1. Buy CPM, not just CPC
I know, you are thinking what is this guy talking about? Buying keywords on a cost per click (CPC) basis will be much cheaper than buying thousands of general impressions on a placement-targeted CPM (cost per thousand) basis, right? Wrong. Probably the most misunderstood aspect of Google's Adwords program is the ability to buy not only on a CPC basis for individual keywords, but also on a CPM basis as well via a placement-targeting campaign.
I used to work on various consumer based offers on a CPA (cost per acquisition) basis (now I focus on B2B technology, so please don't contact me with your CPA offer!). With many clients, I found that if you choose the right web site with traffic highly targeted to the offer you are promoting, your cost per acquisition can be optimized and lowered significantly when buying in volume on a CPM basis.
Even the publishers (although they were rare) who agreed to pay on a CPA or CPL (cost per lead) basis would often end up paying much more on a CPA basis, than when the advertiser took a little more initial risk to pay a low CPM rate (we're talking $1 to $5 CPMs on average). Often CPM ad inventory is sold off as remnant or secondary placements - but the same visitors go to the site, so good conversions are still going to result.
2. Cherry Pick Web sites
With Google Adwords they now actually let you buy at a CPM rate of your choice, and let you choose each site that you want to show ads on. With conversion tracking enabled, you can run tests where you set your maximum CPM rate to around $0.50 to $5, and then choose select targeted sites that include your keywords in their content. This will give you an effective CPC rate that is lower than what you pay when you bid against others in a traditional keyword program.
I know for a fact also that many sites that sell banner ads directly to advertisers charge up to 10 times or more than what you'd pay to run your Google Ads on their site. Yes, you often won't get front page top leader board placement, but you will get impressions that wrap around highly relevant content and convert better than CPC keywords. Why would you then consider paying a $50 CPM rate on a top placement lead board ad, when you can buy big box impressions on the same site for $2 to 5 CPM?
3. Big Box Image Ads Work
Speaking of big box ads, yes, they work. See mine? :) It has been shown that, sorry guys, bigger is better in the ad world. Google "big box ad effectiveness" and you'll see what I mean. Again, be sure to try text and image ads in Ad Group tests to show the results for yourself. Many sites still only run text ads, which is fine, they are still often the most effective anyway.
4. Cluster and Test
Of course the 3 most important words in Online Marketing are "test", "test" and "test". But don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you to immediately switch your bread and butter CPC keyword campaign all over to CPM cherry picked sites with image ads right away. Just try, say 10% of your budget, and maybe 5 targeted hand-picked Google content ad network sites that contain your keywords.
Be sure to use their "Describe topics" tool to ensure that Google is finding the best laundry list of content sites for you. Also plug in some sites that you like as well ("List URLs") which may sell ad impressions directly - I'll bet you 10 to 1 that you'll pay far cheaper via Google than going direct. Cull them down by visiting each one and seeing if your customers would visit them. Then create at least 3 Ad Groups with different creatives and test against this cluster of CPM sites. Revisit daily and develop a control ad creative by dropping the lowest performing 2 ads and continually retesting.
If you don't have time to hand pick sites (though you really should) - be sure to at least block some high volume sites (e.g. MySpace.com) where you know your traffic budget will be burned through too fast. Be sure also to stay on top of your budget on a daily basis, and if you see that 90% of your impressions are going into a single site that is not giving you below your target CPA rate, then delete that site.
5. Tailor your Ads
Now that you are choosing specific web sites on a CPM basis (at least some to test), start tailoring your ads and landing pages more specifically to suit the content and nature of those web sites. Don't be offering a free white paper on web site security if that is what is being offered already at the web site where your ads are appearing. Try text, image and video ads in your Ad Groups for content sites that you are running impressions on. Remember, this isn't a CPC campaign anymore where you pay for each click, so really ramp up your call to action to generate clicks (since you only pay for impressions) to drive traffic to a low-field, single-minded and highly optimized landing page.
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