Monitoring Where Your Ads Are Placed

Google doesn’t expect you to operate in the dark regarding exactly what sites your ads are displayed on, especially considering how immense the Google Ad network is.  In fact, with your Google Adwords account there is a tool called the Placement Report which will show you the URLs of all the sites your ad has been displayed on to date.  After you’ve run your ads for a while you should take a look at this report and visit the sites your ad is being displayed on so you can assess how relevant each site is to buying or selling real estate.  Google allows you to block having your ads displayed on any of these sites, so be sure to visit as many as you can and block any that have little or nothing to with buying or selling real estate.  Keep an eye peeled for any sites that have been driving traffic but have resulted in little or no conversions (IE signups to your mailing list).

Now your ads may be displayed on a site that gets heavy traffic and drives a lot of prospects your way, but only when your ads are displayed on certain areas of the site and not in others areas.  Google allows you to specify subdomains within domains that you want to allow your ads on and which subdomains you want to block.  For instance, you could have your ads displayed on http://www.your-local-newspaper.com/real-estate and not displayed in http://www.your-local-newspaper.com/sports.  Overall, Google gives you a lot of control on preventing your ads from being displayed on undesirable or poorly converting sites.

Generally speaking, you should have your ad displayed on any section in any online news site that might possibly influence a person doing research on buying a new home.