The Display Network Box Left Ticked

The setting chosen for you

When a new campaign is created in AdWords, the first choice is its type. The option already selected is Search Network with Display Select, and plenty of accounts were set up by clicking straight past it.

The name sounds like a search campaign with a small extra. In practice the same ads, keywords and budget also run on the Display Network: websites, apps and other places that carry Google's ads.

Nobody at the business decided to advertise beside recipes or inside phone games. The default decided.

Most owners only find out when someone breaks the figures down by network, which almost nobody does in the first year.

Two different kinds of click

A search click comes from someone who typed what they wanted. A display click comes from someone reading, watching or playing, who noticed an ad beside it.

• Intent: the searcher asked; the reader was busy with something else.
• Timing: a search happens when the need exists; display arrives whenever.
• Accidents: on phones, ads inside apps sit where thumbs land.
• Price: display clicks are often cheaper, which flatters the average.
• Volume: display can show an ad far more often than search can.
• Results: enquiries per click are usually much lower.

The fourth is the one that hides the problem. Cheap display clicks pull the average cost per click down, so the account looks efficient while the phone stays quiet.

One budget, two networks

A campaign has one daily budget, and Display Select draws on the same money as the searches.

Google describes the display side as selective. That may be true by its own measures, but a reader on a recipe site is not someone asking for your service this afternoon.

On a small budget the effect is direct. If display clicks use up the money by noon, the afternoon searchers never see the ad.

Search partners, the other default

A second setting is switched on by default in search campaigns: search partners. These are other websites that show search results and ads supplied by Google.

Partner clicks still come from searches, so they behave more like search than display. They deserve their own look in the figures, but they are rarely the main leak.

The lesson is the same for both. A default is a decision someone else made for your account.

How to check your campaigns

Open each campaign's settings and read its type. Anything showing Search Network with Display Select is running on both networks.

Then break the figures down by network. AdWords can split clicks, cost and conversions into Google search, search partners and the Display Network for any date range.

Look at the last three months. Compare what each network cost with what it produced, then open the list of websites and apps where the display ads appeared.

That list is usually the moment of recognition: games, flashlight apps, celebrity gossip, and sites in languages nobody at the business reads.

A worked example

A dryer vent cleaning company with two vans and a home office set up its AdWords campaign three years ago, accepting the default at every step.

The account looked healthy. Clicks were plentiful, and the average cost per click was lower than the owner expected for a home service.

The phone did not agree. The owner kept a tally of how callers had found the business, and very few mentioned an ad.

Broken down by network, most of the clicks and a large share of the cost came from the Display Network, nearly all of it inside free games and utility apps on phones. The budget was usually gone before lunch.

The ads had been shown to people tapping through a puzzle game, not to people whose dryer now needed two cycles to dry a load.

The campaign was switched to search only. Clicks fell sharply and each one cost more, but the budget began lasting through the afternoon and evening, when people were searching after work.

Keep search and display apart

Display advertising is not useless. It is a different tool, with different ads, targeting, bids and expectations, and it needs a campaign of its own.

A separate display campaign has its own budget, so it cannot quietly drain the money meant for searches. It can use image ads in the standard sizes, rather than text ads squeezed into banner spaces.

It can also be aimed on purpose: chosen websites, chosen topics, or people who have already visited your site, which AdWords calls remarketing.

For many local service businesses, remarketing is the only display worth paying for. It reaches people who looked at your prices last week and have not called yet.

Trimming where display ads appear

If a display campaign stays, the placement list is the main control. Exclude the sites and apps that produce clicks and nothing else.

Apps deserve particular attention. Taps inside games are often accidental, and a business selling a household service rarely gets anything from a person halfway through a level.

Review it monthly at first, since new placements appear all the time.

Judge both on enquiries

Clicks and cost per click are the wrong measure for either network. The right one is enquiries: calls, forms and bookings, counted by where they came from.

With conversion tracking in place, the network breakdown shows cost per enquiry for search and display side by side, and the decision usually makes itself.

Without it, the breakdown still shows where the money went.

The counter-case

Display reach is sometimes worth having. A business selling something people do not yet know to search for, such as a new product or a one-off event, may need to be seen before anyone can look for it.

Remarketing can earn its place for work with a long decision, such as renovations, where people visit a site several times before calling.

And in a small market with very few searches, search alone may not spend even a modest budget.

In each case display still belongs in its own campaign, with its own budget and its own measure. Run search on its own, and add display only on purpose.

Campaign by campaign

1. Open each campaign's settings and read the type.
2. Break three months down by network.
3. Read the placement list behind any display clicks.
4. Switch search campaigns to search only.
5. Judge search partners on their own figures.
6. Build display separately, if at all.
7. Track calls and forms as conversions.

Step four is the change that matters most. It takes a minute, and from then on the budget goes to people who typed a search for what you do.

Telling which of those searches turned into calls is covered in AdWords without conversion tracking.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.