MiWeb recently attended a seminar offered by the Google Agency Training Team on ways to expand the reach of Content Network advertising. Following are the MiWeb team’s notes and take-aways.Lesson #1: Contextual Targeting is tangential

The way Google matches Ad Groups to sites leaves plenty of room for adding tangential themes to your Content Network campaigns.

  • Start with your main Ad Group theme and build off of it by taking related ideas and creating additional Ad Groups. Create as many new Ad Groups as you can think of.
  • Continually evolve and grow your “wide net”. Leave the Ad Groups that are getting good results and modify or delete the ones who aren´t working as well. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Lesson #2: Contextual Targeting implies a very broad keyword strategy

Think of Content campaign Ad Groups as keywords. So, like keywords in Search, you need many separate targetted groups… perhaps as many as hundreds!

  • First thing is to remember that it doesn’t make sense to mix Search, Content and Placement type channels in a same campaign. Campaigns should be separated by channel.
  • Define as many Ad Groups as you can. Use very specific keywords on each Ad Group – less than 10 keywords per each. The more Ad Groups you have, the more coverage you have all over the ‘Net.

Lesson #3: Use tools to find Contextual Targeting opportunities

There are easy to use tools broaden Content Network reach. The Tip here from Google was that they recommend using, first and foremost, the Google Search tools for prospecting even more so than the AdWords tools. This makes sense. Google Search sees the web as the content network that it is. Your job is to see the web the same way.

  • Check out the Google Search visualization tool call the Wonder Wheel. Wonder Wheel groups search results in conceptual groups as a visual map. Search for your Ad Group theme and see what conceptual groups Google’s Wonder Wheel finds. Use these themes as new Ad Word Groups.
  • Check out the Related searches tool (next to the “web” link on a Search Result page) to get ideas for new ad groups.
  • Also, use the AdWords Keyword Tool to search for and select the highest volume keywords. High volume means that your Content Campaign will print… well, highly!

Lesson #4: Bids and Ad Copy have impact on Content Campaign reach

As with any campaign, the reach of your Content Network campaign will depend on its Quality Score. This is the Bid times the “predicted click through rate”. Here’s what to do to affect this score:

  • Google will advise you the bids you should assign to each keyword. Those bids will determine: Reach and position. Yes, this means that the more you bid the greater the reach.
  • Don’t give up right away if your ad isn’t getting Impressions. It now may take three to five days for this score to be determined and your ad to print.
  • Finally, make different versions of the same ad asset (text, image, display). It’s OK to use the same ads on the different ad groups.

MiWeb is a web marketing services company located in Costa Rica. We serve agencies in the US market in the management of their US and globally targetted campaigns. We have unique skills for wwweloping US Hispanic markets. We are unmatched in our ability to wwwelop Latin American (Spanish-speaking) markets. We are a fully bilingual team and we are geeks.