If you’ve noticed that the Contextual Targeting status within the Ask.com user interface is turned on at the Ad Level, but turned off at the Keyword Level then you are not seeing things.  Double check that the settings box is checked for Contextual Targeting, meaning you do not want to advertise on the Contextual Network. If this is the case, we saw it as well, and contacted Ask.com through their online form to inquire about this discrepancy.

A side note: My experience with Ask.com’s online form, basically customer service through email only, has been superb. Although it doesn’t beat an immediate voice on the other end, they have responded to questions on the same business day (given the emails were sent no later than 9:30am). So for anyone looking to use it, the responses came back anywhere from 3-6pm.

Back to the Contextual Targeting discrepancy, Ask.com confirmed that is was a technical error and reassured that the Contextual Targeting was off, which was reflected at the Keyword Level. Please see response below:

“After reviewing your account, your contextuals are currently “off.” We are experiencing technical difficulties which result in our system incorrectly displaying your contextual setting as being “on.” To verify that your contextuals are indeed “off” please view your setting at the keyword level.”

Ask.com client representative contact form response

I just wanted to share this knowledge so that anyone advertising in Ask.com won’t be confused when coming across this occurrence too.

Ask.com

Clients first come to an agency for many reasons: no resources to manage it, completely new to PPC, an in-house account manager left the company, and so on.  More often than not, the #1 reason for coming to an agency is due to being burned, hurt & scared by Google.

And which aspect of Google do we hear most often caused thousands in wasted AdSpend?  Held in distain by most all who’ve opted-in, the Content Network is the most misused & misunderstood service that Google provides. 

At Engine Ready, we test everything regardless of how a client’s account may have performed in the past.  With that being said, we always test the Content Network.  As far as Google is concerned, these two separate marketing initiatives are just that.. Separate.  The only thing they can share in common is running simultaneously off of the same keywords in the same adgroup, campaign, account and even sometimes the same bid (the main reason most people get into trouble.)

By not setting up separate bids for the Content Network, you are opening up yourself for a world monetary pain.  In most cases, the Content Network bids should never exceed your Search Network bids.  By starting a Content Network bid low, at let’s say $0.10, you should be able to avoid Google erroneously spending $100′s of dollars/day.  Each day you can bump up this CPC by 10 cents until you start getting traffic.  If you do not specify this separate bid, Google will use your Keyword CPC which may have been set between $0.50 & $8.00 (or more!)  The Content Network gets thousands upon thousands of impressions a day and can deplete your budget before you even have a chance to get searched once on Google.com.  This is why the Content Network fails for so many people. 

As an agency we deal with a lot of clients who are well aware of performance metrics in PPC but may not understand the little idiosyncrasies of each search engine.  After conversion data, the most recognized metric which clients gauge our performance on is Click-Through-Rate.  CTR is the number of clicks divided by the number of ad impressions.  This metric is most notably tied directly to our skills at writing compelling and effective ad creative. 

As an agency we are constantly defending our CTR performance to clients because Google aggregates both Content & Search Network activity. 

In one case, we increased CTR from 1.79% to 3.13% in one month.  This is a vast improvement over the client’s previous performance.  But when reporting on the entire month (including Content), the CTR actually looks like it decreased from 1.79% to 0.13%.  Even after explaining the reason, the client still felt that we were hurting the account.

A common question one might ask is: Does Content Network traffic affect Google’s Quality Score? And the answerer is No.  A common misunderstanding about CTR is that the impressions & clicks from the Google Content Network gets factored into the Ad or Keyword Search Network Quality score.  This is completely not true.

One way we as an agency have adapted to this is by providing separate Content & Search reports.  After all, as similar as it may seem, it’s two completely different ballgames.

Content Network, CTR, Google, Quality Score

More than occasionally, one of our ambitious sales reps will ask me to look at a Google AdWords account in order to qualify a lead. Looking at new accounts is always exciting, yet depressing at the same time. It’s thrilling to discover all the possibilities it has, but also heartbreaking to see the novice oversights that could of easily been avoided.

Before even logging in to this particular AdWords account, I tried to guess what the top ten errors would be. Although I am a Google Advertising Professional, I don’t consider myself the definitive connoisseur of Pay-Per-Click by any means. Just as an exercise, I wanted to see if the trends I have found over the last few years continued to be in style. So here we go, my top ten:

1. Neglecting to add negative keywords. It just kills me when I look into their analytics account, if they have one, and see all the irrelevant search phrases that are generating clicks. What a waste of advertising spend!

2. Cramming hundreds of keywords into one ad group. Although the Long Tail strategy is on its way out, so the industry experts say, breaking out keywords into specific ad groups is just plain good organization. In addition, tailoring text ads to just a few keywords more often than not increases CTR and quality score. Who wouldn’t want that?

3. No conversion tracking. This maybe the one that gets me the most riled up. How is anyone supposed to know which keywords are generating leads and/or sales?

4. For Ecomm websites, no revenue tracking. So what if a keyword generated 20 sales today at a $5 CPA if the revenue generated per product is $2? Without revenue tracking, you really don’t know the worth of a keyword and you could be over bidding on a keyword that generates revenue less than both hard costs and advertising costs.

5. Using just one match type. Although you will find PPC marketers that will swear that broad match is the way to go, then you will find others that will say phrase match is the winner, and then there are always those that are exact match fans. Well, in my opinion, it all depends on the account. Regardless of which match type works best in an account, all three types have their advantages and should be tested.

6. Every destination URL is going to the homepage. Searchers need to be directed to what they are looking for. Although the website designer and web savvy individuals may be able to navigate your website easily, there are many people out there that get overwhelmed with beefy navigation and too many options. In order to decrease drop off rate, it’s best to direct visitors to the product they want to buy, and maybe a few “suggested items” on the side for an up-sell opportunity.

7. Only one advertisement per ad group. In the world of SEM, we live by the motto “test, test, and test again”. Especially in newer account, I always set Ad serving to Rotate. This way the ads are served evenly I can give each ad I write a fighting chance. If the ad looses, just write another ad and test it against the winner. Rinse and Repeat.

8. Why is the Content Network a default? This may be a bold statement, but the content does not work for every account, especially when it is not refined. I would advise any new AdWords advertiser to turn the Content Network off until they know how to optimize the campaigns that will work in the Network.

9. Adding the wrong keywords. The keyword tool is great if used correctly. Sometimes people see so many great keywords and they add the whole list of search terms, even though some words are really not qualified.

10. Not taking advantage of Ad scheduling. B2B companies typically don’t advertise on weekends because of the unqualified traffic. Display your ads when your customers are most likely to convert.

After reviewing the account, I was 9 for 10. Not too shabby.

Adwords

In their first episode, the Search Marketing Vegetables discuss the importance or proper ad positioning when advertising on the pay per click engines. Watch as the dumb radish is insistent that the number one position is the place to be.

Internet Marketing, PPC, search marketing