Thanks and a Question About Ad Placement

I want to thank you for the information you provide in this forum. It has really helped me out. As I have stated before, I am very new to AdWords. I was given a budget and asked to set up an AdWord account and I had never heard of AdWords. I am working in a very competitive field (authentication and security) and while my ads do not garner a Great rating, they do get OK. I do not get huge amount of click-throughs but I do have a click through rate of about .99 to 1.7 percent and a conversion rate of between 3 and 12%, depending on the day. It is a little pricey per click/conversion, which I am working on, but it is more than we had before and the owners are happy. So, again, thank you.

My question is this:

I have noticed that without changing anything, my ad placements fluctuate on certain days. Most of the time, most of my ads show up on page one of Google returns. (At this point, I am not looking for the #1 spot as long as I am in the top half on the first page I am happy.) However, on days like today, I am on page 2 and 3, with no discernible changes in my ads or the amount of competitors.

Does anyone know what causes this?

 

Something I have noticed also. A couple of my keywords have a cpc of just under 5% and 6% respectively. Now when I restarted my campaign earlier today both of these were only making page 3 on the search results. The other day when I paused it they were on page 1 position 2,3,4 or 5. When these keywords were performing they were labeled either OK or good.

Google's simple answer is for me to increase my bid amount per keyword which at the moment I am reluctant to do, at least until I understand the process a little better.

Can the time of day and the amount of potential search traffic dictate whether your ad makes it to page 1? Or will higher bid keywords always win out? After all it is to google's advantage to place the ads for the highest bidder?

 

Are you actually seeing your ads in those spots are are you looking at average positions?

 

Guy, I am doing searches and looking at the actual placement.

 

People set their campaigns to start certain ads at certain times. My ad when it hits a specific time goes from page 1 to about page 5 then back again when i hit my normal times, maybe thats the issue here?

How do you know there is no one else trying to advertise, its pretty hard to check that info and all googles tools tend to be inacurate.

 

Champnos, I do random searches during the day to see where my ads are placing. For example, yesterday I did searches for the term authentication. We were consistently on page 1 all day, until the budget started getting thin. Then my ad started showing up on later pages. Same for the previous days this week. However, today, we were doing well until about 8 or 8:30 a.m. today. Then the ad was showing up on page 3 or so. Would companies set different times for different days?

There is an odd thing about today. Just about everyone I normally see on page 1, including one of our resellers, is not on page 1 today.

 

Not sure if it happens but i did read soemthing about when your running low on your daily budget google may lower your rank as you will otherwise run out quick. Then again this may be an option to click.

People will target by day as well as time, i certainly do. Ive studied my sales throughout the month and there are trends im sure its similar in most others too

 

Hmm. Okay. I think I might start tracking this. just for personal interest.

 

Make sure that you use www.google.com/adpreview, not the regular search tool.

Google fiddles around with the results if you repeatedly search for the same thing, so your results may be misleading.

 

Thanks, CM. I will try it out.