Newish to Adwords, but I have some questions. Imagine that. Obviously to get any action, it is extremely desireable to be in a top 10 position, so as to appear on page one of a given search, but within those first ten slots that comprise page one, is relative positioning less important? I can guess that "above the fold" is really the very best, but suspect that in many cases it may not be worth the money to shoot for the number one slot. So, questions: 1. Am I right? 2. What are your thoughts on the merits of the various positions within the first ten? 3. For most Google users, at the most common resolution and window size, what position is the lowest that falls "above the fold"? 4. Is there a "sweet spot" that provides the best value for your Adwords dollar?
#1 one ABOVE the listings will give you most traffic. You can get there cheaply if yuo have a killer ad and poor competition. #1 on the right isn't all that interesting. I found #3 or #4, which is just above the fold, work very well. It almost seems like people skim the top natural results and if they are poor / no visual clues to relevancy, they wander off to the right. So eye movement (speculation) goes from hotspot top left, down to just above the fold, if nothing found across to the right and lands at #3/#4. Cheap and cheerful! PS don't tell anyone!
That seems perfectly logical. When viewing your adwords kewords, when "average position" is shown, how do you differentiate if they mean above the search results listings or on the right hand side?
The #1 receive 40% more clicks compared to #2 according to a study from Atlas institute: Ad Position ________ Click Potential 1 _________________ 100% 2 _________________ 59.8 3 _________________ 47.5 4 _________________ 39.0 5 _________________ 34.8 6 _________________ 31.3 7 _________________ 24.0 8 _________________ 20.0 9 _________________ 15.3 10 ________________ 13.9 Better position means: high traffic for a low price.
When they say that the number one slot has a "100% click potential", I have to ask the question, "How are they defining the term 'click potential'?" It cannot possibly mean there is a 100% chance that link will be clicked, so what could it mean? Also, how on earth does first position mean low price? I mean in some cases, sure, but that's a sweeping generalization, no?
Click Potential is just a reference - is the name that they game for the #1 position. All other ads% are comparation with the first position. If you want comparation about 2 other position (like I did on my previous post with #2 and #1) like the click potential from #10 to 7 just device the percentage from one to another just devide both % the values and you will get comparasion value. Is a very nive way to represent the thing if you understand it. For example: You pay only .10 per click and you're listed #10 BUT: only 100 clicks/day for your site what is very poor for you.... If in the same case above you wnat to get 1000 clicks per day you need to increase the pay per click to .15, .20 .25 but yuo still listed in #10 and would pay a very hight price to get 1000 clicks per day. But if you create a very nice Ad that put you in #1 with the same .10 per click... you would get the 1000 clicks per day very easy not needing to pay more for it. So it is just if you need more traffic and you do not want to pay more for it. In AdWords when you need to increase traffic, you pay more or be more creative.
So the #1 slot is the "sweet spot", but only if you aquired it via quality score as opposed to buying your way there. How do people figure out their ad quality rating in order to know how to adjust bids? Is there a directly observable way, or must one just sort of try to deduce it in some roundabout way?
There is a lot of variables that you can observe for you ads. For example: Conversion Rate is more important if compared to it. I don't know if I understood you correctly: The first point is the CTR of you ad and second the position level. In my case I just place a Ad there and wait to see what happens.
Well, conversion rate is really what this whole thread is about. Well, CTR balanced against cost of position. My point was that if you don't get that coveted #1 spot, is there a way to know why not? ie because you bid too low, or because your ad copy lacks whatever mystical properties Google is looking for in ad copy. From your response, I gather there is no way other than experiment and, "wait and see what happens".