Google Lowering Their Minimum Cost Per Click?, Content targeted traffic for $0.03? Options

[Haystack]

I noticed an ad group for a client has an average cost per click of $0.03 today. It's only that low for the content targeted images. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I'm wondering if I'm the only person seeing this.

I suppose 0.03 is better than nothing. Heck, it's 3 times more than the minimums on Goto a couple years ago.

On a related note, I don't see why Overture doesn't lower their minimums. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/lightbulb.gif) It seems like a lot of money is being left on the sidelines on terms that are high volume but low conversions, where even .10 is too high a price to pay.

It will be interesting to see if this is more than a reporting glitch.

[cline]

Several months ago Adwords started discounting the content network traffic because its conversion performance was inferior to that of the search network. They use some secret formula to apply the discounts.

The discounts helped keep many advertisers in the content network. IMHO it was not the right solution. The simplest solution would be to allow advertisers to set a percentage bid adjustment for the content network, so that advertisers could lower or raise the relative bids for their content network traffic in proportion to how that traffic performs for them.

[Haystack]

It's news to me that this included discounting some clicks to below 0.05. I had only seen changes from say 1.00 down to .40.

I hear ya on the content pricing. There is frustratingly little control for that today. The traffic has some value, but I need to be able to determine and adjust for that value.

[cline]

I don't manage much at all that's only worth $0.05 per click, but on the one campaign I do the content delivery clicks have been coming in at around $0.045.

Yes, it's a real pity that the advertiser has no control over the content network bids. I have a bunch of stuff that would work just fine on the content network if I could cut the bids. In a few cases where there's enough traffic to warrant the effort, I do a kludge to effect this: 2 campaigns targeting the same keywords, one bid high targeting only search, the other bid low and targeting content.

[Jbrookins]

What frustrates me is that you can turn off syndication and you can turn off content, but you can't run a content-only campaign.

We tested trying to do this and found that if you're not very careful, your content ads will stomp all over your search ads, which is hell on placement.

[djonline]

I have a question on this subject (bear with me, I am a ppc newbie...)

Does turning off content ads, turn off the ads from appearing on other SE which use Google's index such as Netscape and AOL?

I have one ad in particular that received over 50,000 impressions in one day from the content search. I couldn't figure out how that could occur, but it sure reeks havoc on the CTR.

Also, I notice that the click throughs for the content searches come from a 'http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?' and when I click the referring link to the googlesyndication, I get a mish-mash of ads. Which would explain why my conversion on this ad campaign is nil. The ad campaign I am referring to is a "RPM Blender" ad and my blender ad is paired with "Reg Professional Member", "RPM International Stock" and "FTP Server" ads. (My ad does state that the ad is for a kitchen blender). But if I add a negative keyword for RPM, then I am cutting at least half of my keyword phrases to be found under for this ad. I thought of just turning off the "content search" for this campaign, but was worried it would 86 AOL and other partnering SE's.

And lastly, why if the "search" ads are receiving very targeted click throughs (I am using phrase and exact matching in my keyword phrases), that the syndicated ads would be so broad?

What would you gurus do in cases like this?

Julie

[Haystack]

Great description of your situation, Julie. I may have a couple answers for you:

If you're receiving search traffic for poorly targeted search terms, your ads are probably broad matched. Take a look at the various matching options to see how you can be more specific.

Negative keywords are exclusion works, so if terms like FTP are never going to be used in conjunction with your product by a targeted searcher, set up a negative for:
-ftp

The traffic from AOL and Netscape is Search Partner traffic, which is generally quite good. For products like your's, you'll probably also end up getting some clicks from google ads on Amazon, and Shopping.com.

The Googlesyndication ads can get pretty mish-mashy, so if you're not seeing verifiable sales through that referrer, turn off content targeting.

One other thing: The content targeting wreaks havoc on the CTR reporting, but it doesn't count against your CTRs. The only CTR that matters is the CTR your ads receive on Google.com searches.

[djonline]

Thanks so much Ed! You truly are a wealth of PPC knowledge! :read:

I think I am going to turn off the content matching for the RPM Blender ad now that I know it won't effect appearing on Amazon, AOL, Netscape, etc. My main concern was I would disappear from those venues without 'content matching'.... good to know it won't effect it.

My keywords on all my ads are entered as "phrase match" and [exact match] as I really only want truly targeted visitors (which is why I was stumped on the broad appearance of ads next to mine in the content ads).

Side note, from reading all your posts, Ed, I learned in a very short time how to achieve a pretty decent conversion rate on my PPC ads. One of my campaigns has a CTR of over 18% and 4.4% are converting to sales. :yay:

Anyway, I digress....

To get back to your original question on the lower PPC content minimum costs; I did check my content click average cost per click, and the lowest average "content" click average cost I received was $0.04. So you are on to something!

On November 28th, the following is a copy of the content search line of my RPM Blender ad:

Content Total 2 10,407 0.0% $0.04 $0.08 3.0


(Note the 10,407 impressions in one day! How does that occur?)



Julie

[Haystack]

It sounds like things are working great, Julie. With CTRs and conversions like that, spending whatever it takes to capture as much of that traffic as possible shouldn't be too hard.

Content targeting can create some HUGE impression stats. I imagine there are a ton of sites on the web having something to do with cooking that syndicate Adsense ads. If you have the time and energy, it may be worth testing some image ads. In some cases, the CTR may be higher.

[djonline]

Thanks Ed! For some reason I never thought of testing an image ad. I'll give that some thought and creativity. You may be on to something...

Oh, and one last thing I thought was interesting. The same aforementioned ad I have running on Adwords with the CTR of 18+% converting 4.4% to sales is converting horribly on Overture. Same ad, same keyword phrases. CTR of 12% but converting 0%! Anyway, I thought it was quite indicative on the genre of visitors in Google's network vs. Yahoo's.....

Thanks again Ed! I appreciated your input.

Julie

[Haystack]

I've noticed similar numbers with retail clients this season. It's interesting how much better Google's network of partner sites have done than Overture's.

[suthra]

I never use content targetting for any of my google ads. My intention is to attrach visitors from Search engines and its always a wise choice.

[goodman]

If Google is indeed testing lower prices for content ads and image ads, it might be because they're getting even more serious about ad serving "hors Google."

Good find, Ed.

I've heard rumblings that there will be a lot of new features for contextual ad bidding soon. (Eg. separate bidding and so on.) It seems inevitable. As usual, Google's trying to fake competitors out by downplaying what they're up to.

[BobetteKyle]

rumblings that there will be a lot of new features for contextual

In an email to AdSense publishers about upcoming changes to image ads:

Google will soon be expanding its image ad program to include a wider variety of creative formats. We'll be accepting animated GIFs from a small test group of advertisers, and you'll be able to display these ads on your pages!