Google Search & Google Content Network.
Years ago, I worked for a business magazine in Dublin. Now, before you try to guess which magazine it was, let me tell you that if you had 100 guesses, you still wouldn’t get it. It wasn’t Business and Finance, it wasn’t Business Plus and it wasn’t Irish Entrepreueur.
(It wasn’t Women Mean Business either, but I guess I’m one X Chromosome short to work there!!)
The magazine I worked for doesn’t exist anymore - it was pulled from the shelves after consistantly poor sales figures. Ironically, it’s name was ‘Success’.
‘Success’ was one of a stable of Irish magazines from the same publisher, which included travel, fashion and social magazines. There was a great buzz in the offices, with the guys in sales on the phones trying to flog advertising, the journalists researching their latest ‘expose’ and the models dropping in for photo shoots.
I didn’t spend too long there but one secret I discovered, which I’ll let you into, is that a lot of the time, journalists don’t know the first thing about what they are writing about.
It’s not their fault really. In a small market like Ireland, most journalists have to be a ‘Jack of all trades’ and write articles about every topic under the sun. And lets face it, no-one can be an expert about everything.
So even now, years later, every time I pick up a newspaper or magazine, I take what I read with a ‘pinch of salt’ (and that goes double when it comes to research on the internet).
So why am I telling you this?
Well, in almost every article I read about Google in the mainstream media, I see the same comment repeated again and again - something along the lines of ‘Google make 97% of their money from search advertising’.
And that’s simply wrong.
Google DO make a fortune from their search advertising - billions of dollars in fact. But a huge chunk of their profits comes from serving ads on their ‘Content Network’.
There’s a really important distinction there - especially if you are spending your hard earned cash ADVERTISING with Google Adwords.
Google Adwords allows you to display your ad when someone does a search on Google (and/or other ’Search’ partners like Eircom.net).
But you can also advertise on their ‘Content Network’, which is made up of millions of websites, from large well known sites like the RTE and Irish Independent websites right down to the smallest blogs and personal interest sites.
Now it’s an easy mistake for journalists to make - to lump search advertising in with ‘content network’ advertising.
In fact, even Google lumps the 2 together - when you’re setting up a Google Adwords campaign, your account is set up by default to advertise on both Google AND the Content Network.
But it’s important to realise that Search Advertising and Content Advertising is fundamentally different.
People who search for the product you sell on Google will arrive on your website in a different frame of mind to those people who are reading an article related to the product you sell and who click on your ad.
Now I’m not necessarily saying that one is better than the other - that depends on your market. What I am saying is that it’s a different type of traffic, and it should be treated as such.
So here’s the key:
Seperate your Search Campaigns from your Content Network Campaigns.
It’s easy to do. After you set up a campaign, go into your Campaign Settings and turn off the Content Network.
Then set up a second campaign, with Google & it’s search partners turned off and the content network turned on.
You’ll use the same keywords in both campaigns.
Test different ads to see which works best for each type of traffic - chances are the best converting ad on the search network will be different that the best ad for the content network.
You should also test different pricing for each (I usually bid less on the content network, but it depends on the market, so you should test it yourself).
And if you really want to get the best return from advertising with Google, make sure you have Google’s conversion tracking set up.
With conversion tracking, you can track sales from each type of ad, find out what’s profitable (and cut out the advertising you are losing money on).
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 1
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 2
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 3
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 4
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 5
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 6
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Day 7
Getting Results With Google Adwords - Targeting the Irish Market