Rajwansh.com

A few weeks back google changed the look of their top ads from a blue background to yellow. Google today announced via its adwords blog that it is changing the formula for top ad placement on google.com. According to google the main reason for this change is to give advertisers complete control over their ad placement on google search.

Uptill now the top position was based on a factor of ad’s quality score(CTR X relevancy of the ad and the keyword/s) and the actual CPC that an advertiser pays for a click. According to folks at google, this does not give an advertiser full control over the placement of his ad since actual CPC is influenced by bids of advertisers below you. Thus, in order to provide an advertiser more control over its ad positioning, google will now take into account the max cpc for the keyword instead of actual cpc in the placement formula.

Google further adds that this step would also result in increased quality of top ads since more quality ads will be competing for the top position as a result of this algorithmic change.

What does this change means for advertisers?

- Advertisers who normally bid high would benefit from this change since their ads would now be more eligible to show in the top position. Such advertisers would see their average positions going up as and when this new placement formula gets implemented. This would directly mean more clicks for such advertisers.

- Small advertisers who rely more on their ad quality for achieving higher ad positions would bear the burnt. Small advertisers who compete with large advertisers on certain keywords might see their ad postions going down as a result of which thier clicks might also go down.

What does this change means for Google?

Huh! Thats not too hard to guess. It would only increase their revenues. Wall street and investors would really welcome this move. Be prepared to see google stock going up and improved earnings from google in the next quarter.

Many people believe that google’s search network provides better conversions and ROI than the content network. While that may not always be wrong, but in certain cases reverse is true. If you follow some rules for optimizing your content campaigns, you can get a pretty descent and sometimes better conversions than the search network.

Following are the main things one should keep in mind while optimizing for google’s content network.

1. Use lesser and more binding keywords in an adgroup - One should try and use very related keywords in an adgroup, do not add keywords which might dilute your theme in any way. There is no hard and fast rule for the number of words which one can use, but 9/10 times it should be less than 50.

2. Try more general ads on the content network - When you write ads for the search network they tend to be more specific in the sense that people use dynamic insertion and keywords in their ad title. But when it comes to the content network, one should be a little more general. Since content network has a very wide reach it makes sense to relate your ads not just to your most relevant audience but also to your semi-relevant audience.

3 Try negative keywords - Try and use as many negative keywords as you can, that do not relate to the product/service that you are selling. e.g. if you are selling gsm mobile phones you might wish to add ‘cdma’ as a negative keyword in your ad group. You can also you site exclusion if you don’t want your ads to show on a particular site.

4. A/B test your ads - Once your ads are live its important to analyse which ad are working and which are not. Try and perform this analysis for at least 3-4 days. This way you will get a clear picture about your ads. Experiment with your ad text that’s working by making a few other variations of the same ad text.

So try out this suggestions and I am sure you will get a descent return from the content network as well.