How to Successfully use the Google Display Network

The Google Display Network – Millions of partner websites spanning just about every business industry you can think of, meaning potentially huge exposure for you and your ads. So why are so many quick to tell you that the content network is a waste of money and doesn’t work? Time and time again we hear that it only drives untargeted traffic to your site and that it is impossible to get conversions and good ROI.

Yes the display network can represent a risk to the inexperienced – as I mentioned the network is huge with millions of sites of which most will obviously be irrelevant to your target audience and the potential for wasted budget is huge. Ultimately, you are targeting people who aren’t actively looking for your product or service and as a result will generally be less committed to converting through your ad - but because there will always be a limit to the number of people that will search using your keywords, the Display Network can be a great way to expand your campaigns reach beyond the Google search.

The following strategies can help you get great results from your Display Network campaigns.

1. Always separate search and display network campaigns. When a new campaign is created, Google’s default setting is to put campaigns on both the Search and the Display Network. Setting up a separate campaign gives you more control over budgets, ad groups, keywords and bids.
2. Create many tightly themed ad groups – If your, campaign is targeting automatic placements, Google looks at multiple keywords to decide where to place your ad. This will also help target your ads more precisely. Try combining this with shorter, broader keyword lists – limiting the number of keywords to 3-5 per ad group.
3. Copy best performing text ads from your search campaigns – although the two do operate very differently it makes sense to start with ads that have the highest CTR and CR from search. Make sure there is a call to action in the ad text – this is more important on the Display Network - remember the user isn’t necessarily looking for your product. Tell them what you want them to do! Including prices and special offers in the ad text is also a great way to help increase CTR and CR.
4. Use Conversion Tracking – As previously mentioned, the Display Network is huge and the potential for wasted budget is great. It’s essential that you can tell which sites are converting!
5. Adjust Bids Accordingly – Again, Google recommends starting with the same CPC bid as your search campaign and then when you have enough data you can change bids for individual placements or sites based on conversion rates and the cost per acquisition, just as you would do with a normal search campaign.
6. Exclude Poor Performing Sites – Allowing your Display campaign to run on automatic placements is great for branding, but if you don’t remove sites that don’t convert your CPA will be massive. Placements can be excluded at both ad group and campaign level.

Managing campaigns on the content network can be high maintenance; initial set up and optimisation can take up a larger portion of time than we would like, but once the campaign is established and through regular maintenance this becomes as easy as a normal search campaign. The question is: can you afford to miss out on potential leads that you might not gain from your normal search marketing?

If you would like assistance on setting up your first Display Network campaign contact the I-COM PPC team today.