While I disagree with some of the answers to the questions in the Google Ad Display Certification test, I managed to do fairly well on it. Here’s my score.
The biggest disagreement I have with an answer I provided in order to get a correct mark on this test is to this question.
You have a friend who has a small business, and she wants to manage her own AdWords campaign. She has no experience with AdWords and would like to experiment with different options. Which campaign type would you recommend to start?
- Search Network only
- Search Network with Display Select
- Display Network with Search Select
- Display Network only
As indicated with the bold text, the “correct” answer is Search Network with Display Select. The reason why this answer is scare quotes correct as opposed to being actually correct is simple. A small business owner likely needs to get a good return on ad spend if they are going to invest in an ad campaign. The return on ad spend for Google Display (as with every other display vendor I’ve ever tested) is poor. While I’d love to be proven wrong, this is just a fact and has been a fact since the display network was launched. Is it getting better as Google gets more intelligent about using the massive pile of personal customer data it has for the benefit of advertisers? Absolutely. Is it good enough now to provide a small business owner with no experience using AdWords a positive return on ad spend? Absolutely not.
Based on this, your friend who runs a small business should be advised to start with a small campaign targeting search network only. She should start by looking at front end metrics which provide an indication that the audience is interested in her offer, primarily click through rate. Over time even a small ad campaign with conversion tracking can follow these indicators and become profitable. Any business owner who wants to start profitably generating revenue from Google Ads should start with search.
That said, the Google Display does have some targeting options that can be profitable from a direct response point of view, primarily Google Display Network Remarketing . Additionally, very large or brand advertisers might benefit from using Google Display Network for awareness or consideration goals. The performance of GDN for these goals compared to traditional media may be favorable. But for small business, or any business which requires it’s ad campaign to be both measurable and ROI positive, starting with search network is the only thing that makes sense. Now feast your eyes on my super fancy Google Display Network test certification.
