Adwords Really Does Rip People Off (Apparently)!

Here's an interesting one...

I wanted to test a new landing page, and whilst fiddling around with it, I didn't want people to see it, so I added an entirely made up word to my campaign which linked to it.

My minimum bid was £0.03, and mine was the only advert appearing. I clicked on it.

And was charged £0.31.

I enquired why this was to my Adwords Guy. Here's his reply...

In answer to this, it's important to note that the price of your ad for a
particular keyword depends on its Quality Score, which as you know is a
representation of its relevance determined by your keyword's click-through
rate (CTR), the relevance of your ad, historical keyword performance,
landing page quality and other relevancy factors. The higher the Quality
Score, the lower the price you will pay when someone clicks on your ad.

If the AdWords system determines that your ad's Quality Score is extremely
low, you will be charged a higher price for clicks regardless of how many
other advertisers are bidding on a given keyword. This is true even if no
other advertiser is bidding on that keyword. For an ad with a very low
quality or relevance, you may be charged up to the maximum CPC you have
set for the ad. So, as always, the best way to get the most for your
AdWords budget is to aim for the highest quality keywords, ads and
campaigns possible.

So despite my Minimum Bid Quality Score being Great, I got charged more than ten times my minimum bid to appear as the only advert in Adwords.

 

There are at least two possibilities why this can occur:

1) You were using broad match for the keyword, and a match occurred on a variation of that keyword. The minimum bid shown for a keyword really pertains only to the exact match version of the keyword, and the other variations of it will typically have higher minimum bids.

2) Your bid was high enough for the ad to be placed at the top of the page (rather than the side), and there's a different minimum for top placement that's higher than the regular minimum bid for the keyword. As it says here:

My guess is that it was the first of the two situations.

 

It was on exact match, and nobody else was bidding on [spidoinkles in the land of nod] (at least, not in the UK - they may be doing in the land of Nod).

It's conceivable that the advert appeared above the natural results (not that there were any), but the guy who clicked on my advert says not. What concerns me a little is the reply from Google about this.

I suspect that option 2) is the case, but it means that the Google man really was talking out of his bottom. Which is a concern, since he's my only contact at Google...

 

His comments were not inaccurate, but it's just a template response and didn't really have much to do with your situation and your minimum bid. Google says:
"If there are no other advertisers bidding on the same keyword, you'll be charged the minimum CPC bid for your keyword."

So either their website is wrong, or the minimum bid shown for your keyword was wrong. Give your Adwords guy a real test and ask him which of the two it was.

 

What was your max bid?

 

There's a difference between the minimum bid, your maximum bid, and your actual CPC. See http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/11/min-cpc-max-cpc-and-avg-cpc-clarified.html for more information.

 

This is common with Google adwords. Basically it goes like this:
Google 1:1
Yahoo 1:1.25
MSN 1:1.5

What this means is that overall for every $1 you spend on your campaign with Google you will get $1 back. Yahoo you get 1.25 back and MSN a whopping $1.50 back. Yes, you will hear claims of people making $30 per dollar spent and more, but this is usually hyperbole used to sell an expensive and completely unnecessary ebook or similar. Note the above pricing does not take into account shipping costs and similar if you store, make and ship physical goods.

 

Im not sure I understand what you mean. If you only get $1 back from every $1 you spend with Google no one would use it. I generally get $10 for every buck I spend on an AdWords campaign

 

I understand how it works. But your link doesn't tell you how much you pay to appear last (when there is no lower bid to determine your actual CPC). According to the Adwords Help Centre (see Ghoti's link), you should pay your minimum CPC. But this didn't happen, I paid £0.31 instead of £0.03, and I was wondering why...

 

Happend me too, I putted 15 usd into adwords.. Then after 1 hour it was gone and I have like 0.05 max bid :S

 

I understand very clearly what the Google guy says...I think is the right answer for you
It doesn't make any sensehis answer - if there aren't no competitors, why charged more?
-but it works very well to blame the quality score...like always
After all we can't see that quality score right?
Adwords at its best...again

 

It's the fact that it contradicts the Adwords Help Centre that concerns me...

As I've already said, I suspect that my advert appeared in the coloured box at the top, and I got charged a big premium because of it.

 

The whole thing with those bid price concerns using adwords slowly goes on my nerves. If the number of dissappointed marketers rise, Google could lose his domination soon. And that's ok, I think. Only the best should survive.