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Placement Performance ReportingPosted by John on May 24, 2007 in Google AdWords |
What is it?
Google’s new Placement Performance Report allows advertisers to view the sites where their ads are being displayed on the content network. In the not-so-distant past, advertisers were relegated to “all or nothing” content strategies. This new transparency allows for greater flexibility in account management and will help to quiet growing opposition to the use of Google’s content network.
What will you find in this report?
- Domain and URL of content sites where your ads displayed.
- Ad variation (i.e. text vs. image) broken down by URL.
- Basic PPC data (i.e. impressions, clicks, CTR, etc.) broken down by URL.
- Conversion data broken down by URL.
How can you use this report as a tool?
First and foremost, this report removes any mystery about your ads on the content network. But the key question is: what are the appropriate actions to take with this important resource?
- For advertisers seeking conversions, this report clearly defines which URLs are performing the best.
- This information could then be used to focus on those high converting sites with a Site Targeting campaign or to try and increase performance by stepping up on bid management (separate content bids from search bids).
- On the flip side, the sites that aren’t converting could then be added as negative sites with the Site Exclusion Tool.
- While going through the list of URLs, if a site is found that is completely irrelevant to your keywords - this is an easy source for finding and adding appropriate negative keywords.
Other helpful info:
Currently, the Placement Performance Report is not available to all advertisers. Since this is in beta testing, it is available to advertisers on a request basis. Once requested, it can take up to a week before the report is available in your Reporting Center. The report can be run at the Ad Group, Campaign or Account levels, with a secondary filter for Domain or URL. It can be run with both domain and URL, or just simply the domain.
Google has once again stressed the fact that when dealing with the content network, avoid concentrating on your click-through-rate. Content CTR’s are typically lower and do not affect your quality scores. As the follow up to that point, Google is also telling advertisers to focus on conversions as the main decision maker. Interestingly enough, conversions and conversion rates are set as default columns in this report (as opposed to manually adding them with Advanced Options).
The first time that I took this report for a “spin” I ran numbers from January 1, 2007 through April 30, 2007. This of course peaked my curiosity and formed the question, “How far back can I run this report?” Well, the official answer (courtesy of my Google Rep) is December 2, 2006. This is the oldest date that can be run for the Placement Performance Report, and anything beyond that will remain a mystery!
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July 25th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[...] Google has made similar strides in allowing more visibility into protecting yourself from click fraud. The biggest piece of this puzzle is of course the Placement Performance Reports and the Site Exclusion Tool. Since there is a lot of chatter that Google’s content network is to blame for an increase in click fraud, these tools allow advertisers to see each site and its performance over time. Then you can then choose whether or not to exclude those sites. Of course there are other things that can be done to mitigate the effects of the content network like separate content from search campaigns, simply bid lower on the content network, and track the content network like a hawk (those Placement Performance Reports again). [...]
July 25th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
[...] Google has made similar strides in allowing more visibility into protecting yourself from click fraud. The biggest piece of this puzzle is of course the Placement Performance Reports and the Site Exclusion Tool. Since there is a lot of chatter that Google’s content network is to blame for an increase in click fraud, these tools allow advertisers to see each site and its performance over time. Then you can then choose whether or not to exclude those sites. Of course there are other things that can be done to mitigate the effects of the content network like separate content from search campaigns, simply bid lower on the content network, and track the content network like a hawk. [...]
November 21st, 2007 at 3:09 pm
[...] Site Exclusion: Currently, there is no Placement Performance Reporting available for PPA campaigns. When I bring this up with my AdWords representative, I’m told that “reporting for sites is not available, and they haven’t heard about it being in the pipeline.” If you are completely confident that certain sites on Google’s Content Network do not work for you, it is possible to add them as excluded sites for PPA. However, please refer to my point in #4. There is zero risk in trying PPA. The clicks are free. You only pay when visitors perform the desired action on your site. As long as you’ve set a sustainable cost-per-action, you’re golden. The one caveat being if you determine that certain sales or sign-ups are fraudulent. In that case, by all means exclude the sites that brought in that traffic! [...]