Recall that the Google Network is split into the search network (which includes Google and other search sites like Ask.com) and the content network (like Gmail, newsletters, and HowStuffWorks). Together, the search and content networks make up thousands of search and content sites displaying targeted Google ads. See other sites where your ad might appear.

By default, AdWords keyword-targeted campaigns are opted in to the entire Google Network: Google search, search partners, and the content network (with 'Relevant pages across the entire network' as the setting). You can opt in or out of the search or content networks at any time on your Edit Campaign Settings page. To do so: Sign in to your account > Check the box beside the campaign you want to edit > Click the Edit Settings button > Check or uncheck the boxes and radio buttons under the section titled 'Networks and bidding' > Click Save Changes.

• Keyword-targeted ads can appear across search and content pages in the Google Network. Google uses search targeting to match keywords to search queries on search sites. For content pages, Google uses contextual targeting to match keywords to webpage content. (See details below.)


• Placement-targeted ads can appear only on pages in the content network. The advertiser chooses a specific audience and site, or portion of a site, to target. If the ad group also has keywords, the keywords and placements will work together to determine where ads should appear. Keywords will continue to match your ads to placements through contextual targeting, and you can add your own placements to bid more when your ad appears on certain sites, or to limit your ad to appearing only on the placements you target. To learn more, see the Placement targeting lesson.


• Google displays ads in the search network and in the content network based on relevancy factors. You can test different results by creating two separate campaigns — one targeted to the search network and one targeted to the content network. This lets you customize your ad text, keywords, placements (if any), and bids.


• The appearance of your ads may vary slightly among Google Network sites to match the look and feel of different webpages. Google automatically formats your ads for you. AdWords ads are always clearly labeled as advertising-related links.


• Text ads can appear on search pages and on content pages. Ads that contain graphics (like image ads and video ads) can only appear on content pages. To learn more, visit the Using Different Ad Formats lesson.

You can fine-tune your ads for search targeting by targeting specific areas and languages, choosing specific keywords, or assigning keyword match types.

As a result, contextually targeted ads provide useful information to readers and attract an audience with an established interest in your message.

You can fine-tune ads for contextual targeting by using the site exclusion function in your AdWords account. Site exclusion lets you choose sites, or types of sites, that you don't want your ads appearing on — such as competitor sites, low conversion rate sites, or sites that conflict with your interests. To learn more about site exclusion, visit the Site Exclusion Tool lesson.

You can also now combine keyword targeting and placement targeting in the same ad group. This lets you define specific content sites where you want your ads to show (based on your keywords), and allows you to bid more effectively when a keyword match is found on a targeted site. To learn more about how to combine keyword and placement targeting, read the Keywords and Placements Together lesson.

Our system looks at the following things to ensure quality ad delivery:

• Semantics: Google's language processing capabilities can untangle terms that might otherwise be confusing. When a page mentions Java, for instance, our system analyzes the context to distinguish between the coffee, the programming language, and the Indonesian island.


• Inappropriate Material: The AdWords system detects inappropriate or sensitive themes, such as tragedies in the news. In addition, ads do not appear on sites classified by Google as containing adult content, specifically sexual content pages. As such, you can be confident that your ads will not appear on sites that might damage your brand or image.

In addition, Google uses "smart pricing" technology for clicks made in the content network. Ads in the content network sometimes return lower conversion numbers than ads in the search network. To make up the difference, smart pricing automatically lowers the cost of these content clicks.

If you find that you receive better business leads or a better return from ads on content sites than on search sites (or vice versa), you can enable content bids at the ad group level or campaign level. Content bids let you set one price for ads on search sites and a separate price for ads on content sites.

To learn more about smart pricing and content bids, visit the Cost Control lesson.

For contextual targeting, AdWords looks at the themes of the keywords in an ad group to decide whether to show your ad for relevant content. If one of your keyword themes matches the theme of the content, your ad might be shown. For search targeting, however, your ad can appear based on the keywords you've chosen and how they match the search term a user enters.

Since keywords are analyzed differently, it's best to create two separate campaigns - one geared to search and one geared to content. This allows you to structure each campaign with different objectives in mind.

Here's a summary of some of the key differences between search targeting and contextual targeting. Remember these concepts when building your campaigns.

*Note: CPM bidding is available only for campaigns that don't target the search network. Campaigns that target the search network must use CPC bidding.

Campaign strategy: As discussed previously, create a separate campaign when targeting the content network. To do this, create a new campaign in your account, starting with keywords. Then go to your Edit Campaign Settings page, and find the 'Networks and bidding' section. Choose 'The content network' and 'Relevant pages across the entire network.'

As always, make sure that your budget is set to a price you can afford and that you only target locations and languages to which your services relate.

Ad group strategy: Create at least three ad groups, each around a common theme. The idea is to bring additional traffic to your site by covering the entire market for which your products or services relate. For example, create one ad group around the exact product or service you're offering; a second ad group around similar products or services; and a third ad group around your audience demographics.

Next, create a keyword list that fits the theme of each ad group. It's useful to include both general and specific keywords.

Finally, create multiple ads for each ad group. Try intermingling different ad formats, like text ads with image ads. To keep everything related, choose the same destination URL for every ad in a particular ad group.

Here's an example of how a pet supplier might organize its account with the goal in mind to sell more dog supplies.

• Create separate campaigns for contextually-targeted ads and search-targeted ads.
• Set your bids at the ad group level.
• Base each ad group around a single theme.
• Test different ad formats (text, image, video).
• Point all ads in a particular ad group to the same destination URL. The more specific the landing page, the better.
• Create short keyword lists.
• Use negative keywords.
• Write compelling, specific ads. (See Writing Targeted Ads.)
• Use placement targeting to raise your bid for websites or other placements where you particularly want your ad to appear. Or, use placements to lower your bid for websites where you know your ad doesn't perform well.

• Create different destination URLs per ad group.
• Bid at the keyword level.
• Use keyword matching options.
• Include both singular and plural keywords.
• Have more than 50 keywords per ad group.
• Create just one ad group per campaign.
• Choose generic landing pages for each ad group.

To see how your ads are doing on various pages in the content network, launch the Placement Performance Report (PPR). This report shows performance statistics for your ads on specific domains and URLs. You’ll get information on where your ad is shown, as well as the CPC, total clicks, and total impressions from sites where your ad appears.

Before running the report, try implementing either Google conversion tracking or Google Analytics — both free programs accessible in your account. Conversion data often provides the clearest insight about how your ads are doing on a specific site.

Here are some tips for analyzing a PPR report:

• Implement Google's conversion tracking so you can understand how individual sites are converting for you.
• Don't focus on lower overall clickthrough rates (CTR). Remember: A low CTR on a given site does not necessarily mean your ads perform poorly. Users behave differently on content pages than they do on search sites. For more telling information, rely on your conversion data.
• When you find placements where ads from one ad group convert well, consider targeting those placements on the Placements tab in your ad group. Try raising your bid so that your ads will have a better chance of appearing whenever your keywords put your ad on that placement. Or, try doing the opposite with poorer-performing placements: lower your bid to seek a better ROI on those specific placements.
• Respond only to statistically significant data. It may take several weeks before you can see how your ad is doing on a specific site. Wait until you have enough click and impression data before making decisions.
• Use the site exclusion tool to exclude sites that are not converting for your campaign.

However, a placement-targeted ad always fills the entire ad position (space reserved for ads on a page) itself. This means that only one placement-targeted ad appears on a content page. If you run a text ad, the ad would be expanded to its expanded text ad format so it fills the entire position.

To see how ads can be formatted on a content network page, visit our ad format page.

The creation process for both choices is similar. But when you start with placements, you'll notice a few differences from starting with keywords:

• Placements: Instead of creating a list of keywords to trigger your ad, you create a list of websites or related placements where you'd like your ad to appear.


• Placement Tool: Instead of using the Keyword Tool to find potential keywords to advertise on, you use a Placement Tool to find potential placements where you'd like your ad to appear. You can list exact URLs or use other criteria to generate a list of available placements. This is explained in more detail below.

The Placement Tool offers four ways to choose placements:

• Browse categories: Shows sites and related placements that match categories (like Entertainment) or subcategories (like Music) that you select. For best results, narrow the topic by picking subcategories that most precisely match your ad.


• Describe topics: Shows sites and related placements relevant to words or phrases you enter. For instance, a coffee merchant might enter topics like organic coffee beans, coffee, or coffee products. We'll then display a list of sites relating to the topics entered.


• List URLs: Shows placements that exactly match, or are related to, URLs you enter. For example, if you're advertising tennis equipment, you might enter the URLs of your favorite tennis or sports websites. If the sites you enter are part of the Google content network, we'll display those sites as available for targeting. If not, we'll display a list of related sites that may have a similar audience. Then you can pick the placements where you'd like your ad to appear.


• Select demographics: Shows sites and related placements popular with the audience demographics you select. For example, you might choose an audience age range of ages 35-44. We'll display placements likely to target that audience.

Click Add next to placements where you'd like your ad to appear. Placements you select move to the Selected Placements list on the right-side of the page. Click the Add Selected Placements button to save them to your ad group.

To match your ad to the most relevant placements, we recommend that you use all four methods above.

As it does with keyword-targeted ads on the search network, AdWords automatically lowers the actual CPM to the minimum price needed to win the auction in a given position on the content network. In many cases, advertisers pay a price lower than their CPM bid.

CPM pricing can be used with keywords or with placements. CPM pricing is available only for campaigns that target the content network. It can't be used in campaigns that target the search network.

For ads with CPC bidding, the AdWords system considers the ad's bid, clickthrough rate (CTR), and other relevance factors, all taken across 1000 impressions. The resulting figure is the ad's eCPM, or effective cost per thousand impressions.

For any available ad position, the eCPMs of ads with CPC pricing are compared to each other and to the bids of any eligible ads with CPM bidding. The highest-ranking ad wins the position and is displayed to the user. An image ad must outrank the eCPM of the top four keyword-targeted text ads in order to win the space.

No matter which type of ad wins the position, the AdWords Discounter monitors the competition and ensures that the winning ad is charged only what is necessary to maintain its ranking above the next highest ad.

To learn more about the AdWords Discounter, visit the Cost Control lesson.

When a user searches Google or sites across the Google Network, we'll determine to show your ad based on the user's:

• Google domain
• Query entered (called query parsing)
• Internet Protocol (IP) address
• Language preference

When a user searches on any of the hundreds of Google domains, AdWords displays ads according to the domain used. For example, if a user located in Spain searches on Google.fr, AdWords shows ads targeted to France.

For example, if a user in New York searches for hotels in Hollywood, the user sees ads targeted to the Hollywood area.

This search functionality only applies to ads that target certain areas worldwide.

We'll only use the IP address to show regionally (region and city) targeted or customized ads, or when a user searches Google.com from any location.

• Regionally targeted and customized ads: If a Google user searches plumbers from a New York area IP address, we may display regional or customized ads targeted to New York, even though New York isn't in the search query.


• Google.com searches: If a user with an IP address in France searches on Google.com, the user might see ads targeted to France, even though the user isn't accessing Google.fr.

For example, users who choose Spanish as their language preference see ads targeted to Spanish speakers.

Google does not translate ads. If an advertiser writes an ad in English and targets the Spanish language, the ad appears in English, regardless of the targeted language.

• Target countries or territories to reach a wide audience across one or more countries.
• Target regions and cities if your business serves specific geographic areas or if you want different advertising messages in different regions.
• Target customized areas to reach specific geographic areas which may not be available in region and city targeting, or if you want to define specific geographic areas.

To choose your language and location targeting options for a new campaign:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
2. On the Campaign Summary page, click the link for New online campaign and then choose to 'start with keywords' or 'start with placements.' You will be taken to a new page.
3. Name your campaign and ad group.
4. Select one or more languages you wish to target.
5. Under Target customers by location, you'll see a default location. To show your ads to customers in a different place, click 'Change location,' then make your selection.
6. Click 'Continue.'
7. After you complete the targeting section, finish creating your campaign.

To change your language or geographic targeting settings for an existing campaign:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
2. Check the campaign you with to edit, and click Edit Settings.
3. Select a language to target beside 'Languages.'
4. Click Edit beside 'Locations.'
5. Click OK if you receive a pop-up dialog box.
6. Select your new locations.
7. Click Finished.
8. Click Save Changes.

For example, if you sell Spanish books, you can choose to target your ads to the Spanish language. When we detect that a user speaks Spanish by one of the methods listed in the topic above (How AdWords Targets Users), we'll display your ad.

We recommend that you target the language in which your ad is written. For example, if your ad is written in English, target English-speaking users. Remember that Google won't translate your ad for you.

It's common for new advertisers to target all countries and territories in the hope of widening their reach. However, by doing this, you may target people who can't read the language of your ad or website, which creates low-quality clicks.

To help assess where and who you should target, answer these questions:

• Where does your business sell or provide?
• Who is your intended audience?

A good strategy is to organize and name your campaigns by country (such as Germany) and your ad groups by product lines (such as coffee products and tea products). Then, tailor your keywords and ad text to the intended audience.

Make sure that your keyword list and ad text for each ad group is in one language. This ensures that the ad appears in the same language in which the keyword was entered. For example, if a user enters a keyword in Japanese, the ad will appear in Japanese.

Double-byte characters need nearly twice the display space as single-byte characters. For example, the title line of an English ad has a 25 character limit. However, the limit for that same title line is 12 characters for a double-byte language. The second and third lines of English ad text are limited to 35 characters, while the limit for double-byte characters is 17.

Two other rules to follow when creating ads with double-byte characters:

- Use single-byte characters for symbols, such as punctuation marks and currency symbols.

- Use single-byte characters for alphanumeric characters.

When creating a double-byte character ad in the English interface, the character limit on the screen is wrong. To avoid receiving an error message, enter only the correct character length.

Figure: Japanese ad in U.S. AdWords interface

Figure: Single-byte characters and numbers inside of a double-byte ad

Region and city targeting usually works best for region-specific businesses, such as boutiques, stores, restaurants, or hotels. For example, if you sell flowers and only deliver in the New York City area, you should target your campaign to that area only.

Region and city targeting may not be offered in your country. The available options are displayed when you set up your campaign.

Here's how:

• Include the names of regions and cities you wish to target in your keywords, such as Seoul hotel and hotels in Seoul. When a user anywhere in South Korea searches for your keyword, your ad appears.
• Add the names of regions and cities you do not wish to target as negative keywords. For example, if your ad group contains the broad-matched keyword hotels, add -Sao Paulo as a negative keyword (with the hyphen) to prevent your ad from showing for the query Sao Paulo hotels.
• Include region and city names in your ad text to reinforce the local nature of your product or service. This way, if your ad appears for a user uninterested in the targeted region, the user won't click your ad.

Additionally, customized targeting doesn't limit you to the cities and regions offered by region and city targeting. For example, an advertiser owns a restaurant chain in Southern California. With customized targeting, the advertiser could choose to target the entire southern half of California instead of specific regions or cities.

• Enter a physical address: With this option, you enter a street or business address. (This option is available for the U.S and Canada only.) You then choose a distance (such as 50 miles or kilometers) that forms the radius of a circle around the address. Only users located within this circle, or those who include in their search the names of cities within this circle, will see your ads.


• Select a point on the map: Instead of entering an address, you can define the center of your advertising circle by dragging the interactive map to place a red marker on your location. This location will automatically be converted to exact latitude and longitude coordinates, which the AdWords system will use in targeting your advertising.


• Multi-point (or polygon): Multi-point targeting lets you click three or more points on an interactive map to outline the advertising region of your choice. (Again, the system will convert the points you select to latitude and longitude automatically.) Using multi-point targeting, you can create target areas of virtually any size and shape.

You can apply the following matching options to your keywords:

• Broad match
• Phrase match
• Exact match
• Negative match

*Note: Partner sites don’t recognize keyword matching options. Therefore, all keywords on these sites are treated as broad-matched keywords.

Broad-matched keywords reach a wide audience and trigger your ad to appear whenever that keyword or similar term appears in a user's query. This means that your ad appears even if:

• Other words are included in the query
• Terms in the query are not written in the same sequence as your keyword
• The query is similar to your keyword. This includes plurals and synonyms.

Used book dealer
Buy used book
Used and rare book
Used book for sale
Used book finder

To enable phrase matching for a particular keyword, enclose it with quotation marks.

Example: For the phrase-matched keyword "used book", your ad will appear when users enter the following queries:

To enable exact matching for a keyword, enclose it in square brackets.

Example: For the exact-matched keyword [used book], your ad could appear when users enter the following query:

To specify a negative keyword, add a minus sign (-) before the keyword or phrase you want to exclude. Negative matches may not restrict your other keywords as much as phrase or exact matches might.

Example: For the broad-matched keyword used book and negative keyword -college, your ad could appear when users enter the following query:

Example: An advertiser selling Toy Story merchandise might use the embedded match option of a negative and exact match on -[Toy Story]. This way, the advertiser's ads appear for Toy Story dolls and Toy Story products, but not for the exact match Toy Story.

Here are some things to consider:

• Broader matching options tend to give you more impressions but accrue higher costs. Therefore, include other matching options (like phrase- or exact-match) along with broad-matched keywords in an ad group.
• Broad-matched keywords should be at least two-word phrases (gourmet coffee or organic coffee beans).
• Narrower matching options tend to give you fewer clicks and lower your costs. It's still important to use descriptive words for these matching options.
• Negative keywords work well in most cases when you know a term doesn't apply to your business.

Potential Broad-Matched Keywords

Used books
Used rare books
Used Shakespeare plays

• Used books is probably too general for this ad. The ad could appear for queries such as used biology books or used shelves for books. As a result, the ad would probably accrue many impressions but few clicks, which would return a low CTR. A better idea might be to try this keyword as a phrase- or exact-matched term.


• Used rare books and used Shakespeare plays are better broad-matched keywords. They're multi-word variations that provide more detail about the nature of the ad. The result would be more relevant clicks and a higher CTR.

"used books"
"Shakespeare books"

• "Used books" as a phrase-matched term works better than a broad-matched term because you'll reach only people looking for different variations of used books. It ensures that the ad appears only if users search on the terms used books in that order. The ad could appear if users search on Shakespeare used book or used books of play.


• "Shakespeare books" is also an effective phrase-matched keyword, as it represents types of books available.

Shakespeare plays
-performance
-auditions

The broad-matched keyword Shakespeare plays doesn't differentiate between users searching for books of Shakespeare plays, performances of Shakespeare plays, or auditions for Shakespeare plays. Adding the negative keywords -performance and -auditions would eliminate many unwanted impressions, and possibly improve your CTR.

Final Keyword List

By taking the top picks from above, the final keyword list in an ad group would look like this:

Used rare books
Used Shakespeare plays
"Shakespeare books"
"used books"
Shakespeare plays
-performance
-auditions

To edit or add a keyword with matching options in your ad group:

1. Sign in to your account at adwords.google.com.
2. Select the campaign, and then the ad group you want to edit.
3. Click the Keywords tab on the Ad Group Details page.
4. Click Quick add or Edit keywords.
5. Enter your keyword with the proper punctuation (e.g. quotes, brackets).
6. Click Save.

All three types of ad groups compete with each other in AdWords. If an ad position is available on the content network, placement-targeted ads and keyword-targeted ads from all advertisers will compete for the position.

• You've chosen no placements, so there's nowhere for these ads to appear.
• Ads from this ad group won't run unless you add placements or change your campaign settings.

• Your ads can appear only on placements you've targeted.
• You've chosen no keywords, so there's no way to target your ad contextually to any other pages.

• Your ads can appear only on the placements you've targeted.

• Your ads can appear on any matching content network page.
• Your placements are used only for bid adjustments or to assign individual destination URLs.

• Your ads will appear only on your placements, and only if those placements also match your keywords.