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Should I Turn Ad Optimization Off?

         

GuitarZan

1:56 am on Apr 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hey,

I just put up new ads for a Campaign I am trying to make Profitable. So there are 2 ads in each adgroup now. I want to see which one gets the better CTR over a period of say 30-50 clicks... (Any recommendations on the clicks). Do I have to turn off Ad Optimization for this?

Thanks,

C.K.

Robsp

7:27 am on Apr 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



switch it off if you measure ROI. This will evenly distribute the ads over the impressions. If you switch optimizing on one ad will get more impressions as its CTR is better.

eWhisper

9:13 am on Apr 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



When starting a new account, or trying to make an old one profitable, I'm still in favor of the method in post 6 of this thread (and a little biased towards it as well :) )

[webmasterworld.com...]

GuitarZan

3:32 pm on Apr 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi,

Thanks guys. All I want to be able to do is see which ad in every AdGroup performs better, out of 20 clicks.

GuitarZan

4:25 pm on Apr 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hey,

I would also like to see what people think about my optimization for this Campaign. Basically I only use AdWords for the "Google Cash Method". I am sure most of you know what this is.

Ok here are the details, any help is appreciated.

I have a Campaign that I am trying to make profitable. My daily budget is set to $25, and I get pretty close to that every day, so I am sure the Campaign is being throttled by Google.

I have roughly 33 AdGroups in this Campaign. Every AdGroup has it's own set of KeyWords, that are all similar.

Right now most of these AdGroups are set at 21 cents max CPC. So as far as optimization goes, I have structured the AdGroups, so that the KeyWords in them should be fairly targeted to the corresponding Ads. I have also created 2 Ads per AdGroup, so that I can see which one gets the higher CTR.

This is the part where I am not totally sure on. Yesterday, I went into each AdGroup and raised the bid on each KeyWord that had at least 20 Impressions for the day, and was at a lower position of 3.0. The reasoning for this is that I want pretty much all the KeyWords that are actually getting some Impressions, to be in the top 3, so that they higher up in the listings, and so that they are seen in the Search Network.

Only a couple of the KeyWords that had recieved over 20 Impressions, and were at a position out of the top 3 were not included... Due to the fact that they were to broad and didn't totally pertain to the product I am promoting.

This product does sell, as last Monday I had four sales for it, and now it trickled down to an average of 1 sale per day. So basically I am stumped on how to make this profitable.

In fact, I can do most other aspects of Google AdWords just fine. But when I actually do find something profitable, I am stumped on how to properly Optimize a Campaign.

Any good post out there that deals with AdWords Optimization? I read the one from eWhisper, and took some advice from it, but some doesn't pertain I think.

Suggestions, Advice?

Thanks,

C.K.

eWhisper

4:07 pm on Apr 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If you have a budget, and you were coming close to meeting it everyday - then why change any bids at all?

Raising just one bid, means less visitors/day. If anything in that scenario, I'd want to lower my CPC and maintain/increase my CTR to get even more visitors a day.

It sounds like you're working off of feeling, and not off of facts. If you're on a budget, use G's free tracking tools to measure which KWs are converting. That will give you the data to see which part of your account is being productive.

Shelbesmom

4:24 pm on Apr 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



"Raising just one bid, means less visitors/day. If anything in that scenario, I'd want to lower my CPC and maintain/increase my CTR to get even more visitors a day"

Ok....I must be dumb.... how can lowering CPC (cost per click) INCREASE my CTR (click through rate)? Everything I've read says to RAISE CPC to get better CTR.....Now I'm really corn-fused! Can anyone help me out there! I'm kinda in the same boat as the writer above!
Thanks,
Shelbesmom

eWhisper

5:33 pm on Apr 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The earlier response was based off of this:
I have a Campaign that I am trying to make profitable. My daily budget is set to $25, and I get pretty close to that every day, so I am sure the Campaign is being throttled by Google.

That quite has a low daily budget which is being reached often, so you want to optimize the number of visitors for such a budget.

For example:

If you have a budget of $20 a day, and an average CPC of $0.50, then you have a maximum of 40 visitors a day. If you are regularly reaching this cap, then increasing your CTR doesn't really do you a lot of good. Increasing your CTR a little might lower you CPC a few cents and bring in a few more visitors a day, but once your cap is reached - you're done advertising for that day.

If you could bid less, say get your paid CPC to $0.25, then with the same budget, you can get 80 visitors a day, doubling your traffic.

CTR is useful for lowering bids, but overall, it won't lower your bids a huge amount. Now, if you're getting hundreds or thousands of visitors a day, then those pennies quickly add up and lowering bids a few cents each through higher CTR is an effective stratedgy.

However, if you aren't getting a lot of visitors, then lowering your CPC, if you can still reach your daily budget per day, will get you more total visitors.

Assuming I have a max daily budget that is often reached, I'd rather have a 1% CTR with 100 visitors a day then a 10% CTR and 20 visitors a day.

There is a large stratedgy difference when your max daily budget doesn't matter and you just want a lot of quality visitors versus when you are working inside a tight budget and want the most possible visitors for your expenditure.

Shelbesmom

7:12 pm on Apr 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



AHA! Thanks so much.... Now I can see why math wasn't my strong suit.....my sales have been WAY down, since G optimized the cost per click. I'm still a newby...
Thanks,
Shelbeesmom

GuitarZan

12:08 am on Apr 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hey,

Thanks for the clarification eWhisper. What I have done with this Campaign is put the daily budget to $100, so it ain't being throttled anymore, as I only spent $50 yesterday. I am also raising/keeping the bid on only my most relevant keywords. I am then lowering the bid on the KeyWords that are not super targeted. Because I am sure that the most relevant KeyWords are the Revenue producers most of the time.

C.K.