Placement above search results?

Hi,
Can anyone explain to me how you get the adwords placement which goes across the page, above the search results? I'm intrested to know what it is I have to do in order to achieve this. Is it all on spend accross adwords, or is it on individual terms?

Mocara.

 

I believe it's just the number 1 & 2 spots. Not all #1 spots appear there, but if your going to appear there, you need to be the highest bidder for that keyphrase.

basically what Shawn said.

 

I always thought it was just down to cost until I was the featured ad at the top of the rankings. I went through my stats and as far as I could tell the reason I went from the 2nd position on the right side to first on the top was my click through rate was very high during that time. Google says itself that you can benefit in standing by having a higher click through rate so I think the top position is in the same boat.

During that time by the way, I never changed my Cost per Click bid.

 

I believe that you must work with both areas, CTR or text relevance and maximum bid.

If your ad has good relevance keywords, also a great CTR and your maximum bid is more or less like the rest, you will appear at the top.

If you do your work just increasing your maximum bid, usually it also works, but CTR won't be good, and you will be paying a lot for few good clics.

So, it's better to work in all areas.

 

agreed. Click Through Rate * Max Bid = maximum revenue for google = best ad placement for you. I've been up there, but I found that being in third or fourth on the side didn't make that much of a difference in my traffic and the cost difference was dramatic. Also - with my low budget, I found that my third and fourth position ads could run all day, whereas my top position ads ended up disappearing at various parts of the day.

 

Sometimes you get above the search results if there are no other adwords available or if your purchase much inventory

 

I agree with that, it's really nice to see your ad at the top position, but if you look for a good ROI, you can do your best in any other position without increasing your budget, and leave CTR do the rest.

I am managing some huge campaings and some other with 2€ daily budget, and I had configure all of them to pay as minimum as possible (I am trying not to be under the four position), but my CTR haven't change at all since I was in the first two positions.

Also I will recomend you to configure your campaign to meet your most important needs, and then adjust it to achieve personal goals as being in the first position; then you can compare and decide about it.

 

I have found that for me, being in the #3-4 slot gives the best "bang for my buck". The #1 spot costs more (obviously), gets more "tire kickers" and doesn't always produce the most sales of my products.

John

 

What is the best position to be across top or down the rhs? Premium spots in magazine advertising are top right - so maybe top of the right hand column is better?

 

The Adwords rep at SEW responded directly to this question: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=24047&postcount=2