site for long if no clicks are recorded, so the best way to measure the success of a campaign is through conversions. When viewing placements select the sites to manage. Exclude by checking the radio button next to the URL then click “Manage Placement and Bid” or “Exclude Placements”.

Negative Keywords
These work in the same way in a Content Campaign as in a Search Campaign. They help disqualify any sites mentioning those words to make sure your ads are highly relevant to the sites they appear on.

Content Success

In anticipation of Google releasing the The Contextual Targeting Tool, any of these tips can be applied to improve existing campaigns or used as a guide when setting up a new content network campaign.  As with setting up a Search Campaign, the AdWords user interface will guide users through the basic campaign setup process. Google tools mentioned above give more insight and better understanding of the performance of Text and Image based ads across the Google Content Network. AdWords advertisers continue make the mistake of assuming that Google’s Search Network is the same as Google’s content network. Separate content and search campaigns and enjoy the results of a successful content campaign.

Often, little thought is put into the initial structure of an SEM campaign. Needless to say, we don’t build a house without the help of plans and an architect. The same should apply for Paid Search Accounts. Google and Yahoo! are here to make money. They aren’t going to come knocking like the local building inspector when you haven’t planned.

A strong, well planned account structure is key to the success of any paid search campaign. A solid account structure will make it easy to expand and identify new trends within your industry, to apply budgets appropriately and assist you to take full advantage of search engine tools that reward well structured accounts.

5 Must Do’s for Paid Search Account Structure

1. Utilise match types

Google: Broad | Phrase | Exact

Yahoo: Standard | Advanced

Broad match (aka:Advanced match at Yahoo!) is generally over-used, and other match types generally over-looked. Best practice would suggest to use: phrase and exact (standard) match for words you know work and utilise broad match to discover new ones.

2. Start small

Starting out? Don’t feel like you need to think of every possible keyword variation, campaign or the best ad. This will happen over time. It’s best to start small, evaluate performance and build from there.

For established Search Accounts; don’t be afraid to pause / delete. If something is under-performing, pause it and use that money to test some other keywords variations or maybe increase the budget and visibility of other campaigns that have performed well.

3. Create themes.

Themes should be focused around your text ad. if the keywords in an ad group don’t directly relate to an ad. Create another ad group. Themes can be categorised many ways – brand, type of product, size, high / low volume words. Always remember that the purpose of creating these themes is to maximise performance. The main focus of creating themes is so the best performing campaigns always have budget available to them. Other groups are for discovery, used to continually optimise and improve your SEM performance.

4. Keep ads & keyword groups relevant.

Generally speaking, more ad groups with fewer keywords are easier to manage. It also makes the task of removing poorly performing keywords a cinch. Ads should always be clear and relate directly to the search query. Highly relevant ads will increase the chances of a higher CTR% and better quality score. Use tools like dynamic keyword insertion and negative match to eliminate any irrelevant matches and make your ads highly relevant to visitors who search using long-tail keyword phrases.

5. Keep brand related keywords separate

Always have a separate campaign for brand related words. Brand words should be visible 100% of the time. Visibility is often limited budget and if brand words are competing with other more expensive terms. Always separate brand words from broader, more generic terms.

Why these SEM tips really work.

We all know search engines reward relevancy, in the form of lower CPCs and higher ad rank. A good SEM account structure ensures you tick all the boxes and if done right will mean everything is rightly relevant. A clear structure will allow you to measure apples to apples and help identify whats working. Invest the time in a good SEM account structure, this will keep you ahead of your competition, have you paying less and hopefully growing your profits!

After the rollout of Real-time Search with Google Instant in Australia, it appears the evolution of the search engine results page is set to continue with a new level of importance given to Local Search Results called “Place Search”.

See the below example screen grab from a search results page for the searched query “pizza sydney” in Pyrmont, NSW.

Organic Results

The first point of interest is the top of the search results Google’s algorithm delivers only two premium listings followed by organic results, rather than the 3 premium sponsored links we have come accustomed to at the top of the results in Australia. The first result also bears a stronger presence on the page with an arrow pointer at the front of the result, enticing the user to click as the most relevant organic result available, similar to the Australian search pages where this usually appears on the first premium sponsored link.

The first 2 organic results in this particular example appear to be the “standard” result you would tend to find on any search with the title, description and URL text. Following this, things start to get interesting.

Local Business Listings

Place Search results incorporate Local business results relevant to the location of the searcher. A user’s location is determined either by Google via IP address or the location specified by the user. These Local Search Results will vary based on the user’s location illustrated with the plotted map placed on the top right hand corner of the results again coming before the Sponsored Listings on the right hand side of the page.

The Local Results are incorporating the organic result with Local Business parameters such as the address, contact details and a placement pin pointed on the localised map. The information is grouped to help enhance convenience for the searcher to find and compare different businesses.

Reviews

The new organic result with local business features links to review sites which feature their business. Most interesting is in some cases a customer reviews quote appears below the address and phone details. Not only is the result a standout compared to the rest of the organic results, the review reinforces quality and customer satisfaction.

In addition to the links and occasional review comment, a star rating on the right-hand side of the search result for those with high volumes of user reviews providing an average on the reviews collated by Google. The addition of these visual features again assists the user to find the desired result based on popularity and trust, in the case of the example a place to grab a good pizza from.

Sponsored Results

The first result also bears a stronger presence on the page with an arrow pointer at the front of the result, enticing the user to click as the most relevant result available, in the case of poor quality score sponsored results an the most relevant organic result would be pointed out by the arrow.

The SEM results appear predominantly on the right hand side of the results page. Where a Place Search and Map is present, the sponsored results sit below the Google Map plotting the relevant businesses on the map. The new position for sponsored search could dramatically affect the volume of searchers clicking through sponsored results.

It seems apparent that Google are placing a greater emphasis on the location aspect and increasing relevance by providing local search results to the user. Place Search follows on from Google mantra of delivering highly relevant results which lead to quality clicks and improvement in site engagement, as well as improving the overall user experience to help locate the best results and save time.

What Should You Do?

To be in a good position businesses will need to ensure a strong presence on review sites, they prominently include their business contact details on their website and make sure they are being recognised locally by Google with a business listing to increase the relevance and prominence of their result on the organic search results.

A recent addition to the YSM! Reporting emporium, known as the Ad Delivery Report, is a step in the right direction for Yahoo and in the interest of its advertisers. The report is aimed at giving advertisers the feeling they have more control over where the money they allocate to the Yahoo network is spent.

The new Yahoo Ad Delivery Report does have some great features. The most obvious is that your current YSM accounts could benefit from higher ROI and cost savings, through optimisation using this report. More exciting though is the potential growth of this tool into something much bigger, which could encourage other search engines to follow suit.

How useful is the data offered in the new Yahoo Ad Delivery Report?

The new report is aimed at giving users more transparency, into the performance of the traffic they receive from Yahoo. Although the report works as advertised, it lacks the punch Yahoo so desperately needs.

For instance, we would have loved for the Ad Delivery Report to provide information on domains at the campaign, ad group and even keyword level. With this additional information in hand, advertisers would likely block more, less targeted domains at the campaign level, and improve the ROI of their campaigns.

(The Google content network already uses this functionality to track the performance of each domain at the campaign and ad group level.)

Yahoo Network Distribution

Yahoo has released a new network distribution tool. This feature is more of a blanket, high level approach to domain blocking. Using this distribution tool, Yahoo advertisers can actively select whether they want to appear in Yahoo’s premium network (yahoo.com and bing.com) or on the standard network (similar to the Google partner network).

Yahoo advertisers can choose to appear in the standard network only and be excluded from the premium search engine pages. As shown below in the network distribution diagram taken from a Yahoo! search marketing account.

Know your Traffic Volumes before Making Changes

The best feature of this tool is that it shows the advertiser campaign metrics, specific to the individual distribution channels. Advertisers can instantly see what traffic would be eliminated, before requesting the change.

To make a more informed decision before opting out of either channel, advertisers can use the Ad Delivery Report to access more detailed metrics including revenue and conversion data for each channel.

Good, but could be Better!

It’s unfortunate that Yahoo has rolled out another half baked attempt at improving the user experience for its advertisers. While these new tools do offer some benefit, it is hard to compare them to other tools like Google’s Search Query Report which offers a whole lot more and allows advertisers to truly improve their paid search campaigns through optimisation with targeted, accurate information.

Improvements to some of the new and existing features at Yahoo could be really boost advertiser confidence and give Yahoo a competitive edge that other search engines would need to follow.

For those around who still care about the other search engines, Microsoft launched their highly anticipated new search engine called Bing. Touted as the Decision Engine, Microsoft has high hopes for Bing in challenging the Google juggernaut from increasing its market share.

At first glance, Bing provides offers up a simple search interface (a lot like Google). The search results display is clean (like Google) and of course the name is catchy (much like Google).

But what about relevancy?

Like most things in life, if you can’t give people what they want, they’ll go elsewhere or at the very least stay where they are.

From the few hundred searches we’ve done so far, the relevancy appears to be slightly better than the old Live results. However, Bing, like Live, places a lot of weight on the domain name, especially for generic terms. The end result: You get a lot more websites like www.car-rental-sydney.com showing up for queries like ‘Sydney car hire’ (see the second organic listing in the example below). On other words, many websites with keyword optimised URLs gain more awareness than they deserve, largely based on the domain name.

Can Bing win market share from Google?

With Google’s growing market dominance there are plenty of people who’d like to see a more equitable split between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, especially in Australia where we have more than enough de facto monopolies. More competition would be a win for all of us, even Google as it would help keep them honest and their egos from getting too big.

Unfortunately, Bing’s results are not ground breaking enough to supplant Google. In fact, I’d argue Microsoft still has a lot of work to do improve relevancy. We found a number of irrelevant results that left us scratching our heads.

A search in Australia for ‘amplify’ returns old pages no longer live on our site! Clearly an updated index is badly needed. Searches on ‘health insurance’ and ‘travel’ in Australia returns positively bizarre results. Try it for yourself and see how Bing’s results compare to Google’s. Like us you’ll likely agree Microsoft has a lot of work on its plate to challenge Google.

Even if Bing improves the relevancy of their search results though, one has to wonder whether it will be enough to make people switch. We are, after all, creatures of habit. If it’s not broken, there’s very little chance Bing will make much of a dent, even with the expected marketing weight of Microsoft behind it.

What does Bing mean for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

The short answer is not much… at least not today. While, I’m certain the Microsoft engineers will be tweaking the algorithm to improve relevancy over the coming weeks, the pessimist in me doesn’t believe it will be much help. Google isn’t broken and unless you have something better – and better out of the gate when you’ve got max visibility –  it’s just not going to be enough to make us Bing.

However, if Bing does manage to wrestle some of Google’s search market share away, the entire search marketing industry may have to invent a new service called Decision Engine Optimisation (DEO)! We can only hope…