Cashing in on the Google Content Network
April 27th, 2007 by 
Amit
You’ve all heard it, the horror stories of people who turned on the content network, got 1000’s of clicks and dropped $100’s of dollars in a matter of hours!
It happens!
When I first started ppc affiliate marketing I was told again and again, “Disable the content network or else you’ll lose your shirt or worst!” I was told one horror story after another, how I would suddenly, in the middle of the night get 1000’s of clicks and rack up a HUGE Google bill with no sales to show for it.
It was as if the Content Network was some hideous beast to avoid at all costs.
I’m here to tell you that you’ve either been lied or mislead by someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Think about it, there are people with content sites that are monetizing their adsense clicks to the tune of $1 or more per click. Now the only way that’s possible is if adwords advertisers are bidding $2 or more per click on content network. Now if there are adwords advertisers that are bidding THAT HIGH on content network, they must be making a killing.
So there’s definitely a bundle to be made on the content network, however, a word of warning: it depends on the niche you’re in. In some niches you can not only get a TON of traffic from the content network, but it actually converts better than search!?!
You need to test this.
Here’s what I suggest you do: setup a separate campaign that’s content only, this campaign should contain the same keywords as your search campaign. Now here’s whats sweet: your adgroups can be much less targeted, that is you can place WAY more keywords per adgroup and not have to worry about Google disabling your keywords, or punishing you in any other way (except landing page quality - but I won’t get into that in this post). This will cut down the time it takes to setup a separate content only campaign.
Once you’ve copied all your adgroups over to the new campaign, go to the campaign and make sure it’s set to content network ONLY. Set your daily budget low, say $100/day, if that’s too high for you go lower to $5, $10, or $20 a day. Now bid exactly the same amount on everything as you do on search.
Now all you have to do is let the new content only campaign run, if you get 500-1000 clicks and not a single sale, then it’s likely that your niche does not convert well in the content network. Dump it.
If you do start seeing sales, let your campaign run, even if it’s at a loss, long enough to get proper statistics to adjust your bids to maximize your ROI. You may have to lower your bids to 0.05 or less in some cases, but as I said before that’s what’s AWESOME about the content network, you don’t have the draconian minimum bids you have with Google search, nor the stringent quality score requirements.
So have YOU tested the content network on your campaigns?
google content network maximize roi ppc strategies
Posted in Google™ AdWords, PPC Marketing | 
You are spot on Amit! I remember being told the same thing about the content network…I was so scared of it. One other thing to add is sometimes it can take a few days for the content network keywords to activate so if you don’t see your keywords getting any impressions don’t worry about it…you’ll get impressions soon enough be patient.
One of the hardest things for me to do is to wait out a losing period to build up stats, but sometimes you have to lose a little money in the short term to make a lot of money in the long run. (mmmmm sounds like a real business, huh? :))
I have seen good results from the content network in one of my niches. But the only problem is that it is combined under one camapaign which also caters to the search network. Tracking becomes a challenge in this case as i have to look at daily reports to analyze content traffic results.
Any implications if i separate the two at this point. Do you think I might lose the aleardy established history with google and by doing so would it affect my performance?
Thanks always,
Hi Ajay,
I would setup a separate campaign for content, let it run for 1 week then turn off content traffic from your search campaign. That way you won’t lose any traffic in the transition.
Sincerely,
Amit
I’ve heard the same horror stories. Luckily I haven’t experienced this myself. The topic is covered in depth and some strategies on how to profit from what everyone else is running from on the content network is covered in a Clickbank ebook called Adwords Killer.
Another great post Amit!
I recently discovered a tool that you guys may find helpful for content targeted advertising.
This tool makes helps you find profitable pages to use Adwords on. “Just enter your targeted words and then a listing of pages which show CPM (Adsense) advertisements will appear.
If you have no idea why you’d need to use this tool, then you may want to read Adwords 180 as this tool is useful in implementing the low cost per click strategies it explains.”
Adwords 180 CPM Site Finder
http://cpm.cbrich.com/
I just thought I’d pass it on. I just did a quick run using the phrase “affiliate marketing” and it came up with some decent results. I’ve been thinking about trying the content network again for my 5 Star campaign and bookmarked this thinking it may come in handy.
Have you got some inside Google knowledge? I thought they kept very quiet about how much they made from Ads.
Do they really make over a dollar on an ad that pays one dollar?
Very interesting post.
Hi Ethical Internet Marketing,
I wish I had inside knowledge of Google! It’s generally understood that if you pay $X/click on content network, then roughly $X/2 will go to the adsense publisher and $X/2 goes to Big G.
You can make over a $1 per click as an adsense publisher, depending on what your content site is about. If you have a content site about mortgage (for example) with adsense, you can monetize the traffic at $1 or more per click.