Once you’ve launched your Google AdWords content optimization resulting in greater impressions, clicks and conversions, what is the next step to expand your account? Good question! Now you need to take what is working and make it work better and more often! Here are 6 steps you can take after you’ve settled into your content-optimized account.
- Run a placement performance report. This report will allow you to see which sites are performing well within your account, and which ones aren’t. Make a list of the sites that have a good ROI. Also, make a list of the sites that have a poor ROI.
- Exclude poor performing sites. From your placement performance report you’ll be able to determine the sites that are generating clicks but no conversions. Build your list of poor performing sites and use the site exclusion tool to block them.
- Create a placement targeted campaign. From your placement performance report you will also be able to determine which sites are working well for you. Since these sites are working well, make them work more often! Create a placement targeted campaign (formerly known as site targeting) and load these sites into this new campaign.
- Add other relevant sites from Google’s inventory. When you open your placement targeted campaign you’ll first load the sites that you already know work well. Now, you can dip into Google’s site inventory to see if there are other sites that may add to your performance. You’ll be able to search by category, or you can describe the topics that appeal to your core audience and AdWords will supply a list of sites. If you add additional sites, you’ll want to monitor these closely as they stray from the
- Insert new ads. Within this new campaign you should try a variety of advertisement formats. First, I would start with text ads seeing as those have done well in the past. You can branch out to image ads of various sizes and dimensions. Then, if you’re feeling experimental, you can test click-to-play video ads.
- Set your bids, and bidding method. Cost-per-impression (CPM) is awful. Or at least it’s never worked well for me. The only way CPM is effective is from a branding perspective. Google recently announced that placement targeted campaigns can run on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, rather than a CPM. When setting up your account, I suggest using the CPC method.
Following these six steps will grow your account by utilizing methods (i.e. sites) that are already working and expanding on them. Testing ad formats will also expand your campaign’s reach as most sites accept certain types of ads and using various formats will broaden your reach. Now, go and grow your account!
