After about an hour, I went back to my old bids.
Today, I cannot get my ad to even show up even though I know it should be. Even in the AdWords projections they say I should be showing up in the #2 spot. I do not show up on any page.
It is interesting that several of my ad groups activity rolled over to nothing. Does Google "flag" an account if they see a lot of bid changing, key word manipulation, etc? I do not know why they would since this is the nature of the beast. I have got to believe that they have some behind the scene method of killing an account and then they give no explanation. When I write them, they always say "everything looks fine to me". When in fact if you look at history anyone could see there is a definite period where all ads were dead. This is not a matter of bad credit cards nor ads not being approved. I can say without any doubt that all systems should be working.
I have my own suspicions but would like to hear your comments and of course to know if you have experienced anything similar. It is not a matter of delayed billing or reporting since my supplimentary tracking confirms traffic patterns..
>>> would like to hear your comments and of course to know if you have experienced anything similar
Had a similar experience with one of the accounts. Had a daily budget limit of $100 per day. But it was consistently getting clicks worth $150 per day during those reporting delays. Now, after the delay has been rectified, these ads are not shown very regularly.
Sent a mail to Google and they confirmed that the system was trying to "make up" for the extra free clicks that the account got during the reporting delay (Free because amount paid for extra clicks are refunded as Overdelivery Credit)
Might be the same with your case too.
>>> Does Google "flag" an account if they see a lot of bid changing, key word manipulation, etc?
You are encouraged to do that stuff - that's why you have been provided the tools.
No, my limit is set high enough so that it would never touch it.
Your opening sentence says that you were doing OK on a fairly popular keyword.
From our experience, most of the popular keywords have got two paying guests occupying the Premium Slots, and if not then they are not as popular as you might think.
My first observation is "if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it".
Moving on from there, I might suggest possible causes could be :
1. CC declined.
2. You lost your place in the queue
3. A delay in the reporting
I notice you are making cardinal mistake #1 and are checking for your own ad by clicking the refresh key. If you are doing this, it throws all of your CTR out the window, which in turn drives up the cost for your clicks.
The Google reporting system has had it's problems and I'd suggest this is likely to be the cause of your problems.
No CC problem.
Refreshing may be the problem.
Didn't know I could lose my place in the queue. How does the queing system work?
Also, please see:
[webmasterworld.com...]
However, they "reward" those that are prepared to pay more, or those that have a higher click through rate. The logic there is that Google get more money showing the ads that give more either by cost per click or CTR.
So, if everyone was bidding 10p a click, and everyone had a 2% CTR and there was 5 advertisers, every 5th impression you'd be top.
However, if you alter pricing up or down, it will have an impact on your position, positive or negative and also impact your CTR. So, rather than having people chopping and changing, those that are consistent with their pricing, will get a more consistent CTR and thereby a more consistent share of the better positions.
Google have said they won't sell you a top position, so in my opinion there is no point in trying to buy one. Even when you go into a premium listing slot, they are not selling a top position, they are selling a different spot, that may produce better results than a general SERP's listing or an Adwords, but no guarantees.
