AdNetwork FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the Medicare.com Ad Network for Advertisers?
- Why should I buy text ads on the Medicare.com Ad Network?
- How does it work?
- How much does it cost?
- Do I need to be the highest bidder?
- Automated Ad Matching
- Where will my ad run?
- What is content-targeted advertising?
- Is there a minimum bid for text ads on Medicare.com?
- Will my ads appear exactly as I've requested?
- Managing Bids
- Cost-per-Click Bidding
- Yield Optimized Advertisement Delivery
- Can I use banners, image based or rich media, with the Medicare.com Ad Network?
- What are keyword matching options?
- These keyword options are confusing! How can I make this simple?
- How can I contact Medicare.com's Ad Support team?
What is the Medicare.com Ad Network for Advertisers?
Medicare.com is the first vertical ad network exclusive to Medicare covered products and related services. Our technology connects Medicare.com visitors and advertisers through an auction-based, pay-per-click marketing platform. This enables cost-per-click advertising on Medicare.com’s website where advertisers only pay for ads when they are clicked on.
Medicare.com has the highest concentration of visitors purely focused on finding out how to qualify and locate products that are covered by Medicare. This arms advertisers with the ability to target their market segment with precise aim in real time as the visitor is actively engaged in finding a provider. With Channel Targeting, (i.e. Product Category Targeting) the Medicare.com Ad Network gives advertisers the tools to convert visitors who are actively seeking information on how to qualify for products and services covered by Medicare. This leads to better advertising results and measurable cost on new customer acquisition efforts.
Why should I buy text ads on the Medicare.com Ad Network?
You will generate more highly qualified leads. Text ads allow you to reach consumers while they are engaged in finding topic’s related to Medicare covered products or services. With channel targeting, your ads only show up on pages that talk about how to qualify for the products or services you offer. You can also target locally by state, region or city if you only service a geographic area. The advertisers risk is minimal due to the fact that ads only cost money if a visitor clicks on them and arrives at the advertiser’s website.
How does it work?
We place your ads on Medicare.com and partner publisher site pages. You choose the content channel that matches your products or service. In the next step we can also recommend more placements that match criteria you provide. There's not much risk in trying many different placements – you only pay when someone actually visits your site.
You only pay when a visitor clicks on your ad. In our auction based advertising system, you don't pay anything to show your ad on the placements you choose, but you do pay if a visitor clicks on that ad. Bid whatever you are willing to pay for a click on each placement (as long as it's above the minimum bid). You don't even need to be the highest bidder to receive traffic. Control your costs even more with your spending plan and daily budget settings. You choose how much and how often we charge your credit card, and you can cap the amount you spend per day.
You can pay now or later. We'll save your selections and spending preferences, and won't start running your campaign until you're ready to fund your account.
How much does it cost?
We'll place your ads on the pages, sections, or next to content topics you choose. You pay only when a visitor clicks on the ad. While you can get started with as little as $10, your total spending depends on how many clicks your ad generates.
You can control your spending by:
- Carefully setting your bids on each placement. Your bid is the amount you are willing to pay when a visitor clicks on your ad. If you're not the highest bidder, you can still receive traffic if your ad text is well matched to the placement you've chosen. We use a proxy-bidding system. This means you only pay your Maximum CPC if you are not the highest bidder. If you are the highest bidder for example, you bid $3.00 and the next highest bid is $2.00, you will win the bid for the best placement and only pay $2.01.
- Your billing plan – On the last step of the signup process, you can choose to try this program out with an initial amount, and then have your account recharged (you set the limit) every time your balance runs out.
- Daily Budget – The strictest spending control will come from your daily budget. In the "Set Cost & Budget" settings during your ad creation process area of step 5, just enter the amount you are willing to spend on this ad campaign per day. Once you receive enough clicks to reach that limit, your ad will stop running until the next day. The daily budget is a great way to smooth your spending over time, ensuring you don't run out of account funds too quickly.
- Campaign Date Range – You can further control your spending by using a date range with a start and finish date. On your “Summary” page place your cursor over “Edit” and three choices will come up under “Edit Campaign.” Chose “Delivery Settings” and then set the start and end date you desire for this campaign.
Do I need to be the highest bidder?
No! You should bid what you are willing to pay per click for each placement. While being the highest bidder does increase the chances that your ad will be shown, we also take into account how well your ad performs when deciding which ad to display on a particular site page.
If you don't want to bid too high, you can try to increase your ad's performance by:
- Providing relevant titles and descriptions: Tailor your creative to the selected placements. Where applicable, place the name of a placement in your creative.
- Shorten your creative: Make your message short and to the point. Place the most important information at the beginning of your title and description.
- Keep your creative fresh: Update your ad creative at least once per month to keep viewers engaged.
Automated Ad Matching
The Medicare.com Ad Server finds relevant keywords from the page content, matches those keywords to the available ads, and then delivers the matching ads. Combining this with content channels, geographical targeting, and scheduling, advertisers enjoy an increased volume of conversions.
Advertising relevance has become one of the most important factors for both the advertiser and the website publisher. Medicare.com advertisers can experience increased traffic from interested, motivated, and highly targeted visitors. For example, if a visitor is reading about how to qualify for a hospital bed, more than likely they are looking for a hospital bed. Therefore, ads for hospital beds are best displayed on articles about how to qualify for hospital beds. This results in highly targeted traffic and quality conversions for the advertiser.
Where will my ad run?
Where we show your ad depends on the channel you target. If your targeting Supplemental Insurance for example, your ads will only show up within content related to that topic. We have many content channels to chose from, however we suggest only targeting the channels most related to your products or service.
What is content-targeted advertising?
Simply put, it is advertising that is relevant to the theme or content of a Web page. Content-targeted advertising generates more awareness and clicks because it is related to what the user is reading on the page or is searching for on one of our publisher sites.
Is there a minimum bid for text ads on Medicare.com?
The minimum bids within our content channels vary by topic. In general, the minimum for various placement types is in the $.25 to $2.00 range.
Will my ads appear exactly as I've requested?
Our Editorial staff does review the listings; however, provided your ads conform to the Medicare.com Ad Network Editorial Guidelines, we will not change your ad without your approval. It is important to note, however, that some Publishers impose size, text or other limitations which may crop, shorten or otherwise alter your ad. These alterations are not system wide and only apply to that specific Publisher ad.
Managing Bids
From the Manage Bids screen, you can adjust the bid amount of any campaigns you have. You may modify any number of campaigns at a time.
Cost-per-Click Bidding
Using a cost-per-click bidding model allows advertisers to provide the maximum amount they are willing to pay per-click. In many instances, this per-click cost is associated to a keyword or channel (zone).
While the bidding model allows for advertisers to bid-for-placement and automatically adjust costs on demand, poorly written advertisements can easily command the prime positions with a high bid amount and a low click-through rate.
Yield Optimized Advertisement Delivery
To deliver qualified advertisement(s) for a given request, the Medicare.com Ad Server applies a Yield Optimization Algorithm to determine the appropriate rank and cost for each advertisement. Far more than a simplistic review of historical click-through rates, our algorithm considers factors such as relevancy, targeting match, keyword match type, qualified filter criteria, historical earnings, current bid amount, and more to determine what advertisement is qualified to be shown, where (rank), and what it should be billed.
This result is increased performance of your advertising efforts.
Can I use banners, image based or rich media, with the Medicare.com Ad Network?
Currently the Medicare.com Ad Network only supports text based advertising. Our plans include the addition of image based ads in the future.
What are keyword matching options?
In order to deliver advertisements effectively, the Medicare.com Ad Server supports advanced keyword matching. Our advanced matching mechanism provides four options for advertisers, each providing a different way a keyword will match content and search queries.
These keyword options are:
- Keyword = broad match
- [keyword] = exact match
- "keyword" = phrase match
- -keyword = negative match
>> Broad Match: This is the default option. If a campaign contains the keyword of diabetic supplies, the advertisement will become available for delivery when the search query contains diabetic and supplies, in any order, and likely with other terms. For example, a search for supplies for diabetic would match whereas diabetic shoes or shoes for diabetic would not match. Therefore, when entering your key word using the broad match, enter one key word per line as follows:
| Broad match keyword: | Ads may show on searches for: |
| diabetic supplies | diabetic supplies qualify for diabetic supplies diabetic supply supplies for diabetic diabetic testing supplies |
>> Exact Match: If your advertisement provides a keyword in brackets, as in [diabetic supplies], the advertisement would become available for delivery if and only if the search contains only diabetic supplies in that order. This is the highest level of targeting for keywords as searches for cheap diabetic supplies or shoes for diabetics would not match.
| Exact match keyword: | Ads may show on searches for: | Ads won't show on searches for: |
| [diabetic supplies] | diabetic supplies | diabetic supply supplies for diabetic diabetic testing supplies |
>> Phrase Match: If your advertisement provides a keyword inside quotation marks, as in "dog food", the advertisement would become available for delivery when a search contains the phrase dog food, in this order, and like with other terms before and after. For example, a search for holistic dog food would match whereas food for dogs would not.
| Phrase match keyword: | Ads may show on searches for: | Ads won't show on searches for: |
| "diabetic supplies" | diabetic supplies diabetic supplies delivered qualify for diabetic supplies |
supplies for diabetics diabetes supply qualify for diabetes supply delivery |
>> Negative Match: If your advertisement provides a broad keyword of diabetic supplies and provides a negative keyword of -cheap, the advertisement would not appear for searches for cheap diabetic supplies but would appear for diabetic supplies covered by Medicare. Negative keywords can be very useful if your ad provides a lot of broad-matched keywords.
| Keywords: | Ads may show on searches for: | Ads won't show on searches for: |
|
diabetic supplies -FreeStyle |
diabetic supplies qualify for diabetic supplies |
FreeStyle diabetic supplies supplies for FreeStyle Meter |
These keyword options are confusing! How can I make this simple?
The best way to simplify your keyword strategy is targeting the product channels most related to your product/service. Channel targeting makes the use of keywords less important. For example, if you target the Diabetic Supply and Related Products category after creating your ad, they will still appear with or without the use of any keywords. However, there is one exception for why you should use at least one keyword. Without any keywords listed, when a user uses site search for “diabetic supplies” your ad will not appear in search results. Therefore, pick one or two important keywords and forget about it.
How can I contact Medicare.com's Ad Support team?
You can contact an ad network representative by sending an email to AdSales@Medicare.com. Once your account has been established, you will be provided with a dedicated account representative with direct phone access as you need it.
Or, by mail:
Medx Publishing, Inc.
c/o Medicare.com Ad Network
750 Old Hickory Blvd
Building 2, Suite 150
Brentwood, TN 37027