Google Search vs. Google Search Partners Campaign Settings When setting up any campaign with Google AdWords, you'll notice there is a option to choose only to advertise on Google.com or advertise on both (Google Search and Google Search Partners). If you target Google Search only, you'll only show up on results for people searching on Google.com. If you target both Google Search and Google Search Partners you'll show up on results for any Google.com search as well as searches done on their partners websites. A few examples of their search partners sites are AOL.com, and ABOUT.com. So now, you may be thinking "Well, what should I target?" Below I'm going to go over a few ups and downs of each. Which network settings should I target? Google Search or Google Search Network? Two of the key factors play a role when deciding whether or not you want to target both are the traffic quality you are looking for and your budget. By targeting Google.com you have a better understanding that you're getting traffic from targeted users who are looking for what you are offering. I've done some testing before and I've found that by targeting Google.com only you'll get much more qualified traffic. One of the reasons is that by targeting only Google.com you have so much more control. You know the exact query that was typed in, you know how Google's results appear, and you know the exact cost per click range you would be charged. Other search engines show their results differently, have different keyword matching algorithms, and have a broader range of their CPC basis. So if you target Google.com only, you will see that your Cost per click stays within a certain range, while if you target both, your cost per click could jump around by about a $0.30 difference. Which is rather significant! If you have a budget and need only qualified traffic, then targeting Google.com is your answer. Now, if you have some room in your budget and all you really want is traffic to your site, then targeting both search and search partners would be the answer for you. You'll get way more traffic since you're opening up your range of candidates. One thing I highly recommend if you do go this route is to make sure you look at a referring domain report, if you have the option via your analytics package. There may be a few websites that are performing poorly and bringing down your conversion rate. Thankfully Google does allow us to block certain sites, all you would need is the URL. Testing Results - Google Search vs. Google Search Partners Having 5+ years of Pay Per Click experience, I've tested both of these strategies a number of times. For the products I was advertising, the quality of traffic played a big role in our conversion rate. And if our conversion rate went down, so did our budget. Therefore, I came across a huge win when I targeted Google.com only traffic. Reason being is that the CPC's declined by almost $0.20 right away. So I was paying less for more qualified traffic and it return on investment very quickly. If you're worried about losing traffic after getting rid of the Google Search network traffic, then you could duplicate your campaign, target everything, and drop you bid by about 30% lower than the Google.com only traffic. This will help you pick up the remaining traffic. Now, I do not recommend cutting out the search partner traffic completely. Make sure you test it and make sure you getting quality traffic from it. There is plenty of qualified traffic on those search partners. However, if you're on a tight budget then I would recommend going with only Google.com. Luckily, I have heard that Google is hoping to come out with an option where you can target the Search Partners separately, which will make testing a whole lot easier! Anyone doing online marketing these days needs to know where there traffic is coming from and how the traffic is converting from them. By knowing your traffic and knowing what they are/aren't looking for you will increase your conversion rate significantly as well as your profit margin. By separating out the Google Search and Google Search Partners traffic you're only creating more qualified leads. Qualified leads equal higher conversion rate. Higher conversion rate equals higher profit margin. Higher profit margin equals happy boss. If you are your own boss, best of luck to you!