Okay so here is my deal I was running a campaign with a budget of about 60 bucks. I had decent success on a daily basis. I messed around with ad scheduling and found it to work okay. I am trying to figure out what the best option is to be on the first page, and have a lowest possible cpc bid. I set my bids to 51 cents for each separate keyword and am able to consistently stay on the first page. I also messed around with lower cpc max cpc bids in past weeks and was able to sit on the front page for nearly 15-20 cents less. Okay my question is, if i raise my daily budget from 60 to say 100 how will this impact me in terms of impressions and ad showing other then the fact that if i have a higher budget, then im gonna have a longer time to be on first or etc. How does budget directly play an impact in your campaign. Next, I am trying to figure out how adwords seems to be so ridiculously complicated. I want to a set a cpc max bid and be on the first page but i dont want to adwords to charge me 50 cents and my max cpc is 51 cents. I want adwords to charge me 40 cents and thus i save 11 cents but im still on the first page. All I can say is that since i started adwords I think its great, but man its like everyday is different. Sorry for the long crazy post, i just havent found anyone to talk to directly about something like this.
Welcome to adwords. It's not like it used to be and I'm happy about that in a way. The amount of competitors we see come and go weekly is astonishing. You can tell it's because they do not understand the system. Stick at it. You wont regret it.
if you want to reduce you're bids and keep you're position you're best bet is increasing you're average CTR.. do some more A/B split testing and find some really good ad copy. Than start a new campaign and overbid slightly so you are in the first and 2nd position, this will get you lots of clicks because those positions get alot of attention giving you're campaign a higher CTR and quality score.. than you will be able to lower you're bids progressively whilst maintaining you're position The above strategy is very counter intuitive and litteraly the opposite of what most people do, but from googles perspective it makes perfect sense really.. try it out.
I think that is terrible advice. While I agree that improving your CTR is one of the best ways to improve your min bid prices (through quality score), CTR is determined / normalized according to your position relative to other advertisers in the same position. Bidding high initially will mean that your CTR will have to be better than others in the 1 and 2 positions previously. This does NOT make sense as they have been there before you and have already (probably) split tested their ads. The best bet is to use analytics in conjunction with adwords to see what position gives you the best overall ROAS.
if you haven't yet watched this video than do so: http://www.stompernet.net/goingnatural3/vid1_adwords_triangulation_method you're 100% right, at the end of the day the 1st position will not be likely to give you the best ROI, the reason you want it initially is to send you're CTR through the roof because the first 2 positions get FAR more clicks in adwords than the other 6 positions simply because they are high up the page. This gives google a good "first impression" of you're campaign, thats about as well as I can explain it, than you gradually take down you're bids and you will ultimately be able to claim the same max ROI position you wanted originally but for less. Finally, if you are set on the fact that the people in higher positions have better ad copy than you which you seem to be suggesting, why not use a tool like Hexatrack.com to mine their best ads, you can sign up free for hexatrack.. if nothing else you should definetely check it out www.hexatrack.com its one of my favourite tools.
Best way is to keep the bids as low as possible to stay on first page and just increase the daily budget, google will then show ur ads more often = more impressions
Get my e-book on how to destroy google adwords here it will really help your campaigns. Dont listen to people who say that im just trying to get money, or im just spamming, because i have genuine professional knowledge on Google adwords, and plenty of experience. Pm me if you want to talk about it first, i can give you free advice if you need it!