Does inactive for search mean inactive for content network?

[mrizos]

In Adwords, does having a keyword inactive for search also mean that it's inactive for the content network?

 

[nscoville]

no it doesn't, and you can get some pretty cheap clicks using a technique. I have been able to get some $.03 clicks on some pretty expensive pet related keywords. Here's how it works. I create an image ad for all 8 sizes google uses. I create several adgroups with 2000 keywords each(the max) each using the same image ads and absolutely no text ads. I set my default click at $.03. Nothing is enabled for search due to my low bid, but after a day or 2, my ads started to get served on the content network, then after I got a click, they started to get served even more. I've been getting my ads served for 5 days, and have got 4 clicks for .$12 using 14,000 keywords. If I tweaked my ad and increased the keywords, I bet I could snowball into some serious traffic for cheap! I get the keywords by using the massive keyword list builder. I give it a seed, then it generates a list of 10 to 100,000 keywords for me, although it kind of gets off topic past 500 keywords, so you have to have a decent list of root keywords to use. qustions?

 

[mrizos]

Wow, that's good to know. BTW, why do you use image ads, did I miss something there?

 

[nscoville]

There is high demand for image ads on the content network, but not that much inventory. Most advertisers compete with text ads, not image ads. So there is a gap in the market that one can take advantage of.

 

[netmeg]

Actually, you should just create separate campaigns for Search and Content Networks anyway. Everything about them it totally different, so your strategies should be different, you should bid them differently, and you should definitely run reports on them separately.

Leave your inactive bids for the search network at the prices you want to pay for them - if it's a new campaign and/or new account and/or new keywords, it takes Google some time to figure out quality score. If the quality score improves, they'll go active automatically; you won't have to do anything. Meantime, you can be running a separate campaign for Content only.