Search marketing has been tweaked, tested, and examined through a lens over the years. It can be argued that every new idea for reaching users has been found. Nope. Search Companion Marketing is the newest AdWords tool rolling out of the Google Labs.

Search Companion Marketing targets users who search for your designated keywords by showing them ads on the sites they reach through the search results page. This works on paid search ads and organic search results on any major search engine including Bing and Yahoo. As long as the user is on a page that’s part of the Google Content Network, marketers can show their ads.

Setting up Search Companion Marketing

Setup is quick and pretty similar to most display campaigns. Start by creating a new campaign set to Display Network Broad Reach and set your budget, bids and targets as you normally would. Next, create ad groups that are appropriate for your business and fill them with no more than 50 keywords. It’s important to use your top converting keywords to get the best performance out of SCM. All keywords are viewed as broad match so variations of your top converting keywords are unnecessary.

SCM Campaign Optimization

Optimization of a SCM campaign is not too different from the average display campaign. Be sure to check campaign placements to exclude irrelevant sites and add negative keywords and increase the relevancy of your traffic. Additionally, you can pause low performing keywords and add new high performing keywords. Again, it’s important to make sure that no single ad group has more than 50 keywords. If the traffic volume you were expecting is not there, check to see if bids are set too low and make sure that you have both text and display ads. This will maximize the impression volume for your SCM campaign.

Google’s tests demonstrated an 8% increase in conversion volumes with Search Companion Marketing. In Leverage’s own limited tests, we’ve seen results that are on par with remarketing campaigns and lower CPAs. With refinement, SCM can be the next killer tool in every paid search marketer’s tool belt. If you’re interested in SCM for your business, get in touch with your Leverage Marketing representative.