I originally had a list of about 90 keywords, some of which were individual Latin species names for the type of animal that I sell, or -- mostly -- common names for those same species. I also had listed a few related topics. As an example, I'll use marine tropical fish, which is not what I'm selling. But if I were, my keywords would look something like this:
marine tropical fish
triggerfish
niger triggerfish
odonus niger
queen triggerfish
balistes vetula
triggerfish diet
feeding triggerfish
feeding marine fish
propagating marine fish
etc., etc.
Late last night/early this morning, I deleted my original three ads and replaced them with one ad using dynamic keyword insertion. I'm in a very narrow, specialized field, so I'd hoped to get an edge over one particular competitor whose ads show up regularly with just his business name on the first line. The first line in my ad is the equivalent of {KeyWord:Marine Fish}
Then I edited my keywords so that each, when dynamically inserted, would form a complete thought, such as "LatinName Marine Fish" instead of just "LatinName".
Now, I would never expect to get a huge number of impressions or clckthroughs in this field, as there aren't that many people who share my interest. Services such as WordTracker show only a handful of searches for each of my keywords.
A little while ago, I searched a dozen or so of my keywords and never saw my ad. Not once! My campaign summary shows that my single ad is being served 64.3% of the time. Yet I never saw it, though I saw my competitor's ad on most pages and saw several Google pages that had no ads at all, neither his, mine, or any other competitors'.
I wouldn't think that this is a bid issue. Conceivably, my competitor might have raised his bid after seeing my ad top his yesterday. But I don't think that would explain why, when searching my keywords, I saw pages with no ads whatsoever. My campaign summary for the day shows 129 impressions, no clickthroughs, $0 cost, and Avg. Pos. 1.0. Yesterday, without the dynamically inserted keywords, I had 378 impressions with 4 clicks.
So, it seems like I somehow almost killed my chances of appearing when I changed to the dynamically inserted keyword in my title. But, if that's it, what did I do?
And why, with only one ad, is it being served 64.% percent? Perhaps it counts the ads that were deleted in the middle of the night?
Any advice would be appreciated.
It looks as if the content click through costs are somewhat higher than search? Why is that? (I've turned off content, btw.)
Suz
Go to the adgroup level and check the box that says - "Include deleted items that were active in this date range". Now you should see the ad serving data for the deleted ad copies.
>>> But, if that's it, what did I do?
Not sure what happened there. Are you able to see the ads now? Anyway, avoid checking on your ads frequently.
>>> It looks as if the content click through costs are somewhat higher than search? Why is that?
It can happen if keywords don't get too many impressions on the search network (and google).
Have you installed the Google conversion tracking code? Don't uncheck content network. For niche businesses like yours, the click quality on the content network can be quite good.
Please let me know how/where you access this data: "My campaign summary shows that my single ad is being served 64.3% of the time."
I've been trying to get this figure for my campaigns and don't see where to find it in the G control panel.
Thanks!
This message is primarily designed to give an advertiser details on the rotation of multiple ads within a single Ad Group.
More details:
Many advertisers choose to test one version of an ad against another, in order to see which one performs better. When one does this, the default setting is for the system to learn over time which ad is getting the better CTR, and start showing that ad more often. The results will be reflected in the % served message.
The system may also be set to simply rotate the ads evenly. This setting is made in the 'Edit Campaign Settings' page, in item #4. Just uncheck the box where it says "Automatically optimize ad serving for my ads", and then the ads will rotate evenly from then on. Please note, though, that the percentage served numbers will not reset at this point - they just move on from where they were.
AWA
Now I'm lost again (which unfortunately does not appear to be something new).
I originally thought that the percentage was referring to G's total distribution for an ad within a specific KW universe. i.e. say KW <widget> has 100 searches a day (per Overture, etc.) and if your <widget> ad has a 50%, that would mean that it is appearing 50 times that day, in other words it's appearing for 50% of the total searches within the G or G + Search Partner network.
However, it appears that is not the case. Is there somewhere I can see the percentage of times my ad for <widget> appeared for the total G (or G + Search Partners) searches for <widget>?
Thanks -
I originally thought that the percentage was referring to G's total distribution for an ad within a specific KW universe. i.e. say KW <widget> has 100 searches a day (per Overture, etc.) and if your <widget> ad has a 50%, that would mean that it is appearing 50 times that day, in other words it's appearing for 50% of the total searches within the G or G + Search Partner network.
Nope, no connection with that at all - as you've determined already. ;)
...Is there somewhere I can see the percentage of times my ad for <widget> appeared for the total G (or G + Search Partners) searches for <widget>?
If I've understood you correctly (and I am not certain that I have), then no, not really. Except for the following scenario:
Lets just say that you had a campaign daily budget sufficient for your ads to be showing 100% of the time. In this case, then the Impressions (IMPR.) column of your stats would actually be the number of searches for <widget> that occurred in whatever date range you are looking at.
This may be exactly what you're looking for.
This gets a little slippery though, if your keywords are broad or phrase matched. Then you'd be looking at the number of searches that had <widget> within the query.
I am not really sure what you mean by <widget>, BTW. It would be more clear in this format:
widget = broad match
"widget" = phrase match
[widget] = exact match
I hope that I've not just confused things further! ;)
AWA
Thanks again!
Then it comes down to ascertaining whether or not I have," . . .a campaign daily budget sufficient for (my) ads to be showing 100% of the time." which is what I was trying to figure-out yesterday.
Yes you answered my question and FYI I should have noted it as [widget].
Best,
Marls
