The weirdest thing so far is the fact that I have deleted two keywords but Im getting impressions from them, they are hurting my CTR though. Im not sure if this is good or bad yet. Has this happend before?
--Fred
Everything imaginable has happened.
Trial and Error dear fellow.
Its a learning cycle, but the rewards are there, keep at it.
Sorry to sound a bit negative, but we would be here all day discussing this, so best leave you to get reading and learn from others who have been in the same boat.
Shak
1. Google does take a couple of hours or so to register the changes you make to a campaign. Also to report clicks and impressions.
2. Both the estimated number of clicks and the average click cost can be way off. Best to ignore these, suck it and see, and make sure you specify maximum costs per day and max bids for each keyword. Then monitor closely for the first day or two.
One keyword generates a 9.0% CTR but not many hits, maybe 100 a day.
The other one has a 1.5% CTR and hundreds of hits.
Im not sure what I want to do, the second one is costing a bit too much to keep running...
here are easy ways to reduce hits without hitting your ctr too much.
1. make your ad very obvious that people will have to buy something to discourage free browsing!
2. Limit your ads to certain countries and languages (see "campaign settings")
3. Easiest: Limit your total daily expenditure for a campaig to whant you can afford. It will turn off automatically every day as you approach that limit, and then start again the next day.
4. turn off non-google impressions. (we get a lot indirectly from say ask jeeves etc)
The thing to watch is how many sales you get per cost.
When we were first getting started, we had one keyword that got 1000's of hits but almost no sales - turned out that it was far too generic. Since then we have gone to using a LOT of niche keywords - some only getting 3-4 hits a day, but with a 20% buy rate.
When we were first getting started, we had one keyword that got 1000's of hits but almost no sales - turned out that it was far too generic. Since then we have gone to using a LOT of niche keywords
That's often the approach to take; another is to try to take advantage of that high CTR by finding a way to increase the conversions you're getting on those "generic" clickthroughs. One approach might be to create a separate landing page for a few sets of keywords -- pages integrated into your site but focused on selling specifically to people who arrived there via those particular searches.
If you can find a way to turn a greater percentage of that traffic int0 sales, you don't have to worry that you're getting too many clicks!
turn off non-google impressions. (we get a lot indirectly from say ask jeeves etc)
Why? Do they convert worse?
imho
It's a different demographic ;)
You can sell over priced internet access to one and sell scalable high availability enterprise computing to the other.
I've looked at all of my competitors - seems to be close to 25-30 heavy hitters. I keep hearing of single keywords getting 20-50% CTR. My best so far was at 15%. It's fairly obvious that I'm not getting into the right keywords. The "suggested" words Google supplies are almost all of the words that are way too generic and I've already tossed. How should I go about finding the right keywords?
Matt
I set up a campaign (my first) 3 days ago after reading the FAQ "cover to cover". Trouble was, ad never showed up. I double-checked everything - nothing appeared. Stats showed 0 impressions, 0 clicks. On asking the adwords team I got the response that it was because my budget was < the recommended. This was rubbish, as it still should have showed up sometimes, but I increased my budget to more than the recommended - still nothing. More of my emails requesting assistance were met - 12 hours later - by exactly the same automated email as I got in the first place. There was no attempt to look at the problem.
Now, 3 days later, stats still show 0's on everything. I increased my price/click despite it not being lower than the minimum for any of the countries, and now the ad appears sometimes, at position 19. It gets no clicks, not surprisingly, and is essentially worthless. This is the exact same keyword and wording that was getting a 25% CTR on Overture, despite my bid being 58p less than the top-payer! When Overture said they were putting up the minimum charge I thought I'll try Adwords. J**** C*****, never again!
Also, I noticed when the ad does appear the interest bar is zero. Can this possibly be right or is it another glitch in their system? I know it's had no clicks, so yes - there's been no interest - but is it default for the interest bar to be 0? I mean, who in their right mind is going to click on an ad with a zero interest bar? I wouldn't! It's like walking into an empty club.
I've heard a lot of people say adwords is great and their admin are helpful but I can only go off my experience. Total waste of time.
But if you still want to give adwords a go, then I'd suggest looking at the terms you targeted and the copy you wrote for the ads. It is amazing how much changing an ad's description will help the cause.
If it is possible, you might want to try to experiement with different variations of the same term to see what gives the best clickthrough.
For example, if you sell widgets, do you get the most clickthrough on:
widgets
blue widgets
or widgits <--spelled with an i
I have noticed that the more specific the term, the lower the cost and the higher the roi. Don't target 'widgets' if you can target 'blue fuzzy widgets'. You'll get less traffic, but the people who search on specific phrases like that will be more likely to BUY.
When you find terms with high clickthroughs, tweak on the descriptions to see what gives you the best roi.
It is a slow process, but one that is well worth it to get the best roi. Good luck.
Google partners (aol, askjeeves) in my case are a blessing, but I sell education software and that makes a big difference. It really depends on what you are selling
In my opinion setting daily limit should be used only as
a very temporary measure (while your campaign is not fine
tuned, so you don't go broke). Once you are making profit,
what would be the point of limiting your daily budget?
You would just be making proportionally less sales
