Site Targeting Changed to Placement Targeting
Google finally made the change from site targeting to placement targeting. For those of you unfamiliar with what site targeting was in the first place, it is part of Google’s Adsense program but for advertisers (as opposed to bloggers, website owners, etc.) When site targeting was around, it allowed people to run the “content network” aspect of Google but now targeting “sites” per se (as opposed to having Google decide for you based on your keywords and other parameters).
Well, the thing about site targeting is that you were more or less forced to advertise on EVERY page of the site. You can imagine this is not exactly ideal since who in the world would want to appear on say… the “Contact Us” page or even the home[age - you want to be a lot more specific. You can also imagine that this is extra useless if you are opting for the CPM (cost per thousand) model, which is what Google would LOVE for you to do since they get money independent of your good or crappy copywriting skills as they are reflected in your ad writing.
Anyway… their first move to placement targeting is a great one. Now you as the advertiser gets to specify exactly what pages and even what slots of a website you’d like your ad to show. On top of that, Google also allows the CPC (cost per click) model now on content network. This allows you to test your ad copy and your entire advertisement system, jack up your CTR as high as you can, before you switch over to CPM. You’d ultimately want to switch to CPM since you’ll get much more favorable rates there as far as cost per click go.
But this assumes you know what you are doing and has gotten your CTR high to make CPM worthwhile.