I think!
Unless that term will bring you in a considerable amount of traffic and extremely high conversions, do not accept AdWords' "suggested PPC" price. If you really want that term, and it's very competitive try to weigh in two options:
1. Always subtract the final daily CPC to 1/2 of what AdWords recommends.
2. The better your CTR (regardless of what your bid price is) the higher your ad goes up on the AdWords system for only about a penny more per click.
2. The better your CTR (regardless of what your bid price is) the higher your ad goes up on the AdWords system for only about a penny more per click.
not true. on both counts. Google ranks the ads on how much money they will make not just CTR. So If you have a CTR of 5% and a CPC of $.05 but only get an average of 10 clicks per day you will generate $.50 per day. But if someone else has a CTR of 1% (2 clicks a day) , CPC of $2.00 they will generate $4/day. THEY will be above you!
Also, Lets say your CTR is the same as the ad below you, to be above them you must pay .01 higher than their *max cpc* NOT their cpc!
[edited by: nyet at 11:29 am (utc) on April 19, 2004]
Google will also rank your ad by CTR.
Google will also rank your ad by CTR.multiplied by CPC!
[webmasterworld.com...] Post 11.
Also - remember that the AdWords suggested CPC is a bit, er, eratic (by eractic I mean: wrong, most of the time).
Sometimes true, I can't deny it. ;) Please remember, though, that the suggested CPC that you are given as you create your keyword list is an estimate prepared in a moment in time - in a system in which things are changing many times per second.
What I recommend is that you set your Max CPC at a level no higher than you are comfortable with, then monitor your actual results for a day or more - and make adjustments accordingly.
...Google ranks the ads on how much money they will make not just CTR. So If you have a CTR of 5% and a CPC of $.05 but only get an average of 10 clicks per day you will generate $.50 per day. But if someone else has a CTR of 1% (2 clicks a day) , CPC of $2.00 they will generate $4/day. THEY will be above you!
Just a few words about position - I'll make it as brief as possible:
* Your position is figured by comparing your rank number to your competitor's rank number, with the highest rank number appearing higher on the page.
* Rank number = Maximum CPC x CTR
So in nyets example above, what will happen?
Advertiser 1 has Max CPC of 0.05 and CTR of 5%, so 0.05 x 5 = Rank number of .25
Advertiser 2 has Max CPC of 2.00 and CTR of 1%, so 2.00 x 1 = Rank Number of 2
Therefore, in the instant that the above search takes place, Advertiser 2 appears above advertiser 1.
It is worth noting that by the time the next search of the same keyword takes place, the CTR of both keywords may well have changed - and Max CPC may have as well.
AWA
<added> Got called away halfway through writing my response, came back and finished it, posted it and only then saw that eWhisper had sort of beat me to the punch. Story of my life. :) </added>
I've been thinking about this calculation, and I've read this post here and the one ewhisper refers to in msg #8.
How does this calculation work when you're showing more than one ad per keyphrase?
Let's say that you've got three ads showing in rotation for the same keyphrase.
You have said that:
* Rank number = Maximum CPC x CTR
We know that AdWords tracks the individual CTR for each ad and displays those statistics.
I hope these questions make sense, but if not, please feel free to ask me to try to clarify. I'm not trying to invoke calculus, and I'm certainly not trying to melt your brain.
I'd appreciate any answers you can offer. Thanks!
How does this calculation work when you're showing more than one ad per keyphrase?
Good question, mcguffin.
So far in this thread, I've been working under the (hopefully correct!) assumption that we were talking about the CTR of keywords - which is the CTR that controls ad position, and keyword 'health' as shown in the 'Status' column of an Ad Groups stats.
Really, the Max CPC x CTR calculation pertains only to keywords, and is entirely separate from the CTR of the Ad itself. In other words, it is not the CTR of the Ad that partly determines position, but he CTR of the keyword itself, in the moment in which it was searched.
The reason the CTR of the ad (or ads) is shown, is that it gives advertiser's a relative measure by which to judge the success of different ad headlines/copy.
Hope that make sense.
I'm not trying to invoke calculus, and I'm certainly not trying to melt your brain.
Whew! Thankfully no calculus was involved. Advanced math was not, uhhm, my best subject.
No brain cells were harmed in the creation of this response. ;)
AWA
Thanks for such a quick and clear answer!
I'll admit that math wasn't my strongest subject either, and I was really glad the answer didn't require calculus to explain.
So what it all boils down to is the ad that generates the highest CPM gets ranked highest, or most revenue for Google per impression?
Did you think it would be different? ;)
So what it all boils down to is the ad that generates the highest CPM gets ranked highest, or most revenue for Google per impression?
I just double checked an account to make sure this wasn't right.
My ads with the highest CTR (and in most cases its not the highest average CPC ad) are the ones shown the most often with Ad Optimizing enabled.
I'm pretty sure ad optimization works off of highest CTR and thats the only factor involved. If there's another factor that makes an ad shown more often, I'd like to hear what it is.
Maybe Google should consider making that something like 50 cents. There really are newbies out there bidding $4.79 and Google knows full well that this kind of ignorance can stretch for months -- the reason being sometimes people are pulled in different directions so they cannot monitor their own campaigns carefully... and aren't fully aware of what $4.79 even means. If the thingy suggests $4.79 they just assume that's a fair price for something-or-other. In some cases the newbie might vastly underestimate the actual number of clicks required. They're looking more at the dollars, perhaps, so they set a low daily budget with a high per-click cost and get poor performance. The classic rookie mistakes.
This leads to bizarre bidding wars until of course their trusty agent (me) gives them a good talking-to and we get them into a decent range.
Whenever I talk with the folks in my office about that suggested max bid trick, they just shake their heads. It's seen as evil. I suppose only a small percentage of new advertisers are thrown by it, but shouldn't this process be as transparent as possible?
Best,
Andrew
