Bonus Question: How much does all this cost? Unlike search advertising, where the only model is cost per click, content advertising provides two options ” cost per click and cost per impression. The cost per click pricing model is very similar to search advertising, so no further explanation is required here. Cost per impression pricing, however, can work against you if not set up properly, so requires some further comment.

So what on earth is an impression? An impression is a unique page load that your prospect makes on any page your content ad is presented. So, if after 1000 page loads your ad is clicked 100 times, you pay only $2.00 per 1000 page loads, then your cost per click is $2.00/100 = 2 cents ” a cost so low that you may struggle to improve on this with search advertising.

So far so good. However, if your ad is placed so far down the page that it is not seen each time the page is loaded and the site is very busy, then the story is quite different. For instance, from 10,000 page loads you may only achieve 10 clicks, and at $2.00 per 1000 page loads, your click cost is now $20/10 = $2.00 ” a cost you could well better with search advertising.

Hence, purchasing your content advertising on a cost per impression basis needs some careful consideration. Remember that throughout all this, a click cost of $2.00 from your content campaign could be fine if those clicks go on to provide a 50% conversion rate on your landing page ” leaving you with a very attractive cost per lead. So there you have it, six snapshots to introduce you to the content advertising network and go some way to explain the differences between it and its much larger search advertising cousin. In some lead generation cases, traffic from this network is the only traffic that generates leads, while others successfully use a mix of both content and search advertising.

Why not give it a try and see how you fare or, failing that, ask the team at Permission to help you out?

Question 2: How should I set up my Google campaigns for this type of advertising? Setting up a seperate campaign is the better way to manage your content advertising. The blunt differences with the type of prospects you attract with content campaigns and the special ways in which the campaign needs to be set up make it too difficult to run a campaign that mixes both content and search advertising together. Also be aware that when setting up any new campaign, Google automatically turns on both content and search advertising by default, so ensure you de-select one or the other, depending on what you want your campaign to do.

Question 3: How are my content ads matched to the web pages that display them? There are two ways Google achieves this. The first is by matching your chosen keywords against any content found on the advertiser’s web page. This is very similar to the search network; however, it’s a few levels up in smartness. For example, unlike search advertising, where if you bid on the term “java” your ad will be shown to both those seeking coffee AND the similarly named programming language, with content advertising your “java’ driven coffee bean advert is only shown on website pages talking about coffee.

The second way is to pick where you want your content ads to be shown by selecting the exact site and page you want your ad to be shown on. For example, the Google advertising engine will display a category-driven list of websites (sport, business, health, etc…) for you to choose where you want your ad displayed. This process can be quite hectic, but allows you to specify an exact web page for your ad to show on any website you like.

Question 4 ” What types of ads can I use? Google’s content advertising also allows you to break free of the text-only options that limit the search advertising network. Whilst text is still an option, you can also place image ads and even flash and video ads within the content network. But, however, more sites support text advertising than images, and if images are supported, sometimes only a few sizes are available.

That said however, if you can use images on a site you want to advertise on, I suggest you give it a go. All this extra space is given to tell your compelling story can make a huge difference in your click-through rates when compared with a text alternative.

Question 5: How can I track the sales and leads that I get from my content advertising? Using Google’s regular conversion tracking tools, which are luckily supported in the content network. These allow you to track sales or leads and see which website was responsible for which event, even down to the exact web page the prospect was on when they clicked your ad.

Whilst this is the last question on the list, actually setting up your conversion events is probably the first task you complete when setting up any content campaign. Not being able to fine tune your advertising because you haven’t setup this part of the system is a sure fire way to waste both a lot of time and money with any paid advertising network.