A fireside chat on content targeting

*Please note updated information at the bottom of this post as of 5/17/2013

You've sent in a lot of questions about content targeting, so we sat down with Bismarck L., a member of the product team, and grilled him (politely). Thought you all might find our discussion enlightening.

What value can Google content targeting add for advertisers? Our speciality is search, isn't it?

Google does a good job directing people who are interested in your product or service – or need help getting direction to your site. But how can you afford to miss the users who are reading a product review on CNET - or reading about Machu Picchu in The New York Times? How do you reach them to tell them about your camera, or to inform them of the great fares to Peru? Well, you have two options: you can either go out and buy placements on all of those sites you think would drive relevant traffic to your site, or you can more simply use AdWords to target content sites in the Google advertising network. The network includes sites such as About.com, Lycos, The New York Times and many more.

So how does content targeting work?

Here's how it works: we take the words in your Ad Groups, decipher the overall meaning of the Ad Group, and make sure that the ads, represented by those keywords, show up next to relevant content.

For instance, there can be an advertiser who is advertising on terms like basketball, NBA, NBA finals, basketball tickets, and courtside tickets. (Screenshot below)

Because our system knows that the advertisers are looking for users who are interested in basketball, the ads will be displayed next to relevant content about basketball. Therefore, just like search, our targeting makes it so advertisers receive extremely targeted clicks.

So what are the latest content targeting innovations?

During the last year we have launched new features that have made the program even better:

• Smart Pricing automatically discounts the amount you pay for the clicks received from content sites based on the likelihood that the click will convert.  
• Also, the Site Exclusion tool will allow you to prevent your ads from being served on the sites that you pre-select. You can add these sites to the Site Exclusion Tool in the same manner that you would add keyword negatives.

Our content network provides a really exciting opportunity for additional coverage. To get the most out of it, it's just important to understand how it works and then use it to your advantage.

If you want to make sure your campaigns are opted in to the content network, just click on the Campaign Settings link on your Campaign Summary page and make sure that you have checked the "content network" box. More questions about content targeting? Send them here, and we'll try to answer them.

Posted by Jon, Inside AdWords crew

*UPDATE: In the above post, it reads:

Smart Pricing automatically discounts the amount you pay for the clicks received from content sites based on the likelihood that the click will convert.

This statement should read:

Smart Pricing may discount the amount you pay for the clicks received from certain content sites based on the likelihood that the click will convert.