Does google penalize you if you are constantly changing your ad scheduling, cpc bids, ad variations, etc? I wam wondering because another person I know advertising said that he can get top pages for very cheap and he thinks its because of consistency with adwords and letting things just run. Everything seems like its constantly changing and if you aren't paying close attention and updating and changing things constantly then you will be screwed. Shed some light on this for me!
There is an element of truth to your friends comments in my experience - particularly if you're running manual bidding. Once I'm up and running I only ever 'play' with CPC and leave everything else as is - and my impressions stay pretty constant as does my ads positioning - while cost slowly creeps down. In the past I have experienced a lot of 'account reviews' through alterning too much - which basically means your ads are not shown until Google get around to looking at what you're doing - which gets very frustrating.
Your friend was able to get lower costs per click because because of his higher quality score. Your quality score is like a grade on a test while your Click through rate is like your GPA. When you do well on a test. You get a good grade. When you write a good relevant ad, you get a good quality score. This entices readers to click on your ad. The more often someone clicks on your ad, the higher your click through rate. Google rewards you by lowering your cost. Just like on a report card. The more often you make As on test, the higher your GPA. This better your GPA, the better your chances of getting to college. What you need to know is how to write your ad better so it is more relevant so that you can get a higher quality score.