Google Search Partners Are No Good, Shame on You Google.

Google is always trying to encourage advertisers to use their search, display and video partners in order to get more ad clicks and in turn an increase in traffic to your site. You’d be right to assume that this will surely result in more conversions and sales for your business, especially since it’s a method highly recommended by Google… Not exactly.

What are Google Search Partners?

Google Search, Display and Video Partners are websites that partner with Google specifically to show ads.

They are designed to extend the reach of Google Ads so advertising campaigns are seen by more people. Users from Partner Networks tend to be cheaper than traffic that comes directly from Google, but you will find that they don’t tend to convert as well as the Google Network – we’ll share why shortly! However, when setting-up a new campaign, Search Partners are automatically included. Advertisers have to manually switch this targeting option off if they don’t wish for it to be involved.

Why are Google Search Partners bad?

The biggest issue with Google Search Partners (like their Display and Video counterparts) is that you’re unable to control on which site your ad appears. As a result, there is very little quality control on the Partner Network. For example, one of the most famous Search Partner websites (at least, in our office) is chicken.com. As you can see below the quality of the site itself isn’t very good and ad relevancy isn’t particularly strong. Ads are being shown for KFC, Garage Doors and Chicken Fences. As an advertiser, this is very difficult to plan since you want to show your ads to the most relevant audience possible for better opportunities of converting.

A big issue in my opinion outside of the lack of quality control is, the only insight that you’re able to see is how the Partner Network performed as a whole and not individual sites. This makes optimising campaigns that have the Partner Network enabled difficult. If the Search Partner Network was performing for you, you would not be able to exclude the sites that weren’t performing to send more traffic to the sites that were.

What Do Liberty Do?

When we’re creating campaigns for our clients, we always ensure that Search, Display and Video Partners are switched off. It ensures that we maintain control over where the ads are shown and that we’re able to make decisive and accurate adjustments to campaigns to get the best performance possible for you is what our PPC services are all about.