Google Display Network is the biggest network of context based advertisement, which can be found on the Internet today. Millions of web-sites participate in it, and advertisers can choose where, when and in which formats to show their advertisements. Selection of an audience is based on a multitude of parameters, which can be applied separately or combined with one another.
Capabilities of network constantly expand due to the new audience of websites, as well as addition of new functions, that is why advertisers should take into account the entire power which Google Adwords gives to everyone that wants to promote their business in a corresponding niche on the internet.
This article serves as a manual that is shedding light on all of the advantages of media based advertisements, available types of targeting and setting of representation of advertising companies in Google Adwords.
Various Types of Displaying
A lot of advertisers are certain that context-media based networks only provide an opportunity to display graphical advertisements. In actual practice Google Adwords provides means of advertising using a multitude of formats and sizes of text, statistical and animated based graphical advertisements as well as multimedia and video advertising:
1. Text ads. GDN allows to set up advertisement that contains search requests which the user enters. Text ads consist of a heading and two lines of text and this format allows for the advertisers to create many options, ranking in effectiveness.
2. Graphical ads. It is a statistical image that fills the ad slot on the website, where it is displayed. You can include in it your own graphical elements, layers, as well as setting up the color of the background.
3. Video ads. This format becomes more and more popular; especially after it was included into context-media network Youtube- the most popular video-portal in the world. Now you can use Adwords, in order to place the advertisements close to the video on Youtube and directly in videos that are viewed by the users (this format is similar to video advertisements on TV-channels).
Sizes of Ads
There are 8 various sizes of ad slots in context-media based network. Each website which shows the ads selects the slots of sizes which match the template of web-resource in the best way. So if you want your ads to be shown to a wider audience, the best decision is to make ads of various sizes.
It is critically important that the created ads match the sizes of slots.
Failure to comply with this rule will limit your audience and you would not be able to control this. Since one slot can store 3 text advertisements and only one graphical one, your entry should be higher in order to be displayed in this position. Therefore by having only one-two sizes you limit the number of displays dramatically, this can have an impact on efficiency of advertising campaign.
Advertisement should include a clear call for an action or branding message.
Additionally, always use design which matches the appearance of your website. If you do not have an opportunity to create advertisements by yourself, you can use the integrated design-kit for media advertisements in order to solve this problem easily.
Targeting in Google Display Network
Google Adwords provides a broadest spectrum of settings that allow to create rules of selecting the audience for showing your ads.
Based on the Placement Place
Targeting on placement places – is a matter of selecting websites where you want to show the advertisements. This is effective for specific categories of clients and gives the advertisers an ability to demonstrate their offers on web-sites of niche topics, audience of which matches the target audience precisely.
Usage of Adwords planning tool will help you find websites with advertisements that are connected to the network and select the ones that meet the necessary requirements.
Context Based Targeting
This is the most common type of targeting, since it uses keywords that are related to the products and services which you provide. First of all you have to make a list of keys, integrate them into settings of your ad campaign, and Google will do its best to start showing the ads on websites that are related to them.
Instead of trying to think of probable requests, how you could do for ad campaign in search system, all you have to do is write a list of words or short phrases which are tightly related to the subject matter of your ads.
You have to track the list of websites where your advertisement appear and change the list of keywords in a proper way. This can be controlled by analyzing the information that is provided in the tab “Display Network” in the Adwords interface.
Subject-Based Targeting
Subject-based targeting allows to choose specific categories from an existing list of subjects. Your advertisements will be displayed only on pages that are related to this subject.
The disadvantage is that you can’t delve deep into many subjects, which means a risk of advertisement displays on the websites subject matter of which does not match the needed one.
This method should be combined with other options of targeting, so that you are made certain in relevance of advertisement displaying.
Interest-Based Targeting
List of categories based on interests that is available for advertisers is similar to a list of subjects from the previous item, but this targeting method is different from it. Targeting of advertisements based on interests allows demonstrating the advertisements to the user that are within his area of interest, even if it is not related to the subject-matter of viewed website.
Google can leave DoubleClick cookies on people’s computers each time when they visit the webpages within their advertisement network. That having said it does not save information about who those users are, that is why advertisers would not be able to view their information. Nevertheless, if a person regularly views pages of a specific subject-matter, he will be added to a list of people which Google regarded as someone who is interested in this category.
Remarketing
Remarketing allows to store cookies on computers of visitors of your website pages. Google will display advertisements specifically for these people, when they visit the websites in context-media based network.
Remarketing can vary from very simple (when your advertisement is demonstrated to everyone that visited your website) to more complex. For example, Google allows you to set up the targeting of ads specifically for people that viewed the video on the main page of the website or stayed on the website within a specific period of time. The more tracking options you can set up and save on your website the bigger potential the target audience will have that was gathered with their help by Adwords system.
Combining Various Targeting Methods
The biggest efficiency of targeting in Google Adwords is achieved by a combination of methods. If the advertiser uses a few types of targeting, his ads will be displayed only for people that match the target criterions.
Combining a few various targeting methods allows to decrease the number of potential displays, but at the same time increases the efficiency of advertisement targeting. If you make a sufficient number of type based groups of advertisements, you will have the ability to imitate groups with high traffic intensity and much more precise targeting.
The following are the more common methods of using combined methods of targeting:
Placement spots and subjects. This method involves choosing the placement spot, which has the right audience and combination with a few subjects that suit you.
Subjects and interest categories. If the user visits the websites of subjects that are chosen by the advertiser and they are also within the matching interest category then it becomes clear that the user might benefit from your advertisement. Such combination increases the chances of advertisers to receive the right type of users in comparison with the selection of only subjects or interest categories.
How to Create a Media Campaign in Google Adwords
First of all you have to make a new campaign and select the payment type – price per click (CPC) or for a thousand of displays (CPM). “Price for a thousand of displays” is the more effective option for advertisers that want to cover a wider audience, in order to increase the awareness of the brand or a product. However “Price per click” in turn will be a more economically efficient option of advertisement display.
After this you have to name your campaign and make sure that the settings match the below specified:
- Web search and network display should be both turned off. It is recommended to not combine search and display of targeting in a single campaign in order to track the efficiency of each type of advertisement.
- Expanded campaigns should be always turned on
- It is important that you set up the adjustment of rates, since CTR on mobile devices is considerably lower in comparison with desktop PC’s in majority of cases. You can experiment with the size of adjustment, selecting the optimal value for a specific advertisement campaign.
Structuring of Campaigns
Creating narrow subject based advertisement groups is always the best practice in any campaign. Therefore you will have to make a separate group for each of advertisement subject, which you plan to launch in context-media based network. After that you can load images, video or multimedia in each group, additionally you can add text using the Adwords editor.
Then you have to select the targeting method for campaign – this was already described above. If you have some specific interests, placement spots or subjects which you would like to exclude, you can do it on corresponding tab.
Optimization of Media Campaigns
The main method of campaign optimization involves regular viewing of automatic report on placement spots and addition of efficient spots of advertisement placements.
Furthermore you have to add all irrelevant and non-effective websites into forbidden placement spots. Also exclude irrelevant categories and audiences, regularly view the coverage and don’t forget to increase your budget if you want to receive a bigger number of displays and clicks.
Another important aspect is a regular review of advertisement effectiveness based on geographical location and exclusion of all places that show bad result consistently.
If your advertisement campaigns are targeted at mobile devices, add click-to-call extensions.
There is also many other strategies which you could implement in order to constantly improve the performance of advertisement in context-media based network. However, all of them are designed so that you pay attention to the efficiency of published advertisements; analyze their strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities for improvement of the campaign.
