Should CPC Be Considered in Contextual Ad Placement?

[rustybrick]

Do you guys think that a contextual ad should show the best matching ad (contextually) for the page copy, no matter the cost per click price?

For example, AdWords and YSM both use the CPC price when determining ad placement on the SERPs. But it has to be a match on the keywords one bids on.

Yahoo Publisher Network ads are known to be less relevant. There is speculation that this is because Yahoo! wants to have its publishers show higher paying ads, no matter of relevance.

Do you think that a price of an ad click should have a huge affect on displaying an ad, no matter of relevance?

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by rustybrick

Do you guys think that a contextual ad should show the best matching ad (contextually) for the page copy, no matter the cost per click price?

In short, yes, I do. I've found that a related ad consistently outperforms an unrelated ad - both in total revenue (not per click) and CTR.

If the effort isn't there by the company behind the code to generate a related ad they should just stay in the CPA or CPM arena.

[rustybrick]

Take it further then. As a publisher, do you think it would be cool to have a setting where you can say, I want higher paying ads (1 to 10 scale) versus I want higher relevant ads (1 to 10 scale).

If you say you want 8 on the paying ad side, then the relevancy would be at a 2.

Is that "evil"?

[Jonathan Mendez]

I've been using this as the closing slide in my presentation deck. Sure, it's a little cheesy but it's true.

I don't care what type of marketing you are doing and what medium you are doing it in. Relevancy has always been the winning formula for advertising...and we are now going where no advertisments have gone before.

YPN ads are less relevant probably because Yahoo is (somehow) still (at least) a year behind Google in the algos for targeting.

JM

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by rustybrick

Take it further then. As a publisher, do you think it would be cool to have a setting where you can say, I want higher paying ads (1 to 10 scale) versus I want higher relevant ads (1 to 10 scale).

As a publisher, I would like having the control. I can see this getting a bit out of hand though with a lot of publishers - i.e. everyone sets the pay level to 10 and drop the relevant ad scale to 1. A system like this could help make click fraud more attractive to publishers as well. I think one of the elements that keeps some publishers honest is the unknown. They don't know if they'll get $0.01 or $5 for a click on their site - why risk account termination over a couple pennies? On the other hand, if a dishonest publisher knew they could get $x - $xx per click that makes dabbling in click fraud a much more attractive option.

As an advertiser, I can see a system like this leading me to removing all my content based ads. When it comes to the content network I don't put my trust in the publishers, my trust is in Google and that they are doing an acceptable job of policing the content network.

Good thread

[Seekz]

I believe Google's ads are better. They are not only relevant, but they often add to the search engine experience if you are specifically looking for a commercial product.

[ChitikaAdvisor]

Chitika's products are all CPC- eMiniMalls, ShopLinc, ShopCloud$ and RPU. You can use Chitika in contextual mode if you have a very high # of impressions a month- doesn't appeal to all- but we think the service works bestwhen you can pick what products you want to display instead of hoping the service serves what you want. It takes more time to do this of course, but can be very worth it.