Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Free Branding and New Sales Opportunities in PPC Advertising 

Wouldn’t it be great if you could put your company name or logo in front of thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people and not have to pay much for it, if anything at all? Wouldn’t it be great if you could splash your company name or company logo across dozens, hundreds, even thousands of different websites? Wouldn’t it be great if you could build brand/business awareness and announce your existence to a broad spectrum of people who might very well be interesting in learning more about your company?

I’m hoping you are answering yes.

Wouldn’t it also be great if you could put the power of Google to work for you doing just this?

Still saying yes?

Okay, then it’s time for you to implement Image Ads in your Google AdWords campaigns. Using Image Ads on Google’s vast content network, you can literally put your company’s name, your company’s logo, visual images of the products you are selling in front of hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. And the beauty of running a CPC Image Ad campaign on Google AdWords is that all these hundreds of thousands of impressions won’t cost you a dime unless someone actually clicks on your ad. Here at JumpFly, we have seen many clients experience impressive results with Google Image Ads.

Another plus is that your low click-thru rate on Google’s content network won’t negatively impact your regular search traffic quality scores, so if you do get hundreds of thousands of impressions and very few clicks it won’t work against you.

Of course, you certainly want to get some clicks and sales out of these Image Ads, too. The good news is that conversion tracking does work with Image Ads, so you can track profitability as well as use this is a powerful branding mechanism.

More about Jack

Last week we discussed the difference between content network advertising and search advertising.  Now, how can you manage your content campaign to maximize your PPC advertising results?

First, we always recommend creating a separate campaign for content network advertising. This allows you the freedom of keyword selection and ad copy variations. It also keeps your analytics separate so you can manage both search and content easily.

Selecting the Right Keywords for Content Placement

Google decides which ads to place on a particular page based on the theme of the page (i.e., what is the article or site about?) and the keywords associated with the ad.

Using keywords, you are telling Google where you want your ad to appear based on the content or theme of a site.

So, the keywords you use to trigger your Ad placement need to be based on the type of content you feel would match your offer. Think about your target market and what they may be interested in at the time they would be open to your ad.  Start with the types of sites or articles you feel would be relevant and work backwards to figure out the keywords that you could use get placed on those sites.

Going back to the child-proofing example from last week, you might use keywords related to parenting, safety in the home or even expecting a baby.  Some keywords will overlap with the search campaign, but there are many keywords that would not be relevant in the search scenario that would be very useful getting you placed on a pertinent article.

Writing Ads for Content

In addition to using different keywords, you also need to write your ads differently when you are interrupting your reader as opposed to responding to a request.  Your ad needs to create a connection to what they are thinking about but also needs to have a call to action to encourage a response.  You have to convince them that they should stop what they are doing and take a detour that will benefit them instead of just sidetracking them.  Not an easy task, which is why you see such low CTRs in content network campaigns.

For example, if your ad is displayed next to an article about keeping children safe in the home, you want to use ad copy that identifies with the parents fears and guides them to visit your site to find products that will create a safe environment for their kids.  You are interrupting their line of thought and convincing them to take action but it’s all within the context of what they are thinking about at the time.

Find the Right Audience. Interrupt. Call to Action.

There are three main “take-aways” from understanding content network advertising:

1. You need to focus on your target market and the theme of target sites and articles in order to find your customer at the right time and the right place.
2. Your ad needs to meet the customer where they are mentally (i.e., thinking about the article they are reading) and be strong enough to interrupt them.
3. You need a strong call to action to convince them to take a detour from what they are doing.

Next week we’ll talk about some of the tools Google AdWords has in place to help you with your content network campaigns.