Google Display for Local Brand Awareness w/ Low CPM Bid

[Dreo]

Has anyone run branding awareness/building campaign (not direct sales/lead gen) on a local/city level when bidding low on Google Display across big sites like Weather.com, ESPN.com, etc?

For example, in Google Display Planner, I'll bid $.10 CPC for visitors who live in Austin, TX. I can add a few additional filters like age, gender, etc...

GDP show's a monthly estimate of 1M-1.5M impressions and 1,000 clicks. Those clicks will likely not turn into a conversion which is fine, but I'm trying to make our name known throughout the city. So those 2M impressions should help if our brand is actually seen.

So that's the real question... Is this ad inventory actually seen by visitors? I understand there's always extra/remnant inventory, but this seems like it can't hurt to through some money at each months.

 

[CCarter]

So that's the real question... Is this ad inventory actually seen by visitors? I understand there's always extra/remnant inventory, but this seems like it can't hurt to through some money at each months.

If you can't measure the success then you are missing the biggest advantage of online marketing. With online marketing you can see direct impact on conversions to your bottomline by channels.

With TV, radio, newspaper, print media, Billboards and most old school marketing channels - you literally can't. You can only see impacts as a sum, unless you get really targeted, which even then it's estimates at best. With the internet it's the first media that allows to see exact numbers - IF you are converting traffic/leads.

It's fine to do, but there is a reason only the major companies like Coca-Cola do that level of brand awareness, since they have full market penetration already. Basically doing it for just brand awareness online is just missing an opportunity to generate direct revenue.

 

[Future State]

Is this ad inventory actually seen by visitors?

I don't have an answer for this, but I know that most ad networks don't give a didly squat about viewability. Few even report the metric because it'd be a losing proposition for them. The ones that do probably charge a premium for high viewability sites, or allow sites to filter low ones out or select high ones.

I agree that if you don't have a goal beyond brand awareness for this campaign, its wasted money. You need to at least analyze the data to see who interacts to create a demographic to tighten your future campaigns down on.