I've had this conversation 3-4 times over the last week so I thought I'd post the info here to kick up some discussion...
My Claim: I've made over $8,000 using Google Site Placement while spending around $1000 over the last month and a half.
CTR average is 3.3% and conversion on my leads is 12.2% Total EPC for this campaign is $2.88 and my CPC is $.07
As you can see, at $1000 spend, this is a tiny ass campaign (I'll cover this more in a minute).
What I want to talk about is how I got the cost down, while still maintaining exposure, why my content network CTR rivals my search CTR, and why my lead conversions are so fucking high.
This is the first campaign I've used site placement like this so my conclusions are a little short-sighted.
The first thing I did was have Google suggest some sites that have adsense on them that were relevent to my ads.
My offer is a local-based offer (which is why this campaign is so small) so I geo targeted FL, GA, NC, SC
I was bidding at like $.10 just like I usually do for content traffic, and nothing really happened for a few days. I started getting traffic a few days later just like any other content campaign, but nothing was really converting, so I was about to turn it off...
Then I started Quantcasting the sites google had picked out.
Then, I started looking at quantcast for the advertiser I was promoting... and the sites sending them traffic.
SON-OF-A-BITCH
Most of those sites have fucking adsense on them.
So, I started adding those sites to my list on Google.
I raised my CPC to $1.85
Within the Day, I'd spent around $200 and I was getting conversions... just not as much as I needed to cover the bill.
I decided to leave the CPC alone, and change my Landing page up some (Like putting the names of the major metropolitan areas of the states I was targeting REALLY BIG on the site), and change the ads a little more.
The next day, I was seeing more clicks and conversions, somewhere around $300, with a ctr of 3% and avg CPC was right at $1.50.
So, I'm out $400 and I've probably made right at that... maybe just a little more.
On day 3 I was like fuck it, I'm dropping the CPC to $.35.
INSERT: I'm adding about 30-40 sites per day now mainly local based sites that quantcast showed as having the same demographics as my advertiser's.
Well, my clicks didn't drop, they went up along with the impressions, CTR is staying at a solid 3.3% and the more I fuck with the sites I'm placing ads on, the higher my conversions are getting.
So, as a test, I dropped CPC to $.10 across the entire campaign.
Which I've been running for about 3 weeks, and without fail it brings me 500+ uniques per day at $.07 per click.
SOME OF MY THOUGHTS ON THIS:
1. When I started tracking sites that were sending traffic to my advertiser, and putting my ads on their adsense, I noticed a huge jump in CTR.
2. When I use the demographics charts to guage the sites for inclusion in the campaign, my CTR goes up and conversions go up.
3. When I changed my Landing page to qualify everyone who comes to it by their location, Conversions went WAY up.
4. I remove sites that are doing poorly just as I would keywords or adgroups in a search campaign, I think this allows me to continue with low CPC and high visibility.
5. I've also targeted demographics in the site placement tool to match the sites I'm placing the ads on, which has also increased CTR and conversions.
Anyways, it's working, and I'm scaling as we speak.
I'd love to hear any other ideas, or discuss anything you can add to this for bigger and better campaigns.
My Claim: I've made over $8,000 using Google Site Placement while spending around $1000 over the last month and a half.
CTR average is 3.3% and conversion on my leads is 12.2% Total EPC for this campaign is $2.88 and my CPC is $.07
As you can see, at $1000 spend, this is a tiny ass campaign (I'll cover this more in a minute).
What I want to talk about is how I got the cost down, while still maintaining exposure, why my content network CTR rivals my search CTR, and why my lead conversions are so fucking high.
This is the first campaign I've used site placement like this so my conclusions are a little short-sighted.
The first thing I did was have Google suggest some sites that have adsense on them that were relevent to my ads.
My offer is a local-based offer (which is why this campaign is so small) so I geo targeted FL, GA, NC, SC
I was bidding at like $.10 just like I usually do for content traffic, and nothing really happened for a few days. I started getting traffic a few days later just like any other content campaign, but nothing was really converting, so I was about to turn it off...
Then I started Quantcasting the sites google had picked out.
Then, I started looking at quantcast for the advertiser I was promoting... and the sites sending them traffic.
SON-OF-A-BITCH
Most of those sites have fucking adsense on them.
So, I started adding those sites to my list on Google.
I raised my CPC to $1.85
Within the Day, I'd spent around $200 and I was getting conversions... just not as much as I needed to cover the bill.
I decided to leave the CPC alone, and change my Landing page up some (Like putting the names of the major metropolitan areas of the states I was targeting REALLY BIG on the site), and change the ads a little more.
The next day, I was seeing more clicks and conversions, somewhere around $300, with a ctr of 3% and avg CPC was right at $1.50.
So, I'm out $400 and I've probably made right at that... maybe just a little more.
On day 3 I was like fuck it, I'm dropping the CPC to $.35.
INSERT: I'm adding about 30-40 sites per day now mainly local based sites that quantcast showed as having the same demographics as my advertiser's.
Well, my clicks didn't drop, they went up along with the impressions, CTR is staying at a solid 3.3% and the more I fuck with the sites I'm placing ads on, the higher my conversions are getting.
So, as a test, I dropped CPC to $.10 across the entire campaign.
Which I've been running for about 3 weeks, and without fail it brings me 500+ uniques per day at $.07 per click.
SOME OF MY THOUGHTS ON THIS:
1. When I started tracking sites that were sending traffic to my advertiser, and putting my ads on their adsense, I noticed a huge jump in CTR.
2. When I use the demographics charts to guage the sites for inclusion in the campaign, my CTR goes up and conversions go up.
3. When I changed my Landing page to qualify everyone who comes to it by their location, Conversions went WAY up.
4. I remove sites that are doing poorly just as I would keywords or adgroups in a search campaign, I think this allows me to continue with low CPC and high visibility.
5. I've also targeted demographics in the site placement tool to match the sites I'm placing the ads on, which has also increased CTR and conversions.
Anyways, it's working, and I'm scaling as we speak.
I'd love to hear any other ideas, or discuss anything you can add to this for bigger and better campaigns.
