this is a hyper competitive market, however it makes no sense to have no clicks. the ad copy is actually pretty good, and ive changed the ad a few times all with 0 clicks, im getting a little bit flustered here as to why this would happen :-/
let me also say this is a technical field where im sure people do some tricks to hurt other people (perhaps repeatedly searching for these keywords and clicking on their ads, or not clicking any ads?
Content match results in many impressions and not very many clicks, and Google doesn't separate the content match stats from the search engine stats on the manage keywords pages.
However, your CTR on content match doesn't affect the CTR for search engine, so it isnt all bad.....
ive changed the ad a few times all with 0 clicks, im getting a little bit flustered here as to why this would happen...
Do bear in mind that everytime you change ad copy (even, as I've learnt to my cost in the past, a single letter), your ad has to be reviewed and approved... This may be part part of the problem.
Syzygy
I am a newbie. This is just my experience.
also the obvious question is on broad or exact match, and i am comparing an exact match keyword (google says im ranked 1.2) and with that exact phrase in a search engine i am around position 12.
Any change to ad text, display URL or destination URL will take your ads off of the Search & Content Networks until the ad can be reviewed by a human. Normally, it will still show on Google Search results themselves throughout. The only exception would be if you added some word to the ad/display URL/destination that is flagged automatically by the system to shut down your ad, like "sex" and thousands of other words.
Now these people work Monday to Friday, so they tend to get behind on approving ads submitted Thursday & Friday when they walk into work Monday morning. So you could see a potential lag from say Thursday to Tuesday or Wednesday if it's your unlucky day.
Maybe you just didn't notice the difference since it may not have been that discernable depending on where the bulk of your traffic comes from. Or maybe you're special :)
It's often been said here the best time to make changes to ads is midweek when they're dealing with a day's worth of changes at a time generally. No guarantees there though.
I wonder if it has ever occurred to the Google suits that if they ran their Data Center 24/7, the additional payroll may be more than offset by the accelerated rate (and the ensuing additional revenue) at which ads could be placed back into full service.
patient2all
great explanation. Now, I can be sure of what would really happen if I make changes to my ad.
When I add or remove countries to my campaign, Would it also require review by human?
thank you.
[edited by: sanrishi at 8:43 pm (utc) on April 4, 2005]
heres hoping!
I usually find the most common keywords for the competitive markets have a whole bunch of websites in the free search results that satisfy the searchers.
For this reason, very few searchers bother looking to the paid ads because their answer can be found "on the left".
I find that keywords with about 1000 queries per month seem to perform the best, where keywords with 100,000 queries per month get 0 clicks, even in the same positions. As I say, it's down to the competitiveness of the free search results.
for what its worth i just turned my average bid price from 75 cents to $2.50 in an experiment to see if ill get any clicks at a higher position...
I think this may do it for you - but do be aware that you'll need to give it a hour or so for you CPC change to be incorporated, and then three hours after that till the stats come in.
The reason I think that it might be a Max CPC, issue is that you mention you're in a hyper competive market, but have 2000 impressions in 4 days - which doesn't sound like a lot. This suggests that you're probably not appearing on the first page most of the time.
An aside: to get the most meaningful Average Position stats, you might want to make sure that your campaign is targeted only to those countries in which you really want your ads to show.
The reason I say this is that different countries often have different levels of competition, and you might (for example) be showing up in postion 12 in the US and position 2 in Brazil. This can make your Avg. Pos. a bit hard to interpret.
AWA
ill still wait till this time tomorrow....just gotta figure out whats going on lol.
someone also said to look for 1000 searches words, well ive actually done that, used #*$! and all that, but it seems the ppl just dont want to click on my ad. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
im using the keyword matching trick in the title
on a side note i FINALLY got a hit, cost me a buck twenty, more than i want to pay, but if they convert well, then i can afford it, but ill need at least a 1% conversion rate just to break even, which im willing to do to acquire the customers.
ive never done conversion tracking till now (more or less because of the nature of my business) but now that im doing it i have no idea what kind of a conversion percentage to expect, any guesstimates ppl?
btw, thanks for all the reponses, it has been very helpful :)
Adding/removing countries do not require human review. Neither does changing MaxBid.
The only thing that does is the ad text.
not sure what to do, anyways, ill keep trying stuff :)
Some things that I have had success with in the past when dealing with ad copy is to use the more 'action' oriented keywords such as 'buy, download, try free, etc.'
I have found that searchers, especially on Google use the natural listings (the ones on the left) for research, but when the time comes they'll use the sponsored ads (on the right & top) expecting to be able to get in and get done whatever they are looking for.
Also, I find that when bidding on high profile keywords, it is best to see if they are placing the top sponsored positions. I find that these recieve less click-thrus than the side positions. I typically bid for the 3-5 positions and find better success in those spots, expecially when it comes to click-thrus.
On a personal note, I never use the content search, strictly search only with the broad match on. I have worked in very high competitive markets and I find that these strategies work best.
I hope this helps a bit more, or at least gives you a bit more to work with.
So, with the disclaimer out of the way, here goes:
Not only do one's ads need to be well written to attract clicks, but they must also be very targeted to the keywords that cause them to appear.
A brilliantly written ad will not attract clicks if it is about a different subject than the search that caused the ad to appear.
So if you had a Pulitzer prize winner write you an absolutely stunning ad for "Surplus Helicopter Rotors", but that ad appeared when a user searches for 'mazda engine rotors', you will not likely get a click.
At the bottom line, be certain that your ads and keywords are about exactly the same thing.
As I said, I'm sure you already do this - but when an ad is getting impressions and no clicks, it almost invariably means that the user is simply not seeing what they were looking for, in your ad.
AWA
awa, without giving away the farm, heres a sample of what ive written
keyword [accountant to manage books]
keyword trick for title
looking for an accountant to manage your books?
Give us a try, we offer a free month promo
obviously this isnt exactly the text i use, it also isnt my field, but its similar to the ad copy i am using and the keywords i am targeting :-/
i emailed google to see if they can take a look at my account, perhaps something is wrong or something, because it makes no sense to me whatsoever.
I hope that a look at the account by the support folks will shed some light on your situation, inferno. Best of luck with this!
AWA
believe me it baffels me to no end, especially considering i consider myself an abover average google marketer.
in the mean time, any other ideas as to why an ad similar to the one i showed you, targetting similar style of keywords, with relatively high position would get almost 0 traffic?
just wanted to let you know, google offered to take a look to see whats wrong, hopefully theyll get back to me.
Fingers now crossed, inferno. ;)
AWA
keyword trick for title
looking for an accountant to manage your books?
Give us a try, we offer a free month promo
"
I would test a non dynamic title as well, just to see if this increases the performance.
I am wondering if the dynamic search phrase is too long to insert into the title?
(somethign similar to my field)
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it. Please note that using your browser's back button in AdWords can increase the likelihood of errors. If you think this was the cause of your error, please try again without using the back button.
lol, i didnt press the back button or anything like that.
there MUST be something wrong here if this campaign is acting so darn strange.
i dont feel like a total moron at the moment, because this small sign (albeit very small) shows me that at the very least, it is feasible that it is a technical glitch rather than a problem with me, lol because i cant for the life of me figure this out.
btw, google has not gotten back to me.
day before yesterday i had 5 emails going back and forth, today, i sent 3 replies, and no responses.
