Google Content Network Optimization – Does Anyone Really Know How?

Have you ever asked Google how to best optimize for their content network?

Try it – ask your Account Manager… I dare you!

It’s a bit of a running joke between me and my google buddies because I always pull them up on the fact that their ‘content targeting’ strategy changes almost ‘every week’.  It feels as though sometimes the best practice approach may well be more of a best guess than anything else.

Of course there are definitely basic things you should do from a campaign structure and bidding strategy perspective, and I’ll cover these in a later post, but in short, the only real way to optimize for the content network is to test everything.

Below are just a few of the ‘strategies’ I’ve heard over the years… guess what? They’re all correct in some cases, but can be so wrong in others.

While most people agree with these three points:

- Separate your Content bids,
- Separate content Campaigns from search,
- Build themed in ad groups,

The answers start to change when you dig a little deeper.  ‘How many keywords?’, ‘Do I use the same ad groups as for search?’, ‘How much should I bid?’

Here are some of the concepts I’ve heard and read…

- Add 10 keywords per ad group,
- Actually, add 50 key words per ad group,
- Don’t just replicate the search campaign for content
- Just replicate the search campaign for content…
- Only use 2-4 highly related terms per ad group, and have 100’s of them

The way I like to look at it is simply that there’s no ‘one size’ fits all when it comes to maximizing results for contextually targeted ads. There are simply too many variables in play.

In short, I don’t think anyone can actually tell you what works best because the simple truth of the matter is that the only way to truly maximize the content network is to test everything, and try multiple tactics.

The product or service YOU are advertising will have success on the content  netword in different ways to another products or services. And to make matters worse, some campaigns will never do well on the content network no matter how hard you try!