Some Suggestions from Google About the Content Network

Posted: February 3, 2008

I recently had a long conversation with Google (including the content PM) about the content network.

Here are a few suggestions from Google about the content network (most of these should not surprise anyone):

Only the first 50 words in an AdGroup are used to determine its theme
When an AdGroup has a large keyword list, Google’s matching isn’t as good and can get confused
If an AdGroup is only shown on content, then it can be very useful to use more general words
All keywords are treated as broadmatch when matching the AdGroup’s theme for content matching
The Google recommended content bid is usually 75% of the search bid
The typical content CPA (which I’m not sure if I can share so no numbers) is not significantly different (less than 10%) from search and content

Of course, this is significantly impacted by bidding content and search differently

It can be very useful to use site targeting with CPC bidding for ensuring your ads are shown on the highest converting content match websites

Content match resources:

On a side note, I finally responded to the comments about quality score and exact match impressions.

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Related Information:

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Written by Brad Geddes aka eWhisper · Filed Under Contextual Advertising, Google AdWords

5 Responses to “Some Suggestions from Google About the Content Network”

Blog News Roundup - 02/06/08 | The Adventures of PPC Hero on February 6th, 2008 2:06 pm

[...] always looking for more information and tips that help us do even better. Brad Geddes has written a short blog post about the content work; the article is short but [...]
Jordan Glasner on February 12th, 2008 7:55 pm

Thanks for sharing. I just started working on the content network for my PPC program, and this post supported a few of my ideas.
Q&A - Why & how do I separate content vs search information in AdWords Reporting? | bg Theory, LLC on September 13th, 2008 10:52 am

[...] Google suggestions on the content network [...]
Google releases whitepaper on the content network’s effectiveness | bg Theory, LLC on April 21st, 2009 10:07 am

[...] only mentions the CPA differences, not the bidding differences of successful [...]
Seven Common Mistakes That Cause New Advertisers To Fail on August 17th, 2009 6:00 am

[...] It is better to have ten AdGroups of ten keywords than one AdGroup of 100 unrelated keywords. There isn’t a magic number for how many keywords should be in an AdGroup—at least if you’re targeting the search network. Google says that for ads appearing on the content network, only the first 50 words in an AdGroup are used to determine its theme. [...]