Google Search versus Google Content Network

Google AdWords can place your add in essentially two places: Google search and the content network. Google search are results from searches that prospective customers do directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner websites and sites that run advertisements through Google's AdSense program.

When creating a new campaign in the Google Adwords system, the default campaign settings are configured to show your ads on both the 'Content Network' and the 'Search Network'. Google has a pay-per-click affiliate program called Google Adsense.

This program pays people for each click on Google Adwords ads that are displayed on their own web sites. The problem for you, the Google Adwords advertiser, is that you do NOT want your ads showing up on any old website that has relevant content to your ad. You only want your ad displayed to people actively searching for the keyword(s) that trigger the display of your ad. Why? Because these are the best prospects for whatever you are trying to sell !

In my experience, Google search has yielded much more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying but I recommend putting it into a separate campaign so you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.

The power of the Google Adwords system is that you can attract highly-targeted, motivated buyers to your site by displaying an ad relevant to what a person is searching for at the moment that person is looking for what you are selling. By allowing your ads to be displayed on Google's 'Content Network', your ads are showing on all kinds of websites being casually surfed by people that may not be interested at all in what you are selling. This means you are paying for these Google Adsense clicks for less than qualified prospects.

The content network is opt-out, and is not possible to opt-out during the setup process. However, to opt-out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to campaign settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.

If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend starting with just the search network. The first thing you should do when creating a new Google Adwords campaign is uncheck the 'Content Network' box in the campaign settings and limit your ads to being displayed only on Google's 'Search Network' to insure only highly qualified and motivated prospects click on your Google Adwords ads.

Then come back in a few weeks and setup a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt-out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you will find Google search is more productive than the content network but, of course, your results may be different from mine.