Forgive the extremely long first post! I'm brand new to this stuff. I'm in the UK but advertising in the US. When I was building my keywords I put in a CPC bid of £0.50 GBP. This apparently gave me position 1-3 in nearly all my keywords (102 in all). I launched the campaign in the UK and US initially so that I could check that my ads were appearing - and they were, mainly at position 1. I then changed to US only and sat back and waited. This was at about 9.30pm. At about 11pm I checked, and I had spent about £5, for 23 clicks, which surprised me a little. I ran a report and noticed that more than half of my keywords were now inactive for search, with a min CPC of £5.00 GBP to activate! At midnight, my total costs were £9.18 GBP for 43 clicks, and ALL my keywords were now inactive for search, ALL with a min CPC of £5.00 GBP to activate. This morning I used the budget optimizer, and this suggested, with my budget (£300 per month) that I would get 60 clicks @ £4.90 per click, with a max CPC of £7.00! What planet are these people on? What happened to the position 1-3 for nearly all my keywords at a bid of £0.50? I notice it says "Improve quality or bid £5.00 to activate" against the inactive for search keywords (i.e. all my 102 keywords). As regards improving quality, 9 of my keywords are specifically relevant to my site and couldn't possibly be more targeted, and yet they are STILL asking for £5.00. In fact, I'd be extremely surprised if these keywords had any competition at all. All my keywords are Exact Match by the way, which is why there are so many. The phrase "If it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck..." springs to mind (for duck read scam). Can anyone help? Am I doing something fundamentally wrong here? Thanks
Namreg, this advice comes with a caveat that it does not constitute professional advice. I've seen this with a client who had a poor landing page quality penalty of a minimum £5 bid. The solution was to create a new landing page that ticked all the boxes for quality - essentially relevant content. We then put in the £5 bid and accepted a few clicks at this level. Remember a £5 bid does not usually mean £5 cost per click. Once the landing page started getting traffic, the bid was lowered downwards to 35p.
Thanks for that. I don't think that's the reason, although who can tell. My landing page couldn't be more relevant to the keywords. My keywords, although plentiful because they are exact match, revolve basically around three words, with variations. The keywords and the landing page match precisely. I'd agree that the "across the board" Min CPC of £5.00 appears to be some kind of penalty. Could the fact that I'm selling a digital download have something to do with it?
You got a very low CTR? If your CTR hit a very low score, Google will start penalising you by charging you higher CPC. hope tt help
According to you, maybe. According to the Google's AdBot Algorithm, no Do you have: 1. Other content on the site other than your landing page? 2. Links on your landing page that will take the user to other pages on your site? 3. An 'About Us' page? 4. A Privacy Policy page? When you get high price minimum bids it's because of your landing page quality, not just its relevance, but the whole experience that a user will receive. It's got nothing to do with CTR at this early stage, that comes after 1000 impressions or so (more to contend with later, eh?) H
I think Fastimprovement hit the mark completely. The question isn't whether you targeted keywords - that's for search-engine optimisation. The question is whether you optimized for PEOPLE. Is your landing page informative for me as a user when I come to that page? Will it help me make the decision to buy whatever it is you are selling? Will it help me decide that I trust your company? Etc. Google's quality guidelines (probably well summarized above, but I'd look them up just the same) are meant to help you optimize for users, not search-bots.
Thanks for those responses. "You got a very low CTR?" My CTR for the very limited time my ads were running was 10.78% "Do you have other content on the site other than your landing page?" My site is a mini site, and consists of a landing page, a contact page and an FAQ page. The privacy policy is on my main website and the visitor is directed there via a link. The site is selling a digital item and has no need for additional pages. If that goes against the grain with Google, then adwords is going to be of no use to me.
Thanks kh7. Your reply crossed with mine. I'll look up the guidelines, and maybe add the sites own T&C and Privacy, rather than relying on the visitor going to my main website via the link. Having "optimised for people" though, would sanity eventually previal, or would I have to up my bid to the £5.00 suggested to get the ad running again (which makes me extremely nervous)?
Incidentally, from my testing, I've found that an 'about us' page with contact information is more useful in getting Google's AdBots to accept you than a T&C or Privacy policy page. H
It's just been suggested to me via another forum, that the Human Review Team may have taken exception to my ad, for whatever reason (personal or otherwise) and upped the Min CPC as a result. That stinks. The product I'm selling is perfectly legitimate and highly related to the keywords (which in this case, it seems, is irrelevant). I've already posted a message to Google outlining my concerns, but I won't hold my breath.
That is the perfect answer. You might think that you have the most perfect and incredible page in the world. But if Google doesn't think the same there is not much you can do but modify it again and again and hope that one version of it will satisfy the algo.