Good news for users of Google Adwords. Last week Google added the option to allow AdWords users to view separate statistics for Google search and the Google Search Partner Network (such as Aol.com and Ask.com). Prior to this, performance data was only listed for both networks combined.
I spent some time reading through various forum threads on this topic and I got the impression that I would be turning off the display for the search partner network; a lot of folks seem to be skeptical about the relative value of advertising on the partner network.
The first account I viewed using this feature showed zero conversions on the search partner’s network, while the conversion rate was pretty decent on the Google network. However, other accounts showed the search partner network actually out performing the Google network. From what I’ve seen so far, it can be worth advertising on both networks.
One thing that would be nice to see, now that we can view this information separately is the ability to turn off the display on either network. Currently, the only options are to have either both search networks turned off or to display the Google network only. It we were allowed to manage these in separate campaigns, we could optimize to make the most of this additional data.
After looking these stats on a number of older client accounts, I came to the conclusion that Google shows historical statistics data for the search partner network dating back to Dec 2006, so we can view nearly 2 years of accumulated data.
All things considered, this is a very nice addition to the already robust feature of the AdWords system. Kudos once again Google, for making my job easier.