Myths in contextual advertising: is it always necessary to separate ads on Search and in Networks?

Each area has its own myths, which often interfere with achieving successful results. Contextual advertising is no exception.

To sort out typical misconceptions, the online edition SEOnews and the online advertising automation service eLama have launched a joint special project “Myths in contextual advertising”.

Last time, we figured out whether to start launching ads with Search. Today Nikita Kravchenko, Leading Paid Traffic Specialist at eLama, will tell you if you should always separate your ads on Search and on the Web.

Watch the video and read the text transcript under the video.

Myth: Advertising on Search and on the Networks should always be separated.

There is a myth among beginners that advertising on Search and in the Networks in Yandex and Google should always be launched separately. This is a fairly true story, as Search and Network ads work differently.

Search Ads works for users who are entering specific search queries right now, these people are interested in something right now.

Advertising in Networks targets:

• an audience that was previously looking for something,
• an audience united by some common characteristics,
• users according to which article they are currently reading, which site they visited.

The principle of work of search advertising and advertising on the Web is different. They also have different pricing and different efficiency.

Search advertising often gives a good conversion, but advertising on the Networks usually cannot boast of a high conversion rate. At the same time, the ultimate efficiency and profitability of Search is not always better.

It happens that on Search, the auction is so hot, the cost per click is so high that the final profitability becomes quite low, sometimes even negative. The cost per click in the Yandex Advertising Network and the Google Display Network is often much lower, and as a result, the final efficiency can be high. It is because of this that it is usually customary to separate search advertising and advertising on the Web.

Yandex.Direct

When creating an advertising campaign in Yandex.Direct, an advertiser can choose where to display ads:

• only on Search,
• only in Networks,
• on Search and Networks.

We strongly recommend separating campaigns in Yandex.Direct.

The situation with Google is a bit different.

Google

When an advertiser creates a Google campaign, the box next to Enable Display Network is automatically checked. At the start of a search advertising campaign, it is better to disable this checkbox and launch ads only on Search.

If, after the ad has been running for a while, the statistics accumulate, and you want to expand your reach, get more targeted traffic and conversions with the help of contextual media ads, then the advice would be as follows:

You do not need to create a separate display advertising campaign, you can go to the search campaign settings and activate the “Enable Display Network” checkbox.

This will simply expand the reach of the original search ad campaign. If the daily budget is not enough for impressions in Search and in the Display Network, then the entire budget will go to Search. If the budget is sufficient, then the algorithm, in addition to Search, will also launch impressions in the Display Network. At the same time, you don t even have to create additional special advertisements for the CCM. Google will automatically generate Display Network text ads based on your search ads. There is no need to separately manage the rates.

In the future, you should monitor the statistics: are there impressions in the Display Network, are there clicks, what is the expense, what is the conversion from the Display Network. You can track the data in segmentation by going to the ad campaigns level in all search ad campaigns. It is necessary to choose a segment – a network with search partners.

You don t need to test this in Yandex.Direct. In Google Ads, this experiment can work well.

Testing strategy

1. Launch a search campaign on Google, accumulate data on it.
2. Enable the “KMC” checkbox.
3. Test the optimized display ad campaign for 3-4 weeks.
4. Analyze the results. If they do not suit you, turn off the CCM. If satisfied, work further or even expand the budget.

When launching such a mixed advertising campaign, you can still go to the “Placements” tab and find effective platforms from which conversions come. In the future, you can run a separate standard contextual media ad campaign targeting these sites.

Outcome

The cases dispel the myth that always, in 100% of cases, you need to separate Search and Networks. In the Display Network and Google search advertising campaigns, you can safely test ads in Search and Display Network.

That s all. In a week, another video is waiting for you, in which we will analyze whether the quality of the account affects the cost of a click.