I read that in starting a campaign I should start with very competitive KW bids (i.e., to hit a "top 3" position). This establishes a high CTR and gives me a good Quality Score. Then, later on I can slowly lower my bids. It seems, though, that once I lower my bids, my QS will begin to erode. Anyone have experience with this?
Yes, that definitely works. I'd suggest a slow drop in bid pricing...rather than just a high bid, then dropping to the true bid you seek.
Yeah start high then gradually bring your cpc down works best. Working the other way just doesn't work well and takes longer.
Just confirming what others have said - Start as high as you can afford, and then slowly reduce your max CPC over time to a level you're looking for. If you start with a tiny max CPC, it can sometimes be impossible to build a decent quality score.
For me it really depends. If it's a long term campaign I dont see the urgency to start high. on campaigns that will be perpetual, i just bid what I think is best and change is according to performance only.
Many marketers start their new campaigns paying very high max bids so they enter high and then often get pulled higher. I prefer to start small and let my superior ad copy handle the rise up, but it's your call. Just make sure you spend well within what you can afford.
I agree with going with a high CPC to get established and doing a slow drop. I've also had success using a hook in the ad copy like "free trial" or "get started for $x.xx" as a clickthrough incentive to keep your CTR high as you lower your bid price.
Does the quality score take into account the ad position as well as the CTR? For example, if Google calculates for a particular keyword that the average CTR (for everyone's ads) for position #1 is 15% and for position #5 is 3%, then an ad getting 5% CTR in position #5 would have a higher quality score than an ad getting 10% in position #1. To me, that's the logical way to figure out the quality score, but I have no idea if Google actually does it this way...?
Yes, I know that quality score is used as an input to calculate the ad position, but what I was wondering is to what extent the ad position is used as an input to calculate the quality score.
I don't think the quality score is determined by ad position ....as was mentioned by others, it's one of the outcomes of quality score 0 Inputs - CTR, ad copy relevance to search terms used & landing page relevance, Outputs - CPC, Ad Position. Having said that, we all have to live with not really knowing the exact answer of course....as it's all behind the G curtain.
It works in principle but once you settle at a relatively stable position with your good QS, you could still get bumped by new advertisers who are willing to pay more, i.e. using the same tactic as you!
Hmm, that way you'll lose lots of money at the start, which I think isn't a good thing to do, of course if you're 100% sure that you'll get at least even with your site. I would optimize as much as possible and slowly raise the bids and test, test, test...
I think it depends on what your are trying to do with your site as to whether you should bid high or not. If you are just trying to get people on your site I think it's best to bid the minimum, but on hundreds of keywords and phrases. Mike
This part of Adwords has been frustrating for me. Shoemoney had a recent post about this and said he always bids the minimum. I started a new campaign for an aff promo doing just this - one of my ads for a competitive term is literally in position #85 on adwords. It has been several days, and so far that ad group has received just one impression. In order to get on the first page I would have to raise my bids a lot, which won't be cost-effective unless we can boost the conversion rate a lot higher. Sort of stuck between two evils.
Shoe started off the post talking about YSM. So when he said he bid the minimum I wasn't clear if he was talking about YSM or G. It is possible to bid rockbottom minimum on YSM and still get clicks. It's a different story with G, though.
Bidding high works very well on adwords. You may lose or break even to start as crappy keywords will chew up your budget, but as you prune the junk, you start uncovering those precious golden nuggets.
Here's a great article that compares a new account versus an existing account performance using the same campaign structure. It shows that you want to bid high to get your campaign up and running http://blog.mindvalleylabs.com/mark...-advertisers-get-crushed-test-results-are-in/