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Industry Trends

AdWords Combines Keyword And Placement Targeting

By July 18, 2008July 30th, 2023No Comments

Google announced changes to their AdWords platform yesterday. A new advanced content network option has been added to all advertiser accounts that allows advertisers to target both keywords and site placements within the same campaign and ad group.

Targeting site placements is an option that AdWords advertisers can choose to enable. If not, the ads will continue to run as before.

When an advertiser uses a keyword in his ad campaign, with a contextual target in mind, Google will match it to relevant pages across all of the sites on the Content Network.

Using this new facility, advertisers can bid more, or less, on specific content network placements that they are targeting. They will also be able to make ads for specific groups of pages, which they find highly relevant.

Advertisers will therefore be able to decide to show their ads only on contextually relevant pages, and set specific bids for the different sites, depending on the response they have been receiving from each site. An advertiser can now set a higher bid for placement on a site that has driven good business, and lower the bid on sites where the ad has not been doing too well.

It will also be possible to write ads that highlight specific features of a product, and display the ad only on sites that are relevant to these specifications. This way the advertiser is better assured of reaching his target audience, with greater control on placements and over ad budget.

To accomodate these changes, the AdWords interface has been updated considerably. When creating new campaigns, advertisers are given the option to start with placements or start by targeting keywords.
Updated campaign creation options

The Ad Group summary view now includes a search clicks, with an indication of whether the Google and search partner targeting options are on and content clicks with a breakdown of placements that have been specifically targeted and other placements on the content network.
New Ad Group summary view

A ‘Placements’ has been added alongside the Keywords and Ad Variations tab, and clicking on it reveals details specific to the targeted placements within that Ad Group.
Add new placements screen

Placement detail view within an Ad Group