There are a number of distinct drawbacks to Google adwords site targetting for both the advertiser and the publisher.
As a publisher we ran a number of site targetted campaigns to help promote our business.
Although the CPM was significantly lower than agency rates not all of the sites involved offer adsense positions on their primary screen real estate. If your ads are only displaying on a page of secondary importance the benefit of low CPM is effectively eroded.
The other issue with site targetting is context
It is all too easy to get thousands of impressions but actual relevance to the content does not come as a given
For example, as a publisher, I run adsense on this blog. Some companies have obviously decided to include my blog in their site targetted campaign even though their products / services are in no way related to my blog’s content.
From the advertiser’s point of view they are getting their ads onto a blog that has a local Irish readership, but are they truly getting value for money?
I think not.
If the audience visits a site for a particular reason then advertisers that sell into that sector should try to speak to that particular segment.
There is no point trying to speak in the wrong language.
For example, I never write about sport so advertising sports products or services on this blog would be a bit pointless. It is possible that a percentage of my readership take an interest in sports, but it is just as likely that a lot of them don’t
Considering that site targetting bills you based on impressions and not actual clicks the click through rate can be extremely low.
Contextual advertising, however, is a totally different matter.
As a consumer I tend to click on google ads that appear in search results especially if the ad is for a product or service that I do not know.
For example, last night I was looking for a particular type of software for a project. The google ads served to me were highly relevant to my search phrases, so the ads that caught my eye were clicked on.
I may not have made a purchase last night, but I found a new product that I would not have come across otherwise.
Context ads on forums and blogs can lead you to all sorts of interesting places.
You may not make a purchase immediately, but they do seem to work quite well overall
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