Adwords Conversion Optimization Series 6: Search Partners (Not)

When creating a new search campaign, you have the option to opt in or out of Google  “Search Partners”.

What the heck are these “search partners” they’re talking about?

Sometimes a 3rd party site, such as CNN or AOL, will have a custom search bar on their site. When a visitor goes to search on their site, they are taken to a special search page, where your ad can be displayed.

Here is a search bar from the AOL home page:

And here is the Google search results after you click “SEARCH”:

You can immediately see that the top 6 listings are paid ads (which is a bad user experience). Regular Google search only has 3 ads above search results.

By opting-in to search partners, you’re agreeing to show your ad on these pages, which are different than Google’s regular search engine; visitors act and search a little bit differently.

There are some instances where search partners is a good idea, such as:

• taking advantage of the Google Shopping network
• if you have a campaign that you need more traffic out of (and it isn’t reaching your budget), you can squeeze some extra traffic out of it by adding in search partners.

If you need more traffic, use a remarketing campaign before turning on search partners. It can deliver huge ROI (more on this in a later article).

If you’ve already explored every nook & cranny of your Adwords campaign (including remarketing and display), then search partners could give you a little boost in traffic (with the cost of slightly high cost per conversions) for your search campaign.

The bottom-line is that you should not include search partners when making a new campaign, unless you really know what you’re doing.