Hi all New to the Forum & New to Adwords. I've had a good read through froum and FAQ's and currently trying to understand what has happened to my campaigns. I've been running ads now for 3/4 weeks and had built up to a CTR of 3.50% across all my campaigns. I'm new and thought I would try the Content Network only, got nothing and switched back to Network & Partners, thats when the problem started. All my previously performing keywords now suspended apparently due to quality or low bid and if I wish to activate them it will cost me £5.00 ($10.00) minimum bid. After reading a previous thread have I been slapped or is my industry (Auto) one of those with new standards? Any help from an old hand would help. I've been in discussion with a Google Admin but getting bog standard answers all the time that shed no light on the issue. Thanks Clyde
Thanks Jeccles - have I done anything wrong or are they trying to make more money? I'm a one man band & can't afford that kind of silly money!
$5 and $10 min bids means you have landing page problems... Fix the landing page problems and the min bids will drop to reasonable levels
It does sound strange that you should suddenly find the min bids shooting up to £5.00, content has no effect on search quality score so that shouldn't matter. I do agree that landing page quality is an improtant factor but unless you have made sweeping changes across your website this shouldn't really cause this to happen. Have you? I would expect that your keywords and advert copy are releavnt as you were getting reasonable CTR in the past. Can you provide any further info? Thanks Ben Attacat - ppc specialists
another thought - what happens when you view the quality score through Google (Go down to keyword leevl and you should see a magnifying glass next to the keyword, hover over this and choose details and rcommendations). Does it point out anything specific, landing page, keyword releavncy or landing page load time??
Squarecat, if you're a PPC expert you'll know it's not strange at all. He's gone from content (where you can get away with murder) directly into Search. The reality is for good campaigns you will need to separate Content and Search, create separate ads, chop up your keywords, etc., etc. Transferring the same campaign from one to the other is a guaranteed route to getting slapped. QS comes down to many things but 3 important factors are: Keywords being relevant to ad, keywords being relevant to each other and your keywords and how they pertain to your page. One of those three would likely be your issue, but also check your landing page has one goal and you don't use "stop words". That's my free quick lesson in PPC over with. And yes you have been slapped.
Barry - I believe that Clyde suggested that he did have a search CTR of 3.50% but then started with content - this didn't work so it was switched off, the account history built up before should then continue as normal once search starts up again. In this case, and please correct me if I have misunderstood the situation Clyde, then for the search keywords that were performing well before to suddenly shoot up to a min bid of £5.00 is strange. I fully agree with you Barry that you should use separate campaigns for search and content but that isn't really the issue at hand.
Hi Clyde, Yes it sounds to me like you have been slapped, I just wish sometimes they (google) were more upfront about why they slap you.
It in fact is not strange... Google changes its policies all the time and if your site no longer meets there requirements, your min cpc with suddenly shoot up to 5.00 min cpc. What I suspect is that he had a compliant website, until one of googles updates. Now that google made a change, his site no longer qualifies and was slapped. Therefore if he fixes the landing page problem his QS will go back to normal. Not knowing this just means you have lack of experience and probably have been doing PPC for a short while. Please don't take that as an insult, take it as something you learned today.
Can you elaborate more about 'stop words'? This is interesting because I've had a landing which was slapped instantly because it had the word 'disease/cancer' on it. I figure this must be the cause of the slap.
Yes, you have been slapped. It is most likely landing page problems as explained above. The quickest way to fix this is get a new domain and recreate the landing site. Do it better this time with more content. Think SEO, Google wants to see sites that give a good user experience.
do u need to get a new domain??....rob..above...states.....the landing page needs fixing....and that the bids will return to normal......he doesnt say that a new domain is needed........what is the case?
It is not mandatory to get a new domain, but many affiliates find it easier to just start new... If band of america got slapped one day do you think they would just buy a new domain? Probably not due to branding... It is possible to keep the domain, but a little footwork is needed to get it back to where it was .
yeah, getting a new domain is the easy fix. It forced Adwords to re-evaluate the qs when you create the new campaign. Of course, if you are married to the domain then other measures are necessary. For me, its easier to start fresh and fix the problem.