Dynamic Keyword Insertion and the Content Network

I was looking at my MoneyTies blog earlier today when I noticed the following AdSense ad in the right margin of the page

This ad immediatly caught my eye because it is clearly an ad using dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), or at least, it was intended to do so. However, because it was being displayed as an AdSense ad via the AdWords Content Network, the title line was still using the DKI format.

I'm not sure if this is a temporary bug or is something that's been happening for a while as I've never seen it before. So, for the timebeing, if you're using DKI I'd recommend that you ensure the Content Network is turned off for those ad groups (something I'd recommend anyway!)

As an aside, it's also interesting to note that an add for Yahoo Search Marketing appeared on a page whose contents were primarily about Google AdSense!

Technorati Tags: adsense, adwords, dynamic keyword insertion, content network

Is it Better to Disable the AdWords Search Network?

A few months ago, I read an interesting post on the MarketingShift blog, entitled Think You Know the Google Search Network? At the end of this post, the author wrote "Notes: It maybe worthwhile for advertisers to test out displaying ads only on Google.com rather then its "Search Network" and see if you can capture a better ROI."

So, I thought I would test this out on three campaigns that were running at a cost higher than most other campaigns and that were using the Search Network. I removed the Search Network option so these campaigns are now only running on Google Search.

The test has only been running for a week but so far I have found the following results:

Campaign 1 - Before Cost 0.66; After Cost 0.73; Change +0.73 (10.6%)
Campaign 2 - Before Cost 0.54; After Cost 0.54; Change 0.00 (0.0%)
Campaign 3 - Before Cost 0.67; After Cost 0.71; Change +0.04 (6.0%)

So, thus far in 2 out of the 3 campaigns, the average cost per click has risen, and in one case, it has risen by over 10%. In none of the campaigns has the average cost per click actually dropped.

So now I need to determine how to turn off Google Search while enabling the Search Network!

Of course, this little experiment isn't of great scientific validity and we need to look at conversions rather than just the cost per click. We also need to see what happens when the Search Network is turned back on. You may like to try this experiement for yourselves.

Technorati Tags: adwords

Small PPC Search Engines Revisited: A Recent Study

MarketingExperiments.com has just released the results of an interesting recent study examining the effectiveness of various smaller PPC advertisement providers. The study looked at the performance of Enhance, Miva, Kanoodle, Mamma, GoClick, AdBrite, and Ask.

The main findings of the study were:

~Conversion rates varied considerably between the various providers
~The nature of the business being advertisement was an important variable
~The cost per conversion varied considerably between the providers

In addition, the study also found, not unexpectedly, that traffic volume from these providers was considerably lower than for the major providers.

The full results of the study make interesting reading and include tabulated results and more detailed commentary and analysis. Definitely worth a read.

As an aside, MarketingExperiments.com is an interesting site providing useful information on a variety of Internet marketing topics and also has an email newsletter and blog.

Update: MarketingExperiments.com has also made available online an audio recording of their clinic on this topic in Windows Media and Real Player formats.

Technorati Tags: ppc, enhance, miva, kanoodle, mamma, goclick, adbrite, ask.com