Hi, I found the following when I logged into my adwords today: Does this mean that Google is going to alter the minimum CPC for some keywords? Does this mean that small time webmasters like me can no longer bid USD0.05 for premium keywords and get a few clicks a day? Ajay.
Indeed it does. It's all a bidding system, not based on a master list of keywords that they each manually review... It should be a change for the better.
Thats fine ... but it does mean that folks with low budget and those who can't afford to pay high CPC will no longer be able to show their ads for certain keywords. Now even if you bid 0.05 for a premium keyword, you can at least hope to get a few clickthroughs per day. Guess this will no longer be possible.
Better for Google, now they will receive more money for keywords that really have no business being there in the first place. It will also push the bids up higher but I'm not sure if this will apply to the top bids for highly competitive keywords.
I dunno, I think it's a good thing personally. Lower the minimum bid to $0.01 and let the market sort out the bidding per keyword (which is what will happen). I hope it *does* drive bidding up (although I doubt it), just would mean more money for AdSense publishers.
I'm an Adwords advertiser, the way *some/most* publishers promote Adsense appals me. I don't use content ads anymore because of this. Just read through the Adsense forum here to see where I'm coming from.
I wouldn't say most, just the ones you hear about. The ones that aren't doing anything stupid, aren't the ones bragging about it, complaining that their account was canceled, etc. so you never hear about/from them. But I know what you mean... the ones trying to "beat the system" are really annoying. Although I have to give some credit to Google for killing their AdSense accounts relatively quickly.
This is very scary for my business, which gets most of its customers through AdWords. If it aint broke don't fix it I say. And I really dislike the way that this is presented- its vague as hell. So now, if my business survives on the fact that I pay an average CPC of $.25 and all of a sudden the minimum bid is $.40 for a particular keyword, I'm SOL. I make money in the margins, so if the CPC goes up, profit goes down proportionately. I wish they would be a little more forthcoming... I am a top tier advertiser and got no warning or further explanation, which should have been a given. Come on GOOG.
I'm sure they will be a little more forthcoming when the change is actually rolled out. As of today nothing has changed. What would have been bad if they didn't make this announcement and waited until 24 hours or so beofre the changes rolled out to let people know.
Yeah but they haven't really told us anything of value, ie what changes to expect in terms of CPC, etc.
How could they...it's going to be more market driven than it is right now. They don't know what the CPC will end up being any more than you or I do. Actually I bet I can predict what some keywords will cost even better than they can - I'll be the one bidding on them
The deciding factor will continue to be the maximum cost-per-click for the position of an ad or what Google calls 'Ad Rank'. Along with this, the overall relevancy continues to hold importance which now Google refers to as the 'Quality Score' This also implies that, there is no longer a minimum bid for a keyword. Minimum bids would be determined by the Quality Score or basically the prediction of the relevancy of a keyword. The Quality Score will also be determined by the past performance of a keyword across all advertisers and the performance of the ad for specific terms for an individual advertiser performance & the ad text. A logical outcome of this will mean that high quality ads could be starting bids as low as a penny and the elimination of Google's minimum 5 cent bid policy. On the other hand we are also looking at higher bid rates than the erstwhile minimum of 5 cents for low quality predictions. Over time the Quality Score updates will bring further changes. Well performing ads would be benfitting from decreased bid rates and poor performaning ones would see a rise in the minimum bid rates. I think the best for everyone currently would be to remove all the ads on hold, from one's respective acounts, else keywords with maximum CPC and Quality Score could be seeing a reactivation. This could trigger impressions and invite clicks for which advertisers would end up getting charged. "If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it" is really applicable here. As the new system comes into it's own there is bound to be a difference in the performance of certain keywords, while certain keywords would continue to perform as earlier. Best policy right now, would be to wait and watch.
This sounds like a good thing to me. ie If your ad doesnt have a good CTR, you should have to pay a higher CPC.
It is a good thing for Google, no matter what CTR they can generate for your ad, they get approx the same amount of money.