With Google's newest update as of about a month ago (Weighing actual CPC more than Max CPC I believe), I've noticed across several clients that CPC prices are going up, especially for some of my best performers...including BRANDED TERMS! I have a client whose branded terms were the best converters and was consistently well below $1 per click since there's an industry-wide rule not to bid on each other's brand but with Google's newest release some of these CPCs are up to as much as $6, completely screwing with ROI. Also, for some keywords with another client that has had about the same search traffic and has been running status quo for a few months, their CPC prices have gone from $.50 on average to about $2-$3 on average! Anyone else noticing this increase in CPC prices? I'm seeing $17 CPCs for a keyword that has 15% CTR and 17% conversion rate! The quality score is excellent and the minimum bid is $.02 so what gives? At first I thought landing page quality but I have plenty of relevant content on the landing pages...what has Google changed to cause this sudden increase in prices??? -Brian
Is this applying to keywords that appear above the natural results? If so, then the recent changes to Google's system could explain this. Google now determine whether you should appear above or to the right (if you're the number 1-3 result) based on your actual cpc, not your bid, as it used to. So if you were bidding $6 per click, but it only cost $1 per click to appear top, then in the past, you paid $1 per click. But if Google decide that you should pay $5 per click to appear above the natural search results, then suddenly you're paying $5 per click. To avoid this, reduce your bids to only slightly more than you were paying to appear in the top position previously. This is my understanding of the new system - feel free to contradict me if this is incorrect.
I've seen the increase in our total monthly spending on Adwords. However, we have been noticing that keywords that were at/just above minimum cost suddenly have an increased price. We havn't seen much change with traffic either. Noting this would make me wonder if there isn't something more to this... That's not to say this doesn't factors in some way.
I'm spending $1-$2 on some keywords that I was spending .6 on just last month. Kinda sucks but yeah I noticed it too
CustardMite, Thanks for the info, however if your competitors have also increased their max cpc, then to maintain position, in this instance within the top three, you would also have to increase your max cpc appropriately ? Personally i have seen a 50% increase in one of our high traffic keyword sets.
Yes. It's unlikely to affect all of your keywords though - you'd expect them to overtake you at least some of the time...
I am voicing my opinion here and will be on every board that I can find. Google is outrageously gouging their prices in hopes to increase their bottom line. In my case, I refuse to give in and will be considering other options in the future because this is outright disgusting, and here's why: We've been advertising on Adwords for 6 months now. Everything started off great with .05 - .10 per click for most of our keywords. Gradually, the prices started to rise, which we were fine with, until we hit our limits - $.50 per click i can do, but it was very close for me to say no, that is just too much, but we bit the bullet and rode through it. We did everything we could to optimize our landing pages, create targeted and relevant ads, and only choose keywords that we felt we really wanted traffic from. After a few months of testing different versions, we came to a pretty good baseline spending $15.00 and getting 30-50 visitors a day on average. In the past 5 days though, Google has flipped their magical money switch, and we have had only 15 visitors TOTAL over the past 5 days because the majority of our once $.50 CPC keywords now say "increase quality or bid $1.00 to activate". I have contacted support to find out what the problem is, and have just gotten the typical response. I did some digging myself, and am absolutely and completely befuddled by some of my findings. Let me include a few of them here: $.50 CPC Active Keywords: best restaurants denver insurance restaurant*** ( the word insurance appears nowhere throughout our entire site nor in our ads themselves) "colorado restaurants" "denver restaurants" denver restaurants $.50 CPC Inactive Keywords: best restaurants denver restaurant colorado restaurant In the case of Denver Restaurants(active) vs. Denver Restaurant(inactive) - to say that our quality is good enough to garner a $.50 CPC for Denver Restaurants but that we must pay $1.00 for Denver Restaurant is outright blatently telling me "We are just going to charge you whatever we feel like and you can't do anything about it because we are Google and we will do whatever we want." I for one will stick to my guns, and if I don't get a frank explanation, I will be boycotting Google until I see some CPC decreases. In an age where it's common knowledge that 20-30% of clicks are fraudulent, I for one refuse to accept it. Thanks for listening to my rant - I hope this helps someone see that it's not just you. --( and for those asking about "natural" results and what not, for a site that is ranked #1 for the search bars clubs restaurants out of 20 million + results, it doesn't make much sense to me as to how our site isn't "quality" or relevant to our chosen keywords.) -- an excerpt from my latest email to them - If you need more data to analyze, look at our old adwords account that we were FORCED to close since we couldn't change our billing information. (XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX) - Interesting how the EXACT same ads with the EXACT same keywords for the EXACT same site have lower CPC's and the majority of our keywords are still active (but suspended because we cannot change our billing information and therefore make a deposit on that old account), yet I'm being told our quality isn't good enough on our new account ???
So you decided to set up a Google Account and spend a lot of money without reading their guide to Adwords? I'd suggest reading this: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47882&topic=10818 then this: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49174 and finally this: http://www.ppcdiscussions.com/2007/06/adwords-is-stealing-from-you-or-you.html Seriously, anyone reading this who's considering running an Adwords campaign, or has just set one up, should research the Quality Score, and not just assume that somebody at the Googleplex is trying to rip them off.
Well I enjoy the rants, I think the majority of us can agree something is going on. I optimized, my ad, my pages, and so forth to get a Great quality score, and it sat there for about 6 months running along nicely with above 50% conversions. This week I noticed my clicks going down, and investigated, and it seems for a bunch of my lower ROI keywords with .02 -06 costs have breached the magical .10 level, for no real reason. They have obviously changed their quality score algo, since we are all feeling the pain. I would definately say they are trying to bring in more money.
I haven't seen any increase in the minimum bids on any of my campaigns, and I manage over 20 accounts, from mortgages to conservatory furniture... They've changed the way that they determine the cpc for the 'above the natural search' results, which I'm not keen on, but that's the only change that I've seen. Is it just me that hasn't noticed any change then?
I haven't noticed anything either. As a matter of fact, some of the accounts I'm managing have actually seen a decrease in the keyword minimum bids. I haven't done enough research to see if the changes to the PPC ads above the organic search results has had much effect on my work.
I could be wrong But if I was google I would be testing out the waters on certain things in certain areas (state versus state, country versus country)... Maybe its a rollout on the US, maybe Google has some built in algo that gives a campaign a bit of a budge after a couple of months. For some reason I have this vision of a the google management managing us like we manage adwords campaigns. A little test here, a little test there, trying to bring in the most cash... "Ah, the custardMight campaigns are doing well", lets leave them this month.. I am doing some spot testing on the "retrocode" campaigns.. I wonder if I increase the US "not enough purple colour on the pages" variable and see how that affects the price of their clicks.
The CPC will go up based on how flooded the market is in each niche. The more bids, the higher the CPC because it naturally rises with each new highest bid. The internet is slowly becoming over-saturated with automated ad systems and empty offers...rising CPC is just one effect. -Derek
Interesting theory. what do you base you theory on, I always figured I would just drop in the position ranking until I fell off the page.... Not that my minimum cost per click would go up.
I'm beginning to think it IS just the listings above the natural results. I and some colleagues have found that lowering the max CPC in increments until back to the original CPC has helped control costs...but we're still above the natural results and not on the right hand side? I'm just more and more confused about how Max CPC plays a part in the formula.
Hi folks just my 2pennies worth. Big G in my opinion are rip off merchants but that is my opinion and I'm entitled to it. But on saying that if you do as CustardMite suggests and read some of their support topics and look at some of their video tutorials you will see that they have really only changed the way that they assess the quality Score. This is to, in their eye's, increase user experience value. What this means is that you must therefore provide a unique valuable experience to the user when they click on your link. Now I actually agree with Big G on that even though I think that they are disgustingly arrogant to both advertisers and publishers alike. Again that is my opinion and I'm sticking to it. So in order to get around this you : Have to comply with their wishes to increase User experience Value. By doing this: 1. Have a Title that is keyword or phrase relevant to what you are advertising. 2. Title relevant to the ad body content. 3. Display Url relevant to Title, ad content, keyword or phrase and also the page content of the display Url should, (not must be), be relevant to title, ad content and or keywords or phrase. 4. Destination Url relevant to all of the above in 3. 5. Finally the content of this destination Url (Landing Page to us) must be relevant to all of No.3 In plain english this means that high Quality Score=Low CPC Low Quality Score=High CPC. Quality Score is high if you do all of 1 to 5 above. Also if two of the same destination Urls are on the page the one with the highest Quality Score will be displayed the other ad will not be dropped. Or sometimes in their wisdom they may just leave yours out if an advertiser is already showing a campaign with your destination Url. Why is quite simple, two identical urls will show the same page thereby reducing users experience value. Big G also state that they do not use bidding wars but they certainly make you raise you bid a few times and that of your competitors and if that is not a bidding war what is. Personally I would like to start my own ad service and kick their big butts out. Maybe one day ) HTH a bit! Remember it must all be Relevant to give the User a Unique and Valuable Experience in Big's eye's not yours! paule
Could it have something to do with lots of ppl using vouchers (aka. free credits)? It's easier for CPC to rise if a good bunch of advertisers are using free credits.
CPC increases to more 1000%, but when I checked using KE, the top bid is almost 0.10 above my bid. Wow, I love it.