95% of advertisers make this mistake. As discusses in my other article titled "How Google evaluates Your Adwords Campaign", Google works very differently from other search engines concerning pay per click campaigns.
So what's the #1 mistake that costs the average advertiser thousands? The answer is encompassed in two simple words – "Content Network". Google will probably never tell you this because they make too much money from unknowing novices spending more than needed, being unaware of their "Content Network".
When setting up any pay per click campaign in Google (Google Adwords), there are three main areas in which you can display your ad:
Google Search
Google Search Network
Google Content Network
Google Search and Google Search Network normally deliver relevant searchers. By default however, Google already has their Content Network checked for you on their ad set-up page. But how closely matched is the Content Network to your Adwords? Usually it's not well matched at all. You will get lots of clicks from responders to these extended relevance sites, however, the quality of this traffic is horrific at best. Not only is the traffic terrible, your click rate will be much lower when including the Content Network. What's worse, if you remember my last article, one of the key factors that affects your ad position is your "average click rate", so this can be a double negative whammy. By just de-selecting "Content Network" (in the "Edit Campaign Settings") you can significantly improve the click rate of your campaign which will then also give you better ad positioning.
Remember, the better your click rate, the higher your ad will be positioned. If your click rate drops below about 0.5%, your ad will rarely display at all. On the other hand, if you have a click rate of 2%, 3% or even higher, your ad will be positioned much higher than if evaluated by price alone.
One more negative alert – click fraud within the "content network" is much greater.
Another great way to improve your ROI and lower your cost per click is to examine where your traffic is coming from within the Google Search Network. If you determine that a lot of traffic is coming from partner sites like www.ask.com for example, you could eliminate the "Search Network" targeting as well and save some additional money. Advertising on these partner sites directly will save you about 50% for each click. The downside, of course, is that it will take more time to manage the extra campaigns. It also depends on your overall budget. The more you invest, the more it is worth looking at the option of eliminating the Search Network as well and setting up separate campaigns on sites like ask.com.
The bottom-line is that, just by de-selecting "Content Network" you will dramatically improve your results and save huge amounts of money.
Look for our next article, where we'll look at the 2nd biggest mistake when doing Google Adwords. Sign up for our "Marketing Insight" ezine and be one of the first to view it.
The article is brought to you by Peter Grundner at P&T Enterprises
