I've been using Google AdWords to promote dream.in.code for close to 2 years now. I recently turned off the "Content Network" for all of my campaigns in favor of higher converting traffic from the "Search Network".

Traffic from the "Content Network" is far more likely to click advertisements since they clicked an ad to arrive at the site. But they are far less likely to purchase or register. Traffic from the "Search Network" is far more likely to register or purchase, but not as likely to click an advertisement.

The problem with the content network is, for broadly targetted keywords, the traffic is insane! So you blow through your daily budget very quickly on the Content Network and get few, if any, clicks from the search network. This means you may make some money from advertising, but not many new customers or members register.

If you are patient enough to set individual bids for the content and search network seperately, I guess you may have better luck, but for me... I'm going to stick with just the search network for a while and see how well it performs.

Anyone else have any experience with AdWords?

I've been running campaigns with the Content Network both ON and OFF and I haven't gotten the first conversion from the Content Network. Out of 89 Conversions, none is from the Content Network.

For some of the campaigns I have custom bidding for the content network but in general I have them turned OFF.

The best way to test it would be to have 2 separate campaigns with the same keywords, one for the Search Network and one for the Content Network. This way you can have separate and easy to change bids for both of them.

It also lets you analyze the performance of the Adwords Campaign far more easily.