Hi all, Shoud I bid higher than the adwords traffic estimator? I want my ads to appear on the 1st search result page. And also, the adwords traffic estimator just provides me with an estimated cpc like $xx(minimum)-xx(maximum), should I set my cpc to the maximum amount or it's wise to set my cpc to the minimum amount? my current ctr for this campaign sucks so I think I have to make some changes and I really want to know what kinda roi,ctr I will get when my ad appears on the 1st page.
Bidding higher than the estimated amount will certainly help you attain number one spot. However your CTR will also have to be up to scratch otherwise you may still find others suceeding your rank based on their CTR. As for your ROI when you get top rank. Only you can find that out. A lot of people report getting lower ROI in top position because they usually have to pay more for clicks and you can get a lot of blind clickers who aren't serious about buying.
Set it to the max or slightly higher. This is a great market entry strategy as you will quickly build up history and starting with the number 1 spots will tell google you want to be a top of the page player. Then slowly start backing down bids as clicks start to accumulate. I like to lower my bids down between 0.01 - 0.10 of the avg cpc. So if your starting bid is $2 and then you get 50 clicks at an avg cpc of 1.75 then lower your bid to 1.70. Keep doing this till you generate a good history and slowly drop into the optimal position you are looking for on the first page of results.
Google's estimate is what it will cost you to appear in a certain position, given a default Quality Score (I assume it's an average QS). If your QS is very good, you will pay less than this, if your QS is poor, you'll pay more. Of course, the only way to know is to jump in... And the figures assume that your competitors don't change their bids and Quality Scores... It's a useful guide, but as soon as you have some real data, you'll be able to get far more accurate estimates.