Hi there, I posted a message a while ago about a campaign I added some keywords to and the CTR, clicks, conversions.. everything plummeted. Initially I thought it was the new keywords, but after removing them all I realised I had accidently turned the content network on for the largest group, and this caused the CTR to drop a lot for that group, which lead to impressions falling and average position rising. I turned off the Content network for that add group and things have improved slightly. CTR was at 12% dropped to 2.6% and now has bounced back to 8% but doesn't seem steady.. Impresions are getting back up and avg pos is down to 1.4 The ad group is back at its original state now for about 3 weeks. How long do you think before the results will return to normal? Is there anything I should try (or not do) to help it recover quicker? Thanks!
Keep search and content in separate campaigns. If your CTR dropped, you probably used the wrong keywords. Maybe your ads were not relevant to those keywords. You do create themed groups based on the theme of your keywords, don't you? There is no "normal". You mention 12% CTR but is that over one day, a week, average over three months? CTRs will go up and down depending on many factors. They won't be steady day to day or sometimes even week to week. Sounds like you realized your mistake, fixed it and you are back to "normal".
Yeah have a bunch of different ad groups. But the keywords weren't the problem. Started to bounce back as soon as the content network was turned off. CTR was between pretty constant for several months, then dropped when conteent was turned on. I turned it of, it spiked back up then dropped again. See Below: Any ideas? Or just keep waiting?
What about impressions? Have they been consistent week to week? You could have lots more impressions and the clicks have not kept up. This could be because of normal increase of impressions for this time of year for those keywords (or normal decline in click rate). Maybe you added a keyword(s) causing an impression increase. What about your position? Has it changed significantly maybe due to a change in bid? Or simply because competitors have improved. Have you changed your daily budget? An increase could have given you more impressions but with those extra ones not getting the clicks. A decrease could have slowed down your ad serving and you missed impressions and clicks thus reducing your CTR. Has your QS changed? Again, competitors may have improved. You don't mention it and I'm guessing you have not but if you have created a new ad, it may be the culprit of your lower CTR. So as you can see, there are many variables and I have no idea. The only thing I know for sure is that something in your campaign or your competitors or both has changed. It likely has nothing to do with you turning the content on and off and that action would be just a coincidence.
Thanks for the in depth response! Here's the graph for avg pos / Impressions As you can see the avg pos jumped and impressions fell at about the same time. I tried a few things (not realising content was on) and returned ad group to original. The I saw content was on, switched it off, and you can see Avg pos dropeed straight away and impressions started to rise.. QS is still 10/10 for all keywords, hasn't changed. Ads are still the same. Raised bid price but that hasn't really done anything yet. It seems a bit to coincidental to blame changes on competitors.. Any other thoughts?
What would be more useful is a similar graph but only for the search data, not search and content mixed together.