The Google Content Network is a topic that has been debated endlessly as to it’s effectiveness, and I’m often asked for my opinion on the subject. I haven’t had as much success with the Content Network as I have with traditional search and search partners, but depending on the client and the business objectives it may work. What I recommend doing for clients who want to experiment by advertising through the content network is to create a campaign that I typically call Content Network and then create individual ad groups for each site that I specify with placement targeting. This allows me to specifically monitor sites as to their performance instead of lumping everyone together in the Content Network. Those that perform I’ll pull out and create a specific campaign for in order to control budget, geo targeting, etc. Those that don’t are simply replaced. You can even go deeper as to specify specific placement on sites such as being only on the homepage, or only in sports, etc. This allows for complete transparency as to how each site performs and allows for informed business decisions to be made going forward as to whether to continue with the Content Network.