Using Google Adwords Site Targeting? Two New Changes you Need to Know About

If you’re using Site Targeting in your Google Adwords advertising strategy, then you’ll want to know about the two changes that Google announced to this feature this yesterday.

Google Adwords Site Targeting has been around for a couple of years now and has allowed advertisers to broaden the scope of where their advertisements might appear by leveraging a large and established network of websites that have the ability to display Google Ads. An advertiser had the ability to browse through the myriad websites within Google’s Content Network and choose those that it would like to display text, image, and even video ads on.

Yesterday Google took this two steps further, and here’s the highlights:

1) Advertisers may now select not only the site they wish their ads to appear on, but also the specific section and location of the website. Why is this important? Well, let’s say you’re using Google ads to generate business selling all inclusive cruise packages. Wouldn’t it be nice to tell Google to show your ads in the travel section of your chosen news site? Or the cruises section of the travel magazine website you’ve selected?

Absolutely, and now you can.As a side note, this change prompted Google to change the name of this feature from “Site Targeting” to “Placement Targeting.”

2) Advertisers now have the ability to choose a Cost Per Click (CPC) bidding option. Until now, Site Targeting (oops, “Placement Targeting”) has relied on Cost Per Impression (CPM), or a price per 1,000 impressions of your ad. If you’ve been at Adwords long enough, you know that one of the most important features of paid search is the ability to turn many dials to zero in on the optimal financial well being of your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords. A CPC model gives you a little more control over what you’re willing to spend for each visitor that your ad brings to your website.

Keep in mind that CPM models still do have a purpose – if you’re interested in maximum exposure and branding type activities, you’ll still be able to choose this option.

If you’d like to give Placement Targeting a try, you can get started for as little as a $0.01 bid in the CPC model or $0.25 for your first 1,000 impressions. Just log into your account, navigate to your main “Online Campaigns” table on the Campaign Summary page, and click on “Placement-targeted” in the Create New Campaign option on the top right.