I've seen many times that you could get a good quality score by tricking your history with the #1 spot. The process is you start a fresh new campaign and adgroup with one keyword then raising your bid to the #1 spot with position pref on #1-#1. Then you get a CTR as high as you can preferably 5-15%. Then you slowly lower it to the avg CPC of the previous day. Until you can get a good top 5 position for a low cpc. It seems promising, but I thought that adwords ranks quality score by the CTR of whatever position your on. Does this method work, if so, how? Vene
this method does work. QS is based on your landing page and corelation between your keyword and ad copy. higher CTR coupled with good QS will give you the edge and your CPC will slowly start going down.
It's not a good idea. What happens if somebody else decides to do the same thing - bid whatever it takes to appear top? You both pay stupid prices... And just because you're top, there's no guarantee that your Quality Score will be any better than the other adverts, since Google takes your position into account when assessing your clickthrough rate. I have many accounts with very good QS's, and for almost none of them is the best position number 1. There's generally somebody paying too much per click, since they've been told to by their MD...
CTR is normalized so... "Question 4 - I have been told (and read lots of places) that when I first start a new AdWords campaign I should bid really high so my ad is higher on the page. That will give me a higher click through rate and that means I will have a better quality score. Is that good advice? Simply put, no, it's not good advice. The quality score is normalized to account for differences in position. Google knows that as in higher positions will have a higher click through rate just like ads in lower positions will have a lower click through rate. Bidding higher to place higher on a page to improve your quality score doesn't work so don't waste your time. Related - Google Normalizes Click Through Rate for AdWords Quality Score Scoring."
you are right. you cannot bid higher to improve your QS. however, the method in question will work if you bid higher at the beginning AND if you also have OK to Great QS (60% + great is ideal).
There's no benefit - cost or otherwise - to trying to "bid high" at the start and work your way down. You can do that regardless of position / cost / QS.
i undestand one would be paying more at the begining. but having a QS of great to OK will help on the bid cost. then bidding high for higher position will help one establish a history with adsense. this method is only for accounts that are fresh and have no history with adwords. however, one needs to make sure that s/he is not losing any money. idea is to at least break even at the beginning. i'm not suggesting to loose money by bidding high but to break even at the beginning. then in few weeks, you will enough history with adwords and you will see your bid cost starting to get lowered for the same position. i have experimented this method myself and have seen my bid cost getting lowered slowly and in about a month and half, my bid cost went down to 1/3 of what i started with.
It does work, but most people don't give it long enough to do it's job. They figure they can bid high for half a day then lower bids and everythign will be fine. BUT that's not the right way to run this technique.
I run my ads at around the top for a week, then i start taking it down by 10% every day till I get to the spot I want. is 1 week enough?
Seriously - it won't work. One thing I will say, though, is that if you appear on page 2, your QS does seem to suffer sometimes - the clickthrough rates seem to be so low that Google doesn't adequately take their position into account. I've had a couple of accounts where pushing the advert onto page 1 did improve the QS to the point where a page 1 position was costing the same as a page 2 position. But the only way that the '#1 spot' method would work would be if Google were lying about how their algorithm worked. For all their (real or perceived) faults, Google are scrupulously honest. You can get excellent Quality Scores anywhere on page 1 in the search results.
I think we're talking about 3 different cases here, depending on Googles initial opinion of your keyword. 1). Google thinks your keyword is irrelevant, but its actually relevant. In the case of a keyword which Google thinks is somehow irrelevant, but is actually relevant, then putting it in position 1 will help you prove it is relevant quicker (ie clickthrough rate will overide Googles estimates quicker). However, this is the only case I can think where it may have any effect, and you'll have to pay a lot for it. If the keyword converts like crazy then maybe it was worth the cost, otherwise bid a sensible amount and be patient. 2). Google thinks your keyword is relevant If the keyword is relevant to begin with then its a pointless technique. You can bid a sensible amount and appear as high as your bid could possibly get you. 3). Your keyword is irrelevant. Paying to be in position 1 will get you clicks regardless of how bad your keyword is, so youll fool google into thinking its a good keyword. However, once you move it out of position 1, youll stop getting 'happy clickers' and Google will see its new position and relative CTR, and your quality score will drop anyway. Google Sees All!!
i will do a little revision here. #1 Spot doesn't have to be ablosute. i didn't take the #1 Spot literary and was considering it as a top position all along. you don't have to be at #1 Spot all the time, you can set your big high enough to be on the top 3 which will work just fine. idea is to get some good CTR and one way you can make sure you get good CTR is by staying on the top position. i do not bid for posision but setup a bid which would put me on the top at the beginning. ofcourse your ad copy will play a vital role as no matter how high you bid, if yor ad is not related, no one is gonna click. so stay on the top few position at the beginning, make sure you have a OK to Great QS to begin with, and once you have some good CTR, you will notice your bid cost keeps going lower over time. you can only reduce your bid to maintain the same position when you notice your bid cost getting lowered. have patience and wait till then.
I think you're missing the point...CTR is normalized to account for position so there's no benefit - QS, CTR or otherwise to trying to get the top positions at the start of a campaign. The "bid high to start" theory is based on false pretense, doesn't work and benefits no one but Google (they collect the higher CPC).