Or I could just title this 'why I hate adwords'. I'd like to like adwords, I'd like to use adwords, but this is what happens: I set up relevent keywords, many of which aren't currently showing any ads. I place bids on them. They start running and for five days, everything is great. The ctr on some is as high as 4%. Almost 15% of the traffic is signing up on my site. I'm happy and think "wow, I finally have a sustainable adwords campaign going". Suddenly, traffic slows way down. I check adwords and most of the keywords have this "Bid is below first page bid estimate of..." with a price four to tweenty times my current bid. No other ads are showing for these keywords! Not only is their estimate way off, but they aren't showing the ads. Not on the first page or any deeper pages. What's causing this? No other ads are showing for these keywords. Why would google price them out of my reach when there is no other competition? Nobody wins in that situation. All they left me with was some low impression, low performing (under a half % ctr) ads. This makes no sense to me, it's frustrating, discouraging, and really pushes me away from adwords. This is what adwords says about one particular keyword that I was getting good traffic (and a 4% ctr on): "Your keyword's Quality Score is OK. However, your current bid is too low to be competitive and your ad is rarely showing.' ... but there are no other ads showing for that keyword. Do the other first tier ppc ad programs do this too?