£55 Minimum Bid On New Account

[CustardMite]

Here's an interesting thing.

We've just taken on a new account, and despite having no account history, some of the new keywords that we set up had a £55 minimum bid (according to Adwords Editor, 1/10 according to Google Adwords).

The keywords related exactly to what the client's website does, and the advert was highly relevant and well-written. They haven't bid on these keywords before, and there is no ambiguity in the keywords.

The keywords are long-tail, but not excessively so. The subject matter is Van Insurance, which is admittedly competitive, but this is the minimum bid that I'm talking about, not the page one bid.

Am I the only one that thinks £55 ($110) minimum bid is excessive?

[Toonarme]

£55 per click!! Blimey! You need to query that one! Excessive isn't really the word...

[rimroll]

remember that all bids are converted to usd before the google 'auction' and that the max bid google allows is $100 usd

i assume based on this that your client is (website) blacklisted for some reason and however hig the bid is google will never show the ad

[CustardMite]

It's only for a few of the keywords - most are in the region of £2 - £10. Not sure why, but I am querying it...

[rustybrick]

I would love to see a screen capture. I trust you, but I want to see those numbers.

[trishan]

I would like to see the big G's response.

[CustardMite]

Here's a screenshot from Adwords Editor (obviously, can't see this number in Adwords any more).

[narsticle]

eek, that keyword must have an awful history on Google.

[CustardMite]

It's to do with vehicle insurance - it's really not a long-tail keyword, and there's no reason that it should have a poor history...

[rustybrick]

That is great, thanks!

[GuyFromChicago]

I'm curios what the estimated first page bid is?

I wrote about this (although not with a minimum bid that high!) in my AdWords FAQ post... I wonder if the following will play out in your situation?

Question 12 - I just added a bunch of new keywords to my account and almost 1/2 of them received a poor quality score and minimum bid of $5.00 right away before I ever received a single impression. How the hell can Google say I have a poor quality score before my ad even gets a chance to run?

This is fairly common when you're using a keyword that Google does not have a lot of history for. Your initial quality score, at least for determining the minimum bid, is based on historical data. When I see this happen the best thing to do is nothing - let the keyword/ad run for about 24 hours. Google will show the ad even if says it's inactive to help measure the quality score. If your keyword/ad combo proves effective it's not unusual to see a quick improvement in your quality score as well as a significant drop in your minimum bid.

[Michael T.]

Well $55 is really a lot for one click.

It is a new account and a new campaign but...