So I have recently been cornered by a couple of B2B guys who were getting sloshed over at some random industry party when they approached me with a question. Should we use content networks and are they effective drivers of traffic. My answer over my Hendricks & Tonic, was inequitably, “Yes”, however, I quickly added that it depends on 3 things:
- What is your campaign goal(s)
- What network you are using?
- How closely are you going to manage the network?
As just about any technology, advertisement or network, you MUST manage the heck out of it or it can, and must likely will, deliver data which is near to worthless depending on what you as a company or you as an agency are looking for.
Some of the other possible problems are that your ad might show up on a site which is offensive or your ad will deliver a huge amount of impressions, but no clicks to write home and tell your management or client about.
To over come these ill fated possibilities, you must first set aside time to take management/client over the benefits and drawback of several content networks based on that particular network historical data:
- Some are good for branding, impressions, some are good for clicks, others are inexpensive substitutions for banner networks, but all of them need to be managed as to ensure the clients goals are not only meat, but lessons learned are passed to all other marketing initiatives.
- Next ask the network representative to give you a list of sites and channels they feel would be effective based on like minded sites and where competitors are and are not running. Then take that list and run it through management/client and your team to “clean up” the list. You can also ask the representative for example creative and use multiple creatives with a couple of dynamic keyword insertion settings.
- Once you have the list of sites and they are live, you should optimize based on tracking placed in both the ad and website (the whole web site, not just the landing page and homepage) for any success matrix you want. Once you see certain sites or channels working and not working, start making adjustments accordingly.
- As the list gets smaller, test new sites and approach the effective sites with site specific buys. That is a good start =) BUT also check out other networks: we have been using collective-media.com as they are fairly picky about who and what they have in their network so it is not full of spammers and domain campers.
- Remember, a network is only as good as the quality of its sites and your ability to mange it.
