Will too many keywords take away from the keywords that are actually performing? I have tons of key words that get only one or two hits per day but others that get substantially more. Will adwords work to balance things out within your budget or will Adwords simply meet my budget with keywords that are producing?
I cant answer that but i can tell you this.. When i start a campaign i sometimes start with 50-60 keywords that my competitors use.. Then over a month i slowly remove the keywords that dont work for me.. In the end (a month later) i have a campaign with around 10 very specifically targeted keywords with CTR's well in there 20's.. And the campaigns very successful.. I generally dont like keeping underperforming keywords in a campaign, it just shows bad campaign management i believe
Something else to consider is conversion. I've had campaigns that included keywords with very high CTRs, but the conversion sucked. I usually get at least a month's worth of data before I start *pruning* the non-performers and the non-converters...
I have a campaign where I have adgroups for many towns. Sometimes I run all the of adgroups and keywords and sometimes I only run a few towns. What I have noticed is that when I only run a few towns the CTR is much higher than when I run all the towns. It is like Google will just do its best to chew up your budget so if you give it less ads/keywords to run it will bump you up a bit for a slightly lower bid on the few you do run. Anyone else noticed this behavior.
So you're saying when you pause some of your ad groups ther CTR of the other ad groups goes up? Google doesn't control CTR so pausing one or more ad groups would not cause the CTR of other ad groups to increase. If it happens, it's just a coincidence.
That is exactly what I am saying and this is why in my opinion. Google's goal is to get as much $$ as possible. I sometimes run 50 adgroups and lets say I spend about 100 bucks. Now is I run just 5 ads I will eat about 20 bucks. This is because my terms are very competitive so if I spend a buck a click my position will vary from 2-4 lets say normally. Ah..but when I run fewer ads that position for the same or less money goes up to 2 or 3 therefore my CTR is higher because Google wants my money. I have seen this pattern over and over. As a matter of fact if I want to focus on just a couple towns and I only run them I get many more clicks for those couple towns than if I run all my towns. So it is not really the effectiveness of the ad that changes but more the positioning because G wants to eat as much of my daily budget as it can.
Google doesn't control CTR. Reducing your spend or pausing one campaign will not increase (or effect) the CTR of other camapigns.
Google does control the positioning of the ads and your budget does also factor into this. Therefore when you have a big budget but run fewer ads sometimes those ads can get a position boost for the same bid.
So you're saying that the budget, at the campaign level, has an impact ("position boost") on where your ads are placed in the paid results? I had asked about that a little over a year ago and was told that the overall campaign budget did not impact placement. Things change though. Do you have any links/info on where this is documented?
I totally agree. The Adwords algorythem is design to make G as much money as posible. I read an interview with G ceo where they admitted this. If your Campaign budget is low and your running 50-60 adgroups in 20 counties/cities your CTR will be lower and your ads not shown as much. But if your budget is huge you will get a higher CTR because of your daily budget + CPC + ad position.
Where's that interview? CTR is a number based on impresssions and clicks. Unless Google is clicking ads, they don't control CTR. The Adwords system may regulate impressions based on budgets and other factors, but you can't say Google controls CTR unless you're saying they are clicking on ads (or generating artificial clicks to manipulate CTR).
The campaign budget is only affecting the number of impressions for keywords, it does not have a direct effect on CTR. The Adwords algorithm is indeed rewarding ads with a higher CTR and thus it increases the total revenue for Google. Your rank is influenced both by your bid and your CTR.
Excellent advice. It comes down to always testing the effectiveness of your chosen keywords - abandoning the non-starters and keeping the winners. Regards