Vertical Marketing – Google’s One Stop Shop Solution

Gerard Tollefsen - January 21, 2009

I recently created a vertical marketing campaign for a client and was very impressed with the options Google offers to manage this type of strategy.  It doesn’t seem like too long ago that a proposal of this size would have constituted multiple media buys across many networks and websites and the management of the program would have been a major task.  Just keeping up with all of the different invoices from each media buy was a full time job, not to mention that each network or site had its own way of reporting results!  With Google’s Placement Targeting program you can create a robust, wide reaching vertical marketing campaign and manage the program all in one place!

The advantages from both a management perspective and the ability to reach your precise audience with Google’s Placement Targeting program are substantial.  I was able to create a campaign targeting over 50 specific vertical sites for my client and manage the program all within one interface.  I didn’t have to spend time going to each website to negotiate 50 different media buys and I was able to get consistent reporting for the entire campaign.  My client was impressed by the extensive list of sites available to them within the Google Content Network and particularly liked the idea of one invoice to cover the costs of the entire campaign.  Within the Google Content Network, depending on the publisher’s site, you can place targeted text ads, banner ads, or even video.  We were able to leverage these different types of ad formats, testing regular text ads, banner ads, and videos across many of the sites we utilized during the campaign.

The final results are still pending, but it is certain to be a campaign we will look to build upon in the future.  With the flexibility and options available within the Google Placement Targeting program, I was able to offer my client an easily managed vertical marketing campaign.  The next time you consider a vertical marketing campaign think of all the advantages a “one stop shop” solution can save you in time and effort.