2 ms·

There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. There i

There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Also I guess most of the websites with good quality content charge advertisers direct, rather than getting chump change from Google Display ads.

Silhouette 12y ago
There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. Sure, I can understand one or two getting through. But just looking down the top referrers from Google's own stats, almost none of them appeared to be related to the chosen target terms in this case. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Yes, GDN is "old school" advertising, but that doesn't explain a total lack of engagement from the visitors. Other on-line advertising channels have been used to promote the same site, including multiple variants of display advertising using almost exactly the same ad styles and targeting strategies. Some seem to be more successful than others after the first few experiments, but all of them consistently achieve fair to very good engagement levels. I almost have to think that something went wrong here, because I don't understand how Google can still be in business if our experience is typical of the results they can offer. Perhaps it works better for sites with less specific audiences or for big name brands. Still, if that is the best Google can do for a niche site with very targeted terms, it has literally no value as an advertising channel for us.
- hermitcrab 12y ago
  Maybe a significant proportion of the clicks you got were from click farms or bots, who were working for the benfit of the site hosting the ads (and incidentally making lots of money for Google)? I have had much better results with Search ads.
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    Maybe a significant proportion of the clicks you got were from click farms or bots Given the obvious keyword spam I mentioned on one of the top referring sites, that wouldn't surprise me at all. But again, if Google are that bad at dealing with fraudulent clicks, we're going to make that their problem rather than ours! I have had much better results with Search ads. Google search ads are actually our second worst-performing experiment by some way as far as on-line channels go. However, in fairness to Google, we already rank on the first page for almost all the targeted terms in our current strategy anyway, so it is entirely possible that any keywords generic enough to be useful on top of that are also broad enough to be the wrong scale for our needs. A more interesting contrast for us is the results from advertising say via Facebook (targeting similar interests/demographics) or via individual ads we've placed directly with a few established sites relevant to our target audience. Those channels should be directly comparable to GDN, yet all of them have consistently performed vastly better.
    - hermitcrab 12y ago
      Have you check the 'Dimensions>Search terms' report to check the phrases your ads appear for (which won't be the same as those you bid on, unless you are only using exact match) are well targetted? Another common mistake I have seen is to advertise expensive English-language products to people not searching in English in poor countries. It is so easy to make mistakes in AdWords.
      - Silhouette 12y ago
        Thanks for the suggestions, but I don't think anything like that could explain our poor results specifically with Google. We did keep an eye on the actual terms in the search ads and knock out a couple of genuinely related things that aren't any good for this specific site, and similarly we started looking at manually removing bad placements with the GDN ads until it became obvious that it was futile. Also, all the ads were targeted by country (and similarly for the other channels I mentioned, where applicable) so again there's no reason performance on Google should have been so much worse than every other on-line channel we use. I've just noticed that Google e-mailed us with a phone number we could call for "free support and advice from an AdWords expert". Might be good for a laugh (or a refund, not that we let them near very much money anyway).

Silhouette 12y ago

There are thousands of scammy websites trying to game the system. It would be very hard for Google to keep on top of it, even if they really wanted to. Sure, I can understand one or two getting through. But just looking down the top referrers from Google's own stats, almost none of them appeared to be related to the chosen target terms in this case. There is also the issue that Display ads are 'old school' interruption based advertising. They are never going to get the same sort of engagement and conversion rates that well targetted Search ads get. Yes, GDN is "old school" advertising, but that doesn't explain a total lack of engagement from the visitors. Other on-line advertising channels have been used to promote the same site, including multiple variants of display advertising using almost exactly the same ad styles and targeting strategies. Some seem to be more successful than others after the first few experiments, but all of them consistently achieve fair to very good engagement levels. I almost have to think that something went wrong here, because I don't understand how Google can still be in business if our experience is typical of the results they can offer. Perhaps it works better for sites with less specific audiences or for big name brands. Still, if that is the best Google can do for a niche site with very targeted terms, it has literally no value as an advertising channel for us.

hermitcrab 12y ago
Maybe a significant proportion of the clicks you got were from click farms or bots, who were working for the benfit of the site hosting the ads (and incidentally making lots of money for Google)? I have had much better results with Search ads.
- Silhouette 12y ago
  Maybe a significant proportion of the clicks you got were from click farms or bots Given the obvious keyword spam I mentioned on one of the top referring sites, that wouldn't surprise me at all. But again, if Google are that bad at dealing with fraudulent clicks, we're going to make that their problem rather than ours! I have had much better results with Search ads. Google search ads are actually our second worst-performing experiment by some way as far as on-line channels go. However, in fairness to Google, we already rank on the first page for almost all the targeted terms in our current strategy anyway, so it is entirely possible that any keywords generic enough to be useful on top of that are also broad enough to be the wrong scale for our needs. A more interesting contrast for us is the results from advertising say via Facebook (targeting similar interests/demographics) or via individual ads we've placed directly with a few established sites relevant to our target audience. Those channels should be directly comparable to GDN, yet all of them have consistently performed vastly better.
  - hermitcrab 12y ago
    Have you check the 'Dimensions>Search terms' report to check the phrases your ads appear for (which won't be the same as those you bid on, unless you are only using exact match) are well targetted? Another common mistake I have seen is to advertise expensive English-language products to people not searching in English in poor countries. It is so easy to make mistakes in AdWords.
    - Silhouette 12y ago
      Thanks for the suggestions, but I don't think anything like that could explain our poor results specifically with Google. We did keep an eye on the actual terms in the search ads and knock out a couple of genuinely related things that aren't any good for this specific site, and similarly we started looking at manually removing bad placements with the GDN ads until it became obvious that it was futile. Also, all the ads were targeted by country (and similarly for the other channels I mentioned, where applicable) so again there's no reason performance on Google should have been so much worse than every other on-line channel we use. I've just noticed that Google e-mailed us with a phone number we could call for "free support and advice from an AdWords expert". Might be good for a laugh (or a refund, not that we let them near very much money anyway).