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This from Google today – most has been reported in previous installments of my Search Engine Watch Column – I’ll elaborate on other points in future columns:

In this third post of our content network series, we would like to share some content optimization tips for your keywords and ad text. In a future post, we will write more about other tips.

Contextual targeting on the content network happens at the ad group level, not at the keyword level. That means all the keywords in an ad group, along with the ad text, are evaluated when Google is deciding whether to show your ad on a specific content page. In other words, it’s important for all the keywords in an ad group to belong to a common theme.

We recommend keeping separate campaigns for advertising on content and search. Please keep in mind that these tips below are specific to contexual targeting and advertising on the content network and may be different from your search network strategies.

• Create a manageable, targeted keyword list.
  Advertisers have found most success on the content network with ad groups of around 15 to 30 keywords.
  
• Use tightly themed ad groups.
  For contextual targeting, we look for pages that match most of the keywords in your ad group. For example, if your ad group has a number of keywords about lilies and tulips, we try to find pages about these two topics together. If you have an ad group with diverse keywords on different themes, it may decrease the number of pages on which your ad is likely to appear. When picking keywords, imagine what keywords would likely appear on the pages that you are trying to target, and create tightly themed ad groups around those keywords.
• Use duplicate keywords for appropriate ad groups.
  To continue the previous example, let’s say you were creating a campaign for flowers and had ad groups for lilies, roses and tulips. Unlike search, we would recommend that the general keyword flowers be included in all three ad groups to help establish a floral theme.
• Use ad group level URLs instead of keyword level URLs.
  Because no one particular keyword is used to trigger your ads on the content network, keyword level URLs are not relevant. We recommend using ad group level URLs instead.
• Measure content performance at the ad group level.
  We’ve found that measuring your performance on the content network at the ad group level offers a better gauge of what strategies work best.
• Build a comprehensive negative keyword list.
  The more negative keywords you include on a particular topic, the less likely your ad is to appear on pages that match that topic. If a page is predominately about your negative keywords, while partially about your positive keywords, our system is not likely to show you on that page. If a page is principally about your positive keywords, but mentions a few negative keywords, then your ad may still appear on this page. We recommend that you include multiple negative keywords on topics you would like to avoid. If you sold camera film and wanted to reduce the likelihood of your ad showing on movie-related pages, you should include multiple negative keywords like -movie, -movies, as well as synonyms like -cinema, -cinemas.
  

We hope you found these tips useful. As always, we recommend that you track performance of your content network ads using Placement Performance reports and set up conversion tracking or use Google Analytics. And please let us know what content network topics you would like to read about in this blog.

This just came out from Google – and it’s good, huge news. Advertisers on Site-targeted campaigns (now called Placement Targeted) can choose to pay on a CPC model rather than a CPM model. Here’s their announcement; watch this blog and my SEW Content Advertising column for analysis and advice:

We’d like to announce two changes to site targeting in Google’s content network. First, because site targeting now offers more precise targeting options, we’ve given it a more appropriate name: placement targeting. Second, we’re introducing a new cost-per-click bidding option so you can now pay per click or per impression.

Introducing placement targeting

When site targeting was first introduced two years ago, advertisers could search for specific URLs or topics to find individual sites in the Google content network and run their image and text ads on these sites. Over time, we’ve introduced other features like targeting by demographics and richer ad formats such as click-to-play video ads. Now, advertisers can target not only websites but also precise subsections of sites, such as the football pages of a news site, the show times section of a movie site, and even a specific ad unit (a block of Google ads) on a particular webpage.

Because of these new changes, we’ve changed the name from site targeting to placement targeting. The term “placement” can be used to refer to any site or subsection of a site that you choose to target. As the number of placements available for targeting continues to grow, you’ll have even greater control over the parts of the Google content network on which your ads appear.

Cost-per-click bidding for placement targeting

With the launch of cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, advertisers can now choose the bidding option that best matches their needs. If the purpose of your placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay when users click on your ads. If you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your target audience, you can select cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. And you can specify either the maximum price or the average price (with preferred bidding), that you’d like to pay for each click or 1000 impressions.

Along with Placement Performance reports, CPC bidding for placement targeting was one of the most common advertiser requests we received for Google content network campaigns. We’re excited to make this feature available as part of our ongoing efforts to increase the flexibility and control advertisers have when advertising on the content network.

If you’d like to get started on placement targeting, you can read more about it here.

Here’s what the AdWords Help page says:

What is placement targeting?

Placement targeting (formerly called site targeting) lets AdWords advertisers choose individual spots in the Google content network where they’d like their ads to appear. A placement might be an entire website or a subset of a site, such as only the sports pages of a news site. You handpick your audience, big or small. The AdWords matching system does the rest, analyzing your input and creating a list of available content network sites for you to choose from.

• You can select sites for your placement-targeted campaign in two ways:
  • Name the sites where you’d like to advertise
  • Give us a list of words that describe the type of site you’re looking for.
• A site must be part of the Google Network in order to be available for your placement-targeted campaign.
• As with all AdWords advertising, you’ll compete for space with other advertisers. If you choose very prominent and popular sites, you’ll need a higher price to win the ad position.
• Placement-targeted campaigns can take either cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) pricing. The minimum bid with CPC pricing is $0.01 (or the local currency equivalent) per click. The minimum bid for CPM pricing is US$0.25 (or the local currency equivalent) for each 1000 impressions. To check minimum CPM in your currency, please see the account fees finder.

Who should have placement targeting? Should I?

Anyone who has an AdWords Standard Edition account can run placement-targeted ads. We suggest that you experiment and see what works best for you. Advertisers have found placement targeting is an especially good option for:

• Businesses who want to promote an existing brand or a new product to a large audience.
• Small advertisers who want to reach a very precise audience.

Of course, if you’re happy with your keyword-targeted ads, there’s no need to change. Placement targeting is simply one more tool that AdWords advertisers can use to bring their message to highly-targeted groups of web users.

How do I create placement-targeted ad campaigns?

To create a new placement-targeted campaign, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your AdWords Standard Edition account at https://adwords.google.com (if you’re not already logged in).
2. On the Campaign Summary page, find the table titled Online Campaigns.
3. Click Placement-targeted in the ‘Create a new campaign’ section at the top of the table.
4. Follow the sign-up wizard instructions to create your campaign.

MarketingSherpa published this interview today, based on my presentation at their B2B conferences. The article references this list of Google AdWords Content Themes (or Categories) – download by right-clicking on the link and choosing “Save As.”

Last night I was audio-interviewed by eMarketingShow regarding our research on Contextual Advertising. The show, archived here, is a short version of my advice for optimizing Content campaigns – longer versions will be presented at my MarketingSherpa and PPC Summit presentations over the next few months, and longer online versions via this blog and elsewhere.

We’re still working on an article (or 2-3) summarizing our findings and advice on contextual advertising.

For now, though, we’ve verified with Google that item #2 of our previous post (More on Contextual Advertising) is incorrect; negative keywords do limit the sites where content ads appear. Apparently the Google ad-to-content matching algorithm looks at the negative keywords in an ad group, and then, if it finds matches to those keywords on the publisher page, it will not show the associated ad on that page.

Last week I presented our latest findings on Contextual Advertising at SES Toronto – posted below.

This Thursday I’ll be delivering an updated version at PPC Summit New York.

Some notable changes in the latest revs of the presentation:

1. Slide #5 describes the (incorrect) way many people believe content advertising works. In the PowerPoint slide show, the slide is displayed, and then a “NOT” symbol flies in and covers the slide.

2. We’ve come to the conclusion that negative keywords operate much differently than in search campaigns – that they don’t prevent ads from appearing on pages that contain the negative keywords; they merely serve to help the keyword set + ad copy match a particular Theme (see earlier posts). We’re in the process of confirming this with our search engine friends, and will report back when we get the word.

3. We’ve devised a strategy (slide 14 in the presentation posted below) that may be the best for optimizing contextual advertising – it’s specific to AdWords for now. I’ll describe it in more detail in a later post, but in short, it advocates using a standard Content campaign as a test-bed for finding new top-performing sites, and then “peeling and sticking” the top sites out of the Content campaign and into a Site-targeted campaign, which gives you the option of setting separate (and different) bids per site, and also the option of paying on a CPC basis or a CPM basis. We’ll be testing the strategy over the next few weeks and reporting back.

IDC published a press release recently that turns out to be a rather bad advertisement for their pricy white paper on internet advertising – read the press release here.

In the press release they predict that search advertising”market share” will decline due to the increase in prevalence of video advertising.

The author obviously doesn’t “get” the distinction between search and contextual advertising. I think it’s likely that contextual video advertising will enjoy an increase in market share, but it won’t do so at the expense of search – it will do so at the expense of other forms of display and contextual advertising, like banner ads and print ads.

I think search advertising will continue to gain market share compared to all other kinds of advertising. Especially when you envision a world where search is embedded into more user experiences. Think on-screen search during TV and movie viewing; search while traveling by car; search while using ad-supported Microsoft software applications.

Presentation given today. More tomorrow or Friday.

PowerPoint file here.

Well, “revolutionize” may be a strong word. But the new report will certainly help Content advertisers create campaigns that are much more successful.

It’s called the Placement Performance Report, and it makes available Content campaign performance data never before available. It lists the web sites where your Content ads are being displayed, along with performance data like CTR and conversion rate for each site.

Though the report is in beta right now, soon you’ll be able to see which sites are under-performing (e.g., resulting in negligible conversion rates), and exclude them from displaying your ads using the Site Exclusion Tool. Or you might choose to place higher bids for ads appearing on top-performing sites, using AdWords’ Site Targeting.

Here’s a link that will let you download a sample report (2.5mb Excel 2003 file): Placement Performance Report Sample

Many thanks to the author, Miva’s Chrysi Philalithes, and Miva’s Tiffany Guarnaccia, Marketing & Communications Manager, for reprint of this article:

4 Pay-Per-Click Strategies that Win

With contextual pay-per-click ads, reach your potential customers where it counts: on content sites.

As the pay-per-click (PPC) ad market continues to mature, the ways in which the ad channel is perceived and used also evolves. There are two particular areas that are currently major talking points. First, how PPC is being increasingly used as a branding tool, and secondly, how advertisers can start to more effectively tap into the contextual PPC networks.

In today’s market, referring to PPC advertising as “search marketing” simply doesn’t paint the complete picture. A recent study by eMarketer revealed that in 2007, advertisers will spend around 13 percent of their online ad budgets on contextual ads compared to 43 with on paid search ads. Couple this with the fact that an estimated 45 percent of people’s time online is spent on content sites compared to just 4.7 percent spent actually conducting searches and you start to realize the central role contextual advertising plays in the online mix.

As the spotlight shifts onto the contextual networks, marketers need to ask themselves: What are the different rules of engagement between contextual PPC ads and search marketing? And how should contextual campaigns be integrated with search campaigns to deliver ROI and help increase brand awareness?

One size doesn’t fit all
Taking the same keywords and ads that you use on AdWords, placing them on other PPC networks and waiting for the conversions to pour in simply won’t deliver results. One of the key points to remember is that with the contextual networks, you are likely to be reaching people at a different stage in the buying or consideration process.

People are not searching specifically for your product or service; rather they are consuming related content. As a result, your ads need to create a real cut-through to drive clicks. From an ad copy perspective, special offers and promotions become arguably more important than on the search networks as does instilling a sense of urgency through the inclusion of time-sensitive elements in your copy. Your objective should be to use your ads to leverage the interest built up through the content of the web page, and in turn steer people from consideration to purchase.

Keyword planning
When it comes to keyword planning there are a number of differences between search and contextual networks. On the search networks, the key is not to think in terms of industry jargon, but rather to put yourself in the mindset of your potential customers. How would they be searching for your brand online? Those insights should underpin your keyword strategy both for short and long tail terms.

On the contextual networks, many of those same keywords are also important, particularly given that many of the contextual networks will also include a proportion of search traffic. But in addition, you need to think about how your product or service is actually positioned online. Remember that on the contextual networks, your ads will, in the main, be displayed on the basis of how your keywords relate to site content rather than specific typed-in search queries. As such, you should research how journalists and bloggers are referring to your sector online. These insights should help you build out your keyword portfolio.

Another important point to remember when it comes to keyword planning is that terms at the very tail of the traditional search curve will generate far less traffic on the contextual networks. Generic terms become increasingly important as a result and can typically be acquired at a lower cost than on the search networks.

Think about your bidding strategies
The importance of appearing on the first page of search results has been drummed into us since the early days of the internet. The same is true on the contextual networks, only even more so. By definition, contextual results appear on pages that will typically include other content. What this means is that site real estate on these pages will generally be at more of a premium than on traditional search listings. As a result, contextual implementations may include as few as two or three ads, meaning that by not bidding for the top positions, you will considerably decrease the volume of traffic you receive. Recent analysis from across MIVA’s network revealed that 94 percent of clicks come from ads in the top three positions in listings.

Optimize for success
Content changes, and these changes can result in considerable variation in the volume of traffic your ads generate from day to day, and in turn, the volume of clicks you receive. As a result, regular optimization is required to get the most out of your contextual campaigns.

This optimization should focus not only on reviewing the success of ongoing campaigns, but also looking at breaking news stories and how these stories can be effectively leveraged to increase traffic.

The immediacy of PPC means that as stories relating to your product or service break, you can optimize campaigns to help ensure it is your ads rather than your competitors’ that are associated with those stories. For big brands this approach helps drive category ownership; for smaller brands it helps you punch considerably above your weight in marketing terms.

With contextual PPC ads, you are reaching your potential customers where they spend most of their time on the web: on content sites. And with 13 percent of budgets in an expanding and increasingly competitive online advertising market being spent on these ads, the question you have to ask yourself is not just what opportunities contextual advertising can offer, but what are the risks to your brand if you don’t get involved?

Chrysi Philalithes, VP Global Marketing & Communications, MIVA. Read full bio.