I had keyword which required 0.30$ to activate for search. I got 6 impressions for it and 3 clicks. Now it says it needs 0.40$ to activate. Shouldn't it go the other way around, to decrease cpc for higher CTR?
Maybe the keyword is competetive, also Google analyse your keywords every few hours, so the bid might go down a bit later.
That's ok but I am new to this and I didn't realize that minimum bid required to active it on search can change if didn't change anything. At least I wouldn't expect it to change in such a short period of time. Thanks for replies.
I understand you point. a good workaround for that is to research other keywords variations. For example, if you have the keyword bicycle You may expect different min bids values for the variations: buy a bicycle need a bicycle bicycle shop bike So your campaign will be less dependent on small QS variations. AdWords Keyword tool is your friend.
That minimum CPC is depends on competetion, and quality score depends on many factor.like landing page quality, CTR , adcopy etc.... we can't do anything for this iisue, we need to increase the bid to activate the keyword.
The keyword in question went back to $0.30 minimum bid. I thought maybe the fact that destination url is an affiliate link had something to do with the increase but I guess it doesn't.
If you can't maintain the minimum CTR (.50%) then your ad will be deactivated... It's going to cost you a lot of money unless you can mantain a better CTR. You need to use more ad groups with each group containing SPECIFIC relevant keywords to your ad descriptions using plurals, brackets, quotes etc. and in each ad group your ads MUST be tailored and relevant to your keywords. The goal is not to have thousands and thousands of impressions but rather a fewer VERY targeted impressions that most likely will click on your ad. Then your CTR will go up and your CPC will go down. And since your ad won't be disabled you will have the potential to actually hit your max daily budget. Also try adding multiple ads and monitoring the performance. Disable the ads that aren't performing the best to improve your CTR.
Thanks for the tips NetStar. Can I use ad variations to cover the keywords better? Or does it have to be separate ad group?
It could be that they suddenly decided that your site was not relevent to the keyword. They are constantly updating their algorithms. I've had this happen.
Most people lump tons of keywords under 1 Ad Group with a range of ads. They believe this is the most productive and effective way to use Adwords. They fail...miserably. Say you're selling Bikes - Huffy Bicycles more specifically. The following keywords you may use: Bikes Huffy Bikes Buying Bicycles Buying Bikes Low Cost Bicycles Mountain Bikes BMX Bikes Used Bikes for sale 10 Speed bikes Lumping all those keywords into one ad group will bring you MANY impressions... but very irrelevant traffic that will do absolutely nothing but waste your money and deactivate your ads. Your goal is to divide the keyword list up into healthy relevant categories so you can target your audience more effectively by displaying ads they most likely will want to see. First, you'd compile a Negative Keyword list to filter out searches that may contain keywords that will throw off the relevancy of your keywords.. In this case we are selling BICYCLES and NOT Motorcycles. So Motorcycle and Motorcycles should be added to the Negative keyword list. 2nd... Divide your keywords up and add specifics like plurals, brackets and quotes. Group #1 Huffy Bike "Huffy Bike" [Huffy Bike] Huffy Bicycle "Huffy Bicycle" [Huffy Bicycle] Huffy Bicycles "Huffy Bicycles" [Huffy Bicycles] Huffy Bicycles for sale "Huffy Bicycles for sale" [Huffy Bicycles for sale] Huffy Bikes for sale "Huffy Bikes for sale" [Huffy Bikes for sale] Now create your ads like: Headline: Huffy Bikes for sale Description: Buy Huffy Bikes from A&E Bikes and take home free helmet and gloves. This ad is relevant to your keywords. Which means ONLY searchers searching for Huffy Bikes to buy will be presented. You will receive FEWER ad impressions for this ad group however the traffic will be more relevant and you WILL see a higher CTR because you are now delivering actual relevant ads to your potential prospects. Move on to the next ad group... Let's take the keyword Low Cost Bicycles. Compile a list with RELEVANT keywords (see above example) and compost an ad similar to: Headline: Low cost Bicycles Description: Cheapest high quality bikes. Buy before Dec 21st and receive free shipping. Believe it or not by people searching for Huffy Bikes and Low Cost Bicycles are two different people. One person has a specific item in mind while the other doesn't. This means one ad will attract one type of person while the other ad will disinterest them. And vice versa as well. The point of segregating your keywords to individual Ad Groups is to decrease the irrelevant impressions to increase the relevant impressions which in return will increase your CTR which will decrease your CPC by delivering actual targeted effective ads. Take a look at the rest of your keywords: Mountain Bikes BMX Bikes Used Bikes for sale 10 Speed bikes People searching for Mountain Bikes don't give a rats behind about BMX Bikes. People who want 10 Speed bikes don't care about BMX bikes either. Now people who are searching for Used Bikes *MAY* be interested in 10 Speed Bikes __BUT__ they really aren't. The __KEYWORD__ is used. So their mindset is on the keyword USED. You MUST have an ad targeted for that consumer.. They are looking for the word USED... If you're flipping though the dictionary looking for the word "Relevant" you may pass a synonym for that word however you won't notice because you're too busy on the hunt for the word "RELEVANT".
Thanks again NetStar for your helpful reply. I have another question, sorry if am wondering off topic but this thread turned out to be very helpful to me and hopefully it will be for others as well. I am using some affiliate links directly leading to the product page now. I am having a problem with a keyword not being shown because someone else is using similar display url. So of course I'd like to avoid raising a bid for that keyword. So I was considering making a landing page on my own domain to advertise the product. But I am worried about how many people would make that extra click to go to actual product page? If someone has some numbers from their experience perhaps.
It's a common technique to make your own landing page. You simply have to do a really good job of preselling the product on your landing page. Techniques include: Catchy headlines inline links call to action links benefits and features some sort of ranking system honest reviews dont oversell You may find that your conversions will increase once you implement your own LP. You can also increase your QS quite a bit by optimizing your page to your ads. This is a techinque I use quite often.
We have dozens of automobile dealerships participating in our advertising programs to generate customer leads. One particular website layout leads the customer to the front page which contains text information. They have 5-6 links to click on the page. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) each one of our leads (that converted into a lead from a google ad) clicked directly on the link "Application". One dealership in particular has over a thousand clicks to the "Application" page from the home page but less than 30 clicks to the Credit Information page, which we thought offered the most wealth of information...go figure. When we launched another layout for the same dealership with the application attached on the landing page the leads practically doubled. Based on our research with the automobile lead websites when you rely on a visitor to look around on your site to find what you want them to find, you lose money. When you throw it in their face then they have no choice but to look at it. Then if they choose to leave, it wasn't because of your product. A landing page should present EXACTLY what your visitor is looking for. Do NOT clutter it with useless BS but DO offer easy to follow links to your other products and pages. But don't try to distract them..