Strange statistics. Can someone help me interpret?

[Dan_Vendel]

The number of impressions in one of my campaigns increased dramatically a couple of days ago. From a total of about 1,000 gained during a month, the figure went up to 9,000 more or less overnight. At least, that's what the accumulated total says.

But when I look at the list of keywords below (which I haven't changed in any way since 2-3 weeks back - i.e. well before this jump), none of them shows the corresponding raise.

The result of this is that the over all CTR has dropped to 0%.

Questions: Why that weird jump? And what might this mean to the campaign in the long run in terms of Googles "rank" and placement of the ads?

If these questions are newbieish, it's because I am a newbie to this.

TIA
Dan

[nerowolfe]

So just to confirm, you're seeing the ~9000 total in the campaign summary view, but then when you drill down to the adgroup level, the additional impressions aren't showing up for your individual keywords?

Is it possible that you have content targetting turned on and have overlooked the "content total" line in the adgroup view? Maybe content targeting kicked in and that's where the additional impressions are coming from?

[Dan_Vendel]

So just to confirm, you're seeing the ~9000 total in the campaign summary view, but then when you drill down to the adgroup level, the additional impressions aren't showing up for your individual keywords?

I assume it's the summary view, i.e. where all keywords are listed, etc. I took a screenshot you can view at <snip>. It's the "content total" that jumped.

Is it possible that you have content targetting turned on and have overlooked the "content total" line in the adgroup view? Maybe content targeting kicked in and that's where the additional impressions are coming from?

I don't understand what you mean by "content targettong". If you mean that I have checked the two boxes in the campaign settings that says: 5. Where to show my ads
"Show ads on Google and the [box] search network [box] content network" so yes, both are checked.

Sorry, but I have some problems to wrap my head around all these settings, options and terms used by Google. I'm by no means slow, but if I may be a bit critical, the adword concept is great but the GUI might not win any usability awards. ;-)

Cheers, and thanks for helping out.
Dan

[edited by: eWhisper at 12:18 pm (utc) on Nov. 21, 2004]
[edit reason] No URL promotions please [/edit]

[Dan_Vendel]

Ooops. Watch out for the period that was included as a part of the link above.
It should be <snip>
Dan

[edited by: eWhisper at 12:19 pm (utc) on Nov. 21, 2004]
[edit reason] No URL promotions please [/edit]

[Dan_Vendel]

Odd. The latter link gives a 404....

[nerowolfe]

That's okay - I managed to download the image anyway, and it confirms that the additional impressions are in fact coming from content targeting.

What is going on is that Google lets you place your ads on a LOT of other websites other than just Google itself. The "content network" and "search partners" checkboxes in your campaign settings control these features.

AdWords ads are always shown on Google's result pages. If you have the "search partners" box checked, your ads will also appear on Google's partner search engines (which includes AOL and Netscape and a variety of others). If you have "content network" checked your ads will also be shown on the AdSense network, which are just regular web sites (not search engines) that have embedded Google ads as part of the Google AdSense program.

The "Content Total" line on the adgroup report counts these impressions and clicks separately from the rest of the traffic. In the image you posted, you can see that AdSense is in fact responsible for your major increase in impressions.

As to whether this poses a CTR problem for you, the answer is NO. When Google computes your CTR for ranking purposes, it counts impressions (and clicks) on just the Google website. So having extra content targeting impressions won't hurt you at all. However, content targeted clicks are often less likely to convert than their search targetted cousins, so you will very likely want to test to make sure you're not losing money on your content targeted clicks.

[Dan_Vendel]

nerowolfe,

A million thanks for letting me hold your hand for a moment.
I will turn off that network option.

Cheers,
Dan

[nerowolfe]

No problem at all, glad to help!

[PPCBidder]

Hey Dan, remember you can edit posts. If nobody else has posted yet after you it won't even appear as an edit.

[Dan_Vendel]

PPC Edit:

Now I feel like a real moron: I have always been missing an option to edit but never found any. How can I do that?

[PPCBidder]

<== (over there) :) On the left side between 'user profile' and 'sticky mail' for your posts. Don't worry about it, sometimes you just look in the wrong place, i've certainly done it.

[Dan_Vendel]

Ahhh... that's only available at the very latest post I make, not the ones I previously made. I'm on a couple of other groups where you can edit posts you made years ago..

Thanks
Dan