OK, you probably thought this was yet another of those "$5 to $10 minimum bid per click" threads... Well... before you tell me to go and read up on Quality Score... or before you tell me to read GuyfromChicago's great sticky post... please don't! I've read the lot...!! [By the way... hi there, GfC... long time, no see!!] Here's my situation. I've had an AdWords account for ages. Until recently, though, I've always focussed on the AdSense side of things. I've had a stack of keyword bids in AdWords but I've always been conservative with those (in terms of not wanting spend), going for high volume of impressions (by having a high volume of keywords), and very low minimum CPCs (but understandably a low CTR went with that). This was before the days of CTR being a determining factor in how much you paid for your placement. So... I would guess I've had thousands upon thousands of terms sitting around for a few years, some inactive for search, some doing little but displaying now and again, and a handful of occasional clicks, totalling a monthly spend of just a few hundred $. OK... that was then. Now I want to take AdWords a bit more seriously. I tried to sponsor "<specific type of> hotels in <certain place>" and had a landing page that listed hotels of that type in that place, but I was told that I had to bid a minimum of $10 per click. I did some reading and saw something on a blog that said that this can happen if you have adsense on the page. I contacted Google to ask if this was the case. Their reply was that it was not the reason, and that instead my keywords were to specific, and that I'd be better with just "hotels in <certain place>" and "<certain place> hotels". (Strangely a friend with an AdWords account was able to bid $0.05 on the same terms, without problem). Fine... I went and did just what Google suggested, but still no success, with a minimum of $5 or $10 showing, so I contacted them again, explaining I'd done what they said and it wasn't working. To that I got an annoyingly generic response about Quality Score. I already knew all about that and I'd taken it into account. My keywords are relevant to my ad, and they are relevant to the landing page. My ad has the keywords in its title, and has a 'call to action' and price indication in the description, both things that Google recommends, and both things that the advertisers that appear seem to be doing. So... I'm left wondering what the reason is, and frustratingly having to guess and try to work it out. My latest thinking is that my account history might be a factor. Could this be the case? Do I need to delete all campaigns in my account and start completely afresh? Thanks for any pointers... Aaron
Google emailed me back with a generic response ( ) about landing pages. I emailed back, pointing out that my landing page was exactly about the search terms, and asked for *specific* clarification as to what was wrong. I find it so frustating that they ignore specific questions with generic resposnses... I saw someone else on here saying you need to have to have a PhD to work out what's going on with AdWords sometimes. Well... I have one... and yet I'm still left baffled.
Does your landing page have a load of affiliate links on it? There's quite a few rumours going around that suggest that affiliate links can lower your quality score. Try masking those links (internal link redirection script which is robot.txt'd out maybe) and see if your Min CPC reduces Also check your landing page text is unique, and that the Google bot for landing page score can access it ok.
Thanks, taulath.... The landing page doesn't have affiliate links in it, no. However the pages that the landing page links to, do. Could that be a factor? The landing page lists hotels by name, and then under each name is the first line of a description. This content comes from a variety of affiliate sources, so will no doubt be replicated elsewhere, but will not be presented in exactly the same way. Could this nevertheless be a factor? Thanks for your help, Aaron
Hmm.. It's difficult to guess at QS because it's such a murky area. I wouldn't have thought that affiliate links on other pages would matter much, as to content duplication - it sounds like you're presenting it in a way different enough to avoid any penalty there. Quality score is at the keyword level, but can affect keywords anywhere in an account. Have you bid on these keywords in the past? If so, their performance history even if in a different campaign can effect these ads, even if you delete them. I don't think that deleting other campaigns would make any difference (Someone correct me if I'm wrong!) I know that the way you organise campaigns can effect how relevant it thinks your ads are - have you Named your campaign appropriately and set up AdGroups for different hotels/locations with hotel/location in title of group? I'm clutching at straws now, anyone else have some advice?
We're presenting them in hotel classification hierarchial order (where we know the number of stars) and have hotels from different affiliate sources intermixed. No, but I have in the past bid on broadly similar terms (for a different location) with specific terms having only the homepage as a landing page (I know, I know... ). Some of those still exist under a completely different campaign. So what can I do...? These campaigns were set up before Google changed the emphasis of how AdWords worked. If I can't delete them, is there no way to start on a clean slate other than opening an AdWords account under another email address. Is it OK to do that even? The campaign has been named "Hotels in..." and the individual Ad Groups have been named "<placename>, <country>". I had no idea that could be a factor but I simply named them like this because I thought it would be helpful to me. Thanks for your advice so far... I'm thinking more and more that the problems stem from my account history but I see no obvious way of clearing that history other than starting afresh with a new account. Hmmm.... Aaron
Typically that $5-$10 min is due to the landing page. Problem is, all Google will tell you in regards to the landing page quality is that they will review it "monthly, and sometimes more frequently". So that means if you make the right changes to the landing page you could theoretically still have that crappy min bid for a month. Have you made any changes to the landing page after you set up the adwords ad that pointed to it? Does the landing page have a privacy policy? (ps - nice to see you around too )
Ooh, good point, and one that I had forgotten. Yeah - make sure your site has a privacy policy and link to it with the words 'privacy policy' - This is another factor in your Quality Score.
Hi GFC... The only change we made to the landing page was that we stripped out some of the AdSense that was on there. However, we had been told by G that that wasn't the cause of the problem. (We just did it anyway because we thought hotel bookings were more valuable to us than AdSense clicks.) There is no Privacy Policy on the page... is that something that's required? Having to wait for a month is rather disconcerting... a big chunk of hotel bookings for vacations occur in the January - March window. Aaron
While they haven't flat out said that privacy policy is required they have dropped alot of hints indicating it's important...and I have seen the lack of one impact minimum bids. In terms of waiting a month...it could be far less time but of course there's no firm rule. Check this out for the official G' word. I'd add that privacy policy and then sit back for a few days and see what happens.
Reading between the lines of the latest response that Google has sent me, I am under the impression that the issue is one of unique content on the landing page. Whilst we present the information in a unique way, there will be some cross-over with other affiliate sites out there. Will look into a Privacy Policy also, though... Right, back to work. Thanks.
FYI, there will be some more changes rolling out relating to the QS this week that may have an impact on what you're doing. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/02/quality-score-updates.html
Thanks for the heads up... our plan is actually to complete re-write all the descriptions fed to us by our hotel affiliates. It's a mammoth job, but one that I think that is worth doing from a SERPs point of view, and hopefully also maybe from the point of view of AdWords.
Good plan Let me know how things go, I'd be happy to pop in a take look if you're still having trouble after the rewrite.