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For a number of years now advertisers have struggled to make the content network work for them. Click through and conversion rates have been very poor typically, this is true of both the Google and Yahoo networks. Yahoo made a decision to scrap their European content network offering in March 2009 and even Google have admitted that they have struggled to improve their product over the years. The problem from their side has been one of quality. Google would openly admit that the quality of the sites allowed to serve third party Ads on their network has not been of a high enough standard. However, it seems they have turned a corner in recent times with many advertisers now starting to see improved results.

It could also be argued that advertisers are only now starting to effectively optimise their content network efforts. Previously many would simply throw a number of top performing keywords on to the content network and expect results. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple. Building content network ad groups should be a controlled exercise where each Ad group is very tightly defined. An Ad group containing a broad ranch of keywords stands little chance of performing well as the related Ads could be served against a wide range of unrelated content. Ad groups should be kept relatively small i.e. 5 – 10 keywords per Ad group.

It is also important to assign site level tracking to your Google content network activity to ensure you can identify the sites that are performing /not performing. Once you have found a site that delivers results you should remove it from the content network and re-target it within ‘ad placements’. Isolating it on ad placements will allow you to assign a unique bid, obviously you may be in a position to bid more aggressively if the site is performing well for you. With site level information you can also begin culling any sites that deliver clicks but no conversions. Other obvious wins are bidding on your own brand terms……..and your competitors!

Advertisers that have tried and failed to make the content network work should consider re-testing. Whilst it is unlikely to contribute more than 5% – 10% of the returns the main sponsored listings deliver, it is now a reliable source of incremental s business if managed effectively.

MSN rebranded their live paid search offering as Bing last year in what appeared to be a fairly ill conceived plan to steal market share away from Google. Despite having very deep pockets, which they have used to promote heavily on TV, billboards etc it seems obvious that the product itself has nothing new to offer and begs the question; why switch from Google?

The TV Ads themselves although original in terms of their execution say nothing about the brand. It must have been a very difficult brief for the creative agency involved as they had little to work with in terms of the actual proposition.

Despite this, recent com score data reveals MSN have actually managed to capture more of the market with Google having to surrender a small amount of ground. MSN’s market share has increased by roughly 2% over the last few months. Whilst this is a noticeable win for them, it’s unlikely to be concerning the big wigs at Google at this stage. It could be argued that this was to be expected given the size of the advertising budget committed and is likely to be short lived unless the product itself takes serious strides forward in the next few months.

Our exposure to Bing will no doubt increase further in the coming months as MSN’s deep pockets force it in as the default search engine with some of major online players. MSN also appear to be stepping up the frequency of their advertising judging by activity in the last few months, this is clearly a committed push the likes of which we have not seen before from either MSN or Yahoo. But do they have a long term strategy to really compete, or is this little more than a advertising blitz?