Last week while many of us were focusing on how much gravy to pour over our turkey, Google was delivering bidding controls that AdWords advertisers have been clamoring for for quite some time. After several years of being forced into the same cost-per-click bid for both search and contextual ad placements, Google is updating their system to allow for more control over bid prices.

From a Google release:

This enhancement to Google AdWords enables advertisers to place one bid for ads that run on content sites and a separate bid for ads that run on search sites within the Google Network. Previously, the single keyword bid placed by advertisers was applied to their ads on both search and content pages. In addition, the minimum bid for content is now a static $.01 (in the U.S.).

Google developed content bidding in response to advertiser requests for additional pricing and placement control of ads that run on content sites in the Google network. Advertisers are now able to place a bid for their content campaigns and smart pricing will reduce the cost the advertiser pays if the cost is still too high relative to the value it brings the advertiser. In conjunction with smart pricing, content bidding enables advertisers to effectively manage return on investment (ROI) for their content campaigns. Content bidding does not affect the way AdWords ranks ads or how it selects ads that run on content pages. AdWords will continue to rank ads by using a combination of Quality Score and maximum cost-per-click (CPC).