I have a campaign in which I bid on the company's name. There is only one other PPC advert for this keyword and so I either appear first or second depending on my bid. When the new "first page estimates" came into force, I thought that I would be able to bid just 1p and appear 2nd. Actually what happened was that Google "estimated" that I'd need to pay 35p to appear on the first page. This was clearly a bad estimate so I tried bidding 1p and my advert stopped showing. I tried going to page 2 but it wasn't showing there either. Ok, so I thought, my old minimum bid was 2p so perhaps I better beat that. I tried 10p and still my ad did not show. As a final test I tried 34p - No luck! It seems I have to bid 35p to appear on my own name. Is the Google first page bid estimate really just a more expensive minimum bid?
I am bidding on another company's name for one of my clients and here's the thing: When people search for say Microsoft, they click on the first organic result (usually) because they know what they want (to go to microsoft's site). If you bid on "microsoft" you may grab the attention of a few searchers (who intending to go to microsoft see your ad and are interested), but generally the CTR will be quite low which may lead to a higher than usual minimum bid or "first page estimate" now. This is augmented if Microsoft has a paid listing for its name, as its paid listing will receive a significantly greater amount of clicks than your ad. When Adwords compares CTRs, your CTR would be VERY poor. In your situation you seem to be bidding on your own name. Now usually if that is the case you would be number 1 in the organic results unless your company name is something generic like "Red Widgets". More information is required to provide a proper explanation. What is your co. name? Are you number 1 in the organic?
Yes, the company appears top in the natural search. The question really is why do I have to bid a certain amount to appear? From Google's explanation of the new system, I thought I would be able to bid 1p and appear as the last advert. In this case that would put me second and mean that I can have both a natural result and an advert for 1p a click. I also want to add that in the last hour the first page estimate went up to £1 - and there are no longer any adverts appearing - is this how Google intends to stop people bidding on certain keywords?
If there aren't enough ads to cover the first page, I'm pretty sure the "first page estimate" is the same as your new min bid (hidden). However, I say it's hidden - if you load up Adwords Editor the min bids are still showing.
But if that's the case, then why has it suddenly increased from a few pence to £1? On a campaign and keyword that's years old, and has a good clickthrough rate historically?
You may be right there - its gone a little weird - the first page estimate just dropped to 75p only 2 hours ish after it went from 35p to £1.
You also have to consider the "other" PPC advert for your chosen keyword. How much are they bidding? If it's a substanial amount, that will drive up the minimum required. I'm running a campaign for traffic, where the minimum front page bid jumped from 50 cents to over $12 for some keywords. Then, as soon as a certain promotion ended, it went back to 50 cents. That tells me that someone (or more than likely several someones) who was an affiliate for that promotion, went nuts and jacked up the price on their CPC. Once the promo was over, they stopped their campaigns, and the price reflected that. Just a thought.