What are the Google Partners?
Through Google Ads you can advertise on Google properties, including Google Search, Gmail and YouTube. However, Google has a network of others sites that advertisers can promote their business, through the Google Ads platform. This includes:
Google Search Partner Network
When advertising search ads, targeting specific search queries, you can advertise on Google.com, but Google also has a very robust partner network called the Google Search Partner network. These consist of hundreds of other search engines where you can display your ads. Sample sites may include: comcast, verizon, aol and hundreds of others. These small search engines are effective to promote your business, but given they are small in scale, they partner with Google to monetize their search engine traffic. With that, they link up to Google to allow advertisers to be advertise on each of their search engines. Google will then share the revenue they get from this traffic with the engine.
Once you have a search campaign that’s performing well and you’re looking for more traffic, expanding your reach to the search network is an excellent play. To do so is pretty simple, within your Google search campaign settings, simply check the box that says “include Google search partners”.
That’s it, then your search campaigns will expand to hundreds of other search engines. To check the performance, you can segment performance to break out traffic from both Google.com and the Search partner network.
What to expect?
What you should expect in performance are cheaper CPCs (cost per click), lower CTRs (click through rate), lower conversion rates, but given the cost per click is much lower than Google.com, you should see cost per conversions very similar to Google.com traffic. Also, the scale will be much smaller than Google.com traffic, likely around just 5-10% of your Google traffic.
While all of this seems small, if you have a performing search campaign, it’s recommended to expand to the network to get 5-10% more customers from your search campaigns, just by opting into Google’s search partner network.
Google Display Partner Network
Similar to the Google Search Partner network, there are millions of websites and apps that are linked to Google where advertisers can advertise their display banner ads on these websites. Websites opt into the display partner network through AdSense, as it’s a way to monetize their site traffic just by linking to the Google network. Given the extremely high adoption of the Google Ads platform, websites often allow Google to serve ads on their websites to get a share of revenue of the clicks they garner.
What’s surprising to most advertisers is that the Google Display Network has many high quality sites, such as the New York Times. For example, see the ad below – this is directly from the Google Display Network. For advertisers, this is very enticing as they can reach qualified traffic on very well known sites through Google Ads. In the example below, Firefox can advertise on the New York Times without brokering a direct sponsorship deal which can be pretty expensive.
How to take advantage?
To take advantage, simply create a new display campaign (see screenshots below).
Then you can either target your potential customers based on audiences, for example, users who are in-market or have an affinity towards specific topics), and even users who have previously visited your site through remarketing. More on how to setup a remarketing campaign here.
Additionally, you can target users based on content they’re viewing, to websites that are contextually relevant to specific keywords you’re targeting, or topics.
What to expect?
Performance expectations will vary significantly. If you’re launching a remarketing campaign, targeting past site visitors of your site, it should perform very well, from a cost per conversion standpoint. For other campaigns where you’re finding new customers via audience or contextual targeting, you’ll get very efficient traffic, with low cost per clicks, but the conversion rates will be relatively low. The reason is you’re reaching these users for the first time and you need to build a relationship with them, in order for them to get comfortable with your brand.
While conversion rates will be low, it is a good way to promote your site to generate brand awareness and consideration.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s recommend to expand on Google’s partner sites, however with any advertising it’s critical to monitor performance closely to ensure it’s providing a positive return on your investment.
Helpful Google Ads Resources
For more helpful resources, check out the blog posts and articles below.
Google Ads Support
Google Ads Management
Google Ads How to Guides
Google Ads Optimization Tips
- Top 14 Google Ads Search Optimization Tips
- Auction Insights: What are they and how to make them actionable
- AdWords Express vs. Google Ads
- Google Ads and SEO Synergies
- Google Ads – Questions and Answers
- Keyword Expansion Tip
- Google Search Ad Copy – Best Practices
- Top 5 Critical Search Settings to Check
- Google Customer Match
- In-Market Audiences
Google Ad Formats
