I did a bit of searching, and was surprised to not find any threads on the Google Content Network.
While I have some experience using AdWords (search) from 2007-2009, my content network experience is very limited. All I basically read was how important your ad groupings are.
Can anyone with past or current success on the content network write a guide or share some basic tips and rules of thumb for this traffic source? Perhaps for general evergreen niches such as dating, submits, gaming, etc.
Thank you!
if you want broad and volume, keep it in very simple, couple keywords per adgroup (i use only 3-4 or even 1 in some). make text ads that stand out, ctr is important. You can also make like laser targeted adgroups, keep it very specific. The most important is though; go for volume, expect much less conversion% on average, aim for cheap clicks. Placements are important but you need to gather them mostly through regular keyword matching most of the time (data!) theme your adgroups to anywhere your target audience might be, for example i'd try memes/ragefaces if you want young people, gaming signups. Dont ever limit yourself to a simple adgroup as "gaming". Split test hundreds of ads, a single word can make a big difference in ctr. Ctr = king
Thanks, I'll give some of those tips a shot. Seems to be very similar to Facebook...
Oh and also, if ads dont perform, or a campaign in general ctr wise. Stop it, remove the bad ads, dont let it sit for weeks. Account history is pretty important as well, it can be incredibly hard to get over bad history, which affects your overall QS. I have accounts where I set and forget, check back a couple weeks later just to see it performed bad, and it can be very tough to get impressions going again on a new campaign. Adwords even limits the impressions manually in rare cases, in certain verticals if you heavily under perform
What are good CTRs for content and search? US traffic
for content look at your adgroups relative ctr (available after a couple days, it shows what your ctr is compared to your competitions), for search your bid compared to ad position can indicate if its good or bad