Hello all: I have been using AdWords for about 6 months now, but I am now at the end of my patience with them. CPC's are going through the roof on my account and I feel as if I am being robbed if not being extorted out of my money. For instance. I set up a new campaign recently and my CPC of 0.11 was accepted by their system. I received a few hundred impressions without a problem, then the Keywords and phrases were labeled 'Inactive for search' and my CPC went up to £2.75 to activate this particular phrase. The phrase in question was [plump dj], I think no-one else is currently targeting this phrase [check for yourselves]. In fact all my most popular Keywords and phrases CPC's were increased mostly from 0.11 to 0.28 and 0.55. I expect that I am not the only one experiencing this VERY ANNOYING practice of Google's. Question is what can I do about it? I was thinking of contacting an ombudsman or organization [Federal Trade Commission?] to complain but I need the advice of 'someone in the know' so that I can bring this to a conclusion. Any suggestions, apart from choose another PPC campaign? Thanks in advance....
I've been noticing that the targeted keywords I use never go inactive and they have a clickthrough rate of 3-5% but the ones that have less than a 1% click through rate always are inactive and I have to increase the bid amount. It think it's because you are being rewarded for targeted advertising and can pay less per click for higher click through rates, you have to pay more for keywords that aren't getting the best click through (often aren't as related) Try a new campaign targeting the specific keywords that you have to keep paying more for, and see if that helps! best of luck! Lindsey
My suggestion? Pause your campaign for a few weeks and bite the bullet of lack of AdWords advertisement. In a few weeks time, the promo code inflated high CPC rate should fall (unless Google push our more promotional codes) as people use up their almost freely aquired promotion credits. Alternatively, jump in the bandwagon and buy promotion codes from people selling them, then use the codes' almost free ~$56 usd (30 GBP) to bid for hih keyword prices until account hit the promotional value, and then delete the campaign, open a new one, repeat as necessairy. Not exactly most ethical, but it'll work more or less... (be sure to not violate the TOS and open multiple accounts and advertise the same keywords for the same website at the same time, else you may get banned from the program all together)