This is the first post in a series called How to Succeed on the Display Network. This post focuses on comparing the Google and Bing “Content” Networks by exploring their similarities and differences.
The Display Network can be an intimidating place to advertise on. If you’re just starting out in PPC, or just venturing into advertising on the Display Network, you might be thinking: “How do I know what sites to advertise on?” “Can I use image ads or only text ads?” “There are so many ways to target, how do I choose the best options for my client?!” Well, we understand that this can be an intimidating process, and that’s why we launched this series!
In today’s post, I’m covering the similarities and differences between the Google Display Network and the Bing Content Network. For starters, if you’ve been in PPC account management for any amount of time, you know that the Google Display Network used to lovingly be called the Google Content Network (around our office, we still slip on that sometimes!). But, now that Google has transitioned to referring to it as the Display Network, Bing has taken up the mantel in calling their network the Content Network.
In essence, the Google Display Network and the Bing Content Network are the same: the goal is to place your ads on quality sites, next to related content, to help you expand the reach of your advertising by capturing leads from consumers who aren’t actively searching for what you (or your client) offer. Both Google and Bing have partnered with sites, on which your ads can show. However, reach of the Bing Content Network is smaller than Google – Google Display Network reaches 80% of global Internet users. However, this means that Bing offers cheaper bids and less competition. Additionally, the MSFT Content Network is the sole paid search provider for the Wallstreet Journal Digital Network, so if you want to target financial services keywords then Bing might be the better route.
Generally speaking, you should especially consider advertising on the Display Network if:
- You have a client with a product or service that doesn’t have a high search volume
- You have a client who is more concerned with branding than lead generation
- You have the budget to launch some Display/Content Network campaigns and want to expand the reach of your advertising further than Search alone
Display/Content Campaign Optimization
Both Google and Bing offer reports which show the sites your ads have been placed on to help you optimize your campaigns, and both offer a site exclusion tool to help you eliminate the sites that aren’t performing well for your campaigns. In Google, you’ll head to the Networks tab and download a report for your automatic placements to view important metrics associated with each domain. You can also drill down to see data even deeper for the actual URLs; this makes it even easier to optimize your placements, because you can exclude only the parts of the site that may not be working well, instead of the whole site. In Bing, however, you can only view data for placements at the domain level, which makes optimizing a little more difficult. In terms of reports, you can run a Publisher Performance report, which will show data for your automatic placements. If you’ve chose specific sites to target, you can run a Website Placement performance report to view data for these targeted sites.
Below is a chart outlining the key differences between the Google Display Network and the Bing Content Network, which you can use to help you decide which might be the better option for you or your client.
We’ve reviewed some key similarities and differences between the Google Display Network and the Bing Content Network. We hope we’ve encouraged you to expand your advertising by launching some Display/Content network campaigns, and we hope that showing you the similarities and differences between the Google Display Network and the Bing Content Network will help you decide which search engine to launch your display/content network campaigns. Tomorrow, Bethany will be covering Display Network Management best practices, so check back tomorrow for some great tips on how to get the most out of your efforts!
