A day ago at midnight the embargo lifted on the news of a new exciting report for AdWords advertisers. I wrote about the report with my Google AdWords Adds Placement Performance Reports Showing Content Network Data To Advertisers at Search Engine Land. The official AdWords Blog finally posted their version, yesterday afternoon.
The new Placement Performance reports enable AdWords advertisers to view statistics such as clicks, impressions, cost, and conversion data by domain and URL source of the AdSense network. At this point, the AdSense for domains product will not show domain level detail, it will show aggregate information - Google however told me they hope to add this detail in the future.
Now you can see which sites convert best for you on any level. Then you can use the site targeting feature to get more exposure from that site. On the other hand, you can use the site exclusion tool if certain domains or URLs are sending you poor quality traffic.
More information on setting up this report can be found here. Please note, that this report is not yet live in all accounts, but should be within weeks.
We have discussion on this topic in several forums including Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. Looking at some of the comments from AdWords users who opt into the content network, show a scary reality to some of the traffic they get from Google's AdSense (content) network.
Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, Discovery, said:
Another issue is that we attempted to exclude about 93 sites this morning and all but 9 were rejected. Stating we are not allowed to exclude those sites.Sites included: porn sites Sites from Germany, New Zealand and Japan as well as many other ad nework sites
So wait, you need to request to exclude sites and then Google needs to tell you that you are allowed to or not? If Google thinks it's best for your ads to show on a specific domain, but you think otherwise, Google has the last say on the matter? Does that make sense to you?
There are some early bugs with the report which all should be ironed out shortly.
Overall, knowing is better than not knowing. Even though many of the sites your ads may show on include sites you prefer they do not show on - you at least know about it and can try to do something to prevent it.
This is a major step up for Google and the PPC market.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
