And I say "high rollers" because this Adwords business is like online gambling. {You never know what you're going to pay (or get paid if you are with Adsense, that is a whole other mess), you "bet" the bank and still come out a loser in the end.} Why else would they make it so g-ddamn hard to set up an adwords campaign? You need a friggin PHD to use their damn system. I have been trying to get 2 site targeted campaigns going all day - I started one yesterday, received thousands of impressions with a great CTR, 24 impressions this morning - then nothing for about 14 hours now. The other campaign I started, I received 2 impressions and then NOTHING! Everything just completely froze and I have tried every setting imaginable to get these campaigns back. My head is ready to explode! I think Google is trying to move away from the small publishers and deal with only the big guns. Why else would they have such a laissez faire attitude towards their loyal "peasants" errr... I mean customers?
Google is still the easiest search engine to open up an account with, try using the old YSM and Adcenter interfaces and see what I'm talking about. Have you checked the google help? It states 4 reasons, my guess is that one of your competitors raised their bid which kicked you out of the top bidding position.
First off the market I am targeting, the keyword is not that expensive (maybe $0.75 a click). My initial bid was $1.00 & I've raised it to $5 to see if that would kickstart it - 0 impressions. I have a site with tons of content and over 18000 members adding to that content. The landing page is a page within my site describing a certain product in the industry that I would like to sell. It is an affiliate product but I wrote the content myself. What pisses me off is I go to the sites that I am trying to target and I see advertisers like 101products.com - a page with only sponsored ads from Google or Yahoo - no content, nothing! How are these pages making it through the Google adwords "reviews"???? Is there something wrong with trying to make a little money these days? Or is it just OK to take my money, as long as I am not trying to sell something? G is cracking down on affiliates - what a joke! How the heck are people going to pay for advertising when they can't make money? I have a Yahoo account and have been using it - now I wish I was in the US so I could put Yahoo ads on my website!
It's not that hard, really. Just educate yourself a little. And it's only like gambling if you don't know what you're doing.
Well I guess I don't know what I am doing then I'm not stupid - I do have a science degree afterall - and I have read the help on the G website - changed every setting imaginable - thanks anyway
I don't think anyone said you were. I'd guess you're a bit frustrated Here's the thing - AdWords isn't "easy" and it does take alot of trial and error and studying/research to figure out what works and what doesn't. I manage accounts both large and small and can assure you that while of course G' likes the big spenders (what business doesn't) the AdWords system is still perfectly workable for the "little guy". My advice - run some tests and ask lots of questions. Patience is key. Good luck!
How could you tell lol Yeah you're right it is a lot of trial and error, but most times I don't know if it is because the ads are not approved, haven't been reviewed yet, the bid is not high enough, no traffic yet, etc etc I just wish they would have some kind of system that would tell you exactly what the problem is and why you aren't receiving impressions. I know they do all the above with the keyword option, but I haven't seen it (or at least haven't figured out) how to know these things for the site targeted option. In the meantime, I have managed to get one campaign running again after raising the max cpm to $5 (and it is only costing about $0.90) I think I'll just leave the rest for a bit and come back and try again later.... maybe I'll be in a better frame of mind lol
I hear ya, the CPM end of the AdWords program could still use some work. My advice for CPM campaigns... 1.Set it up and let it run for 24-48 hours. 2.If you have no impressions up your bid in an increment you're comfortable with. 3.Let it run for another 24 hours. 4.If you have no impressions repeat step 2 & 3. 5.Repeat until you start to get some action. An alternate method is to enter a high bid ($20/cpm should do) and keep a close eye on it - when it starts running it will cook through your budget in not time. As soon as you see some action drop the bid dow to right around the actual CPM you're paying. More on AdWords CPM campaigns.
Well 46 clicks into my campaign & it has stopped running again. Oddly enough Adsense only recorded 8 impressions on that landing page today (2 of those impressions were from me checking to see if it was working properly in FF and IE)... so I had 46 clicks from Adwords, but only 6 page impressions (according to Adsense) - something is not right here!