Adwords is constantly changing, and anyone who wants to make money with Adwords needs to keep on top of the new strategies that are always appearing.
In 2007, with the publication of Day Job Killer, Adwords became a game of ‘kill the competition’. Almost immediately, software systems and membership sites sprang up to help the advertiser track and conquer his competitors’ ads. Unfortunately a lot of these memberships were very expensive.
Almost at once, people who could not afford the Adwords spy systems or were tired of the constant fighting for search engine placement began looking around for new ideas. Early in 2008 we saw the first signs of what they had found. In fact it was not new, but a rediscovery of something that had been considered dead - the Adsense content network.
If you have come to Adwords in the last couple of years, you may not know that the search and content networks were once united. Google separated them to give advertisers more control in the days when click fraud was common. Most advertisers immediately (and rightly) turned off the content network for their ads.
But times have changed. Click fraud is not the problem that it used to be. Google now closes the accounts of anybody suspected of ‘invalid clicks’. This is a problem for site owners because it means that any malicious kid can put them out of business by clicking their ads over and over. But for the Adwords advertiser it means that the content network is usable again.
Advantages of advertising on the content network instead of the search network include a cheaper cost per click, and a lot more control. You can actually pick the exact sites that you want your ad to appear on.
The last point there is very important. When setting up a campaign for the content network, always specify target sites for your ads. In fact, you should specify not only the site, but the exact pages of the site.
Just like advertising on the search network, you want to make sure that the people who see your ad are very interested in your product. You don’t want untargeted clicks. So for example if you are promoting an exercise treadmill, you want your ad on a fitness site, but not on pages about weight training.
It is also better to limit your advertising to sites that display their Adsense above the fold - that is, the ads are visible on the screen without scrolling down. Toward the top left of the screen is the hottest area, that’s where you really want your ad to be.
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