Google Search Partners - Good or Bad for PPC Campaigns?

Although Google calls it search partners, partner sites are not all search so that's problem number one. If you look at your search query report, you may see strange and long search terms that seem unlikely to be terms people would actually use. That's because they are not terms people actually used to search but page titles where your ads showed up on partner sites. In effect, Google has matched your keywords to a page's content which makes these display ads. That's why I never have search partners turned on and that's why search partners stats are very different with lower CTR, conversions, etc.

Display should be treated much differently than search. Your message should be different so that's why you should never mix search and display together. In my opinion, you should also never use keywords in a display campaign but instead target appropriate pages that your prospects are likely visiting.

You may now be thinking, what do I do if I want to target a site which uses Google's search feature and displays Adwords? I'd need search partners turned on but you say not to do this. The solution I've come up with is simply to create a search partners campaign. It's a search campaign with partners turned on. However, I also target the sites I want with the keywords I want. Doing this prevents showing on Google itself. Now, since you know they are actual searches you can use similar ads as your Google search campaign but I encourage you to have ads that speak to that audience. I've created image ads before where I match the site's color scheme and you could even mention the site name in the ad. For example, if you sold furniture, you could target realty sites and have your ad say "After you find your dream home here on Zillow, visit us to furnish it".

Technically, there is no list available of partner sites. You can use Google's display campaign tool to find sites but I find it clunky and not all that useful. I'm trying to build a database to make it easier and faster to find such sites for my clients but it's not as easy as it sounds.

In short, keep different types of campaigns separate. Have a Google Search campaign, display campaigns (I prefer splitting these into text and image campaigns and video if you do that) and manage sites, don't use keywords and if needed, a search partners campaign as explained above. Of course, remarketing and shopping campaigns will also be separate.

Amazing info Lucid Web and thank you.

You mention to keep different types of campaigns separate..have a Google Search campaign, display campaigns...my understanding from Adwords is that you cannot create different campaigns with same keywords in them ..are the keywords exactly the same or similar?

Lucid Web that response was right on the money! Make sure you keep your campaigns separate and try to use different keywords.

Thanks LucidWebMarketing helped me a bunch

Not sure about Google's search partners but I know from testing Bing's are terrible.

As per the traffic and conversions point of view Google paid advertising platforms are the best to get the results in short time.

First of all you need to identify what is your/client goal and what are the expectations so that you can plan what advertisings you need to select to get the more benefit.

Google is providing following Paid Advertising platforms.

1. Search Network with Display Select (Best opportunity to reach the most customers)
2. Search Network only (Google search and search partners)
3. Display Network only (Google's network of partner websites)
4. Shopping (Best way to create Shopping Ads)
5. Video (Video ads on YouTube and across the web)
6. Universal app campaign (Promote your app across Search, Display and YouTube)

You need to identify what is the budget for advertising and how much you can gain from it.

The "good" is that Search Partners mean other sites other than Google have placed a Google search box on their sites, and users actively make the search and are being shown Google search results. So the traffic through Search Partners aren't bad - They are "pull" traffic, not "push".

The "bad" maybe one day if the quality of users on these Search Partners sites, Google may have no control over it.