New! Get more clicks automatically with the Google Budget Optimizer™ tool. Let the Budget Optimizer actively adjust your keyword Max CPCs to yield the highest possible number of clicks within your target budget. Learn more
I'd love to check this out, but the link doesn't work. :(
how will I benefit by giving up control and decisionmaking?
If picking the keywords, writing the creatives, building campaigns with the right mix of both then setting the monthly budget for those campaigns isn't enough control and decision making for you, don't use the Optimizer. It's only there for the advertisers who can benefit from it.
I can tell it will free up time for me for those campaigns which are already (incidentally) well constructed for the Optimizers described methodology and I can tell it will never be worth turning on for other campaigns.
You just might be making a mountain out of a molehill.
- Your spend is much smaller than your budget. In this case, the tool might increase your CPC for all your keywords till you reach your budget or the first position. This might be useful for users who have a set budget and don't care about the ROI.
- You do reach your budget regularly. In this case, the tool might reduce the CPCs for costlier keywords and increase the bids on the cheaper keywords. This way you get more clicks for the same budget. This again might be useful for clients who don't have the time to explore the keywords with lesser clicks.
All this is my conjecture and not actual testing. If customers were to use this feature, they better think twice about the budget they enter and also monitor the keywords carefully as Google might get more clicks for the less useful keywords.
You just might be making a mountain out of a molehill.
Or, just trying to understand how and if I might benefit. (if that's ok?)
But it seems to me that the strength of adwords over Bannar ads (say) is that the system allows for (nay, encourages, nay, forces) optimization based on ROI. Not CTR.
CTR is not a good measure for the advertisers (or customer's success). I can easily get tons of traffic (stellar CTR) that does not convert.
If Budget-Opto encourages CTR as a measure of success (for big compaines, etc) then aren't we more likely to end up with less relevant ads and therefore an increase in "ad blindness"?
I am not sure how well I can explain this. Currently I do exactly what you say, bid just under my desired ROI. But my actual cost per click is always less than that max bid. And if my current bid puts me in a lower position resulting in reduced CTR, than my ad rank goes down both from the low bid and the low CTR. On rare occassion with a new campaign before I know conversion rates, I have way overbid. Once I figure out what I can afford, I lower my bid amount. But I still end up with a high position in the rankings and a high CTR, do to the "legacy ad rank" that I achieved. So my thinking is that if the optimization tool, temporarily raises my bids increases my ad rank, then drops the bids to stay within budget, with a resulting higher "legacy ad rank", I could get more clicks for the same spend. I am not suggesting this is likely, or googles goal, but just something that may be possible.
Regards,
I'm running between meetings today, but just wanted to jump in and briefly comment on a few posts "in the order in which they were received". ;)
But before I do, I wanted to pass on a link. I'm guessing most of you have discovered the FAQs for this tool, but if not, here it is:
More info from the FAQ:
[adwords.google.com...]
That done, here are a few comments for now - and I'll try to stop by several more times during the day. And, as always, I'll certainly pass your comments on to the right teams.
i'd feel a little nervous about letting google doing *anything* automatically for me these days...given the recent problems i've been having with broadmatching not working, ads not showing up, &c.
Good feedback which I'll certainly pass on, mwilliams.
I just saw this on my account turned it on for one ad. I'll report back when I have something to report.
I'm interested to hear your results, graywolf.
I don't remember anyone asked for such a feature. Instead, many other requested features were not added. Of course, Google does it's own way...
I had to smile at this one. While WebmasterWorld is absolutely among the most important places where we learn what our advertiser's need and want, it is by means the only place. ;) And as cline says below, not everyone is as sophisticated, or has the same needs, as the top-level folks on this Forum.
A great number of advertisers (and perhaps newer advertisers in particular), simply want to set a budget and then get as many visits to their site as possible, without having to think about it. We've actually heard this a lot.
I bet they've gotten tons of requests from advertisers too unsophisticated to hang out here. Just last week I was working with a new client who said to me "clearly the objective is to get the greatest number of clicks for the lowest cost".
Exactly correct, cline. And your other points are well taken as well. I'll certainly pass them on.
To finish off for now, I hope that some of you will decide to give this a try and see how it performs for you - and perhaps share your results. ;)
It may not be for you, if you really like to manage every aspect of your account - and optimize for variables that the tool can not yet account for. Still, it may be worth giving it a shot, just to test a new tool that's available to you.
AWA
The description of the tool is amusing. It notes that some advertisers are unable to reach their spending goals (i.e., Google didn't get all of their money). Optimizer will assure that the spending goal is met (i.e., Google will get 100% of your budget).
Optimizer raises bids. If you have a KW with a too-low bid, it doesn't get clicks because it's buried in a low position. Optimizer will raise the bid and you'll get more clicks (and Google earns money). There's no point in Optimizer lowering a bid; a bid can't be "too high to get more clicks". Lowering a bid won't increase clicks.
Optimizer does nothing about which KWs to use, how to write the ads, your landing pages, and so on.
The only issue: I would prefer to be able to bid to position. #1 isn't always the best position; if you are in position 2 or 3, you'll pay much less (and thus get more clicks).
If all of the advertisers in the blue widget market turn on Optimizer, it may start an automated bidding war, limited only by each advertiser's monthly budget. Bids would skyrocket. It would be an interesting experiment.
- Your spend is much smaller than your budget. In this case, the tool might increase your CPC for all your keywords till you reach your budget or the first position.
These are my numbers for all of yesterday (a fairly typical day)
216 CLICKS
2,662 IMPRESSIONS
8.1% CTR
$0.63 CPC
$136.84 TOTAL SPEND
I set the budget for $3000 for the month with a maximum CPC of $1.01
These are the numbers today
8 CLICKS
228 IMPRESSIONS
3.5% CTR
$0.55 CPC
$4.42 TOTAL SPEND
Mainly this is a result of the position dropping from 2.8 to 5.7 . I understand the tool isn't designed to give you a certain place, but if I left alone long enough, will it see it's not getting enough clicks, has room in the budget and adjust the bid price up?
The world won't come to an end if I let it run a day or so to gather data. However I can't let it run too long without getting any clicks.
My initial experiment is similar to yours. The bid optimizer dropped my position from #4 positon on page 1 to somewhere on page 3, and clicks dropped to zero. I turned off the bid optimizer rather than wait to see if it would restart on its own.
I will be curious to hear how your experiment worked out.
Regards,
These are the numbers today8 CLICKS
228 IMPRESSIONS
3.5% CTR
$0.55 CPC
$4.42 TOTAL SPEND
I had a couple of thoughts & questions about your post, graywolf, if I may.
I notice that your post was made at about 10:20 PST this morning - and when you were looking at stats for 'today' you were seeing (at the most) stats from midnight to about three hours before 10:20, or roughly 7:20 am. (This is because of the three hour delay in delivering stats to the account.)
So, when you wrote your post, you were seeing stats for about 7 1/2 hours at the maximum. And it could have been a lot less, unless you started your test right at midnight. Anyway, this is probably not a meaningful comparison when held against the 24 hours in the day before.
I'd really advise letting the system find it's balance before drawing a lot of conclusions - and also suggest comparing a full 24 hour day under the Optimizer against the same day in the previous week.
Also, I'm curious how you ran your test - was it just a matter of turning on the Budget Optimizer for an existing campaign?
I'm really interested in how this works out for folks on the Forum who test it, and will happily continue to pass your feedback (whether negative or positive) along to the right people.
Thanks!
My test accounts are always redirected back to the account page with 'we could not process your last request' errors.
It works for several other accounts I have (which aren't test accounts), so not willing to try in those accounts until I know exactly how it works.
The campaigns which seem to receive the errors are all campaigns with at least 5k keywords in one campaign.
Don't know yet if the max keywords is the error, or some other flaw which won't let me test this out.
...It works for several other accounts I have (which aren't test accounts), so not willing to try in those accounts until I know exactly how it works.
Completely understandable, eWhisper.
I have to admit that you have me stumped. I think that contacting your rep might be the way to go here, since they can look at the account - and then contact the right folks for further assistance if need be.
AWA
You know I already did that ;)
waiting for the tech team.
The Google Budget Optimizer™ tool analyzes a number of factors to select ideal max CPC values for your keywords. It then enters these values into the AdWords Traffic Estimator to generate traffic estimates over the course of your 30-day cycle.
eeeeks. I am hardly a fan of the present Traffic Estimator. It has never given me a correct estimate. Sometime it will predict a position of 3 for my ad when actually I might be languishing at some 30th position.(No this cannot be explained by the difference in CTR becuase this from the time I turn on the Ad when I don't have any CTR history). At other times it predicts 30 clicks a day and I end up getting 300. Don't get me wrong. I have liked almost everything from Google but the Traffic Estimator has been one sore thumb. It has been hopelessly out of whack for me.
If they were to use this Estimator for the Budget Optimizer, I would really wait for lots of positive reviews before I turn on the Budget Optimizer.
AWA, I can understand that you represent Google. But how wise is to build a tool based on something that everybody admits is faaaaar from being accurate? It's like erecting a 100 floors building on sand.
You said this could be a good tool for "unsophisticated" users. I think for them the danger is even bigger, and I'll tell you why:
They often said: "my ads are not served". The answer was: increase your daily budget according to the "Budget Estimator" (another "very accurate" tool). They did so, and the ads were served 100%, although they spend 20$ a day and the budget was 200$. They said: "Ok, no problem, works for me!".
[OK, here I have to stop and admit AWA advised everytime "set your daily budget to an amount that you are comfortable spending" (quoted approx.). But then, their ads will not appear every time, because of Budget Estimator!].
Now, when they enable Budget Optimizer, what happens?
First, the Optimizer predicts a huge number of clicks with a lower CPC - everybody is delighted: "what a wonderful tool!". Then, 1 or two days, CPC lowers, avg position drops, traffic drops (this stage might not appear - but some have already experienced it).
But, what sure will happen is that Optimizer will say: I have to spend 200$ per day, not 20$! How? With the same KWs and Ads - Raise CPC! And Raise BIG TIME!.
So the "unsophisticated" user will get three times more clicks, but for ten times the same budget, and the ROI is down!
The only one that benefits is Google.
Many have complained that Google is "leaving money on the table" (limiting the number of KWs, etc). Now, beware: if you leave money on the table, Google will take them all!
Also the use of the estimator and the "0 clciks in the past" isn't very helpful to get much confidence.
We spend x amount per day on adwords - lets call this £500 on a very very competitive keyword. We are not shown all day and could easily spend £1500 on clicks if we were to put our budget up that far.
Due to our CTR history we get listed between 1st and 3rd in the rankings for a reasonable amount, but on a new account to even be listed in the top 20 paying 3 times as much is difficult.
So (just pulling some figures out of the air) you would think that if we got say 200 clicks per day for £500 (£2.50 a click) we could put on Budget Optimizer and it might get us 300 clicks per day (£1.67 a click) by lowering the CPC, yet still keeping the ad rank high enough to spend the budget of £500.
What I'm worried about is this:
With the other test account we can see that without a good CTR history it's impossible to get listed high enough for any clicks whatsoever even at a ridiculous CPC - now if Budget Optimizer drops my position (and accordingly CTR) for long enough I will lose the good CTR history and be left eventually with a campaign that either gets no clicks because the position is so low or gets 2 clicks a day because the CPC is so high!
I would certainly trial this for a month or so if I knew it wouldn't affect my historical CTR and Ad Rank, but right now I'm not willing to lose the income provided by these adverts just to satisfy my curiousity about this new tool.
While this isn't definitive my one day experience with budget optimizer is that I lost my favorable CTR history after the optimizer dropped my cpc on a popular keyword. I disabled the optimizer this morning and had to raise my bid to 25% above where it pre-budget optimize exeriment to achieve the same position. Ugh.
Regards,
It seems counter intuitive that Google would make further use of Traffic Estimator that many of us think is defective.(Or am I mistaken in assuming that most of us think that it is defective while the majority out there think that it works fine but just haven't come out openly?)
I'm somewhat disappointed that G continue to introduce tools for new users only that maximize G revenue and am very interested to see what this does if multiple accounts are letting the bidding on the same words happen automatically :)
I just wanted to have a more reliable daily budget indicator which uses actual CTR rather than fixed (and way to low) CTR's. To Quote our esteemed member Shak "Low CTR has never been our problem"....
BTW, I just noticed that the link I provided above to the Budget Optimizer FAQ entries was not working when I checked it. However if you go to the Help Center, and search for 'budget optimizer' you'll get there.
Help Center
[adwords.google.com...]
Also, here are a quick comments on a couple recent posts as I run between meetings. ;)
...I would prefer to be able to bid to position. #1 isn't always the best position; if you are in position 2 or 3, you'll pay much less (and thus get more clicks).
I'll certainly pass this on, Eurydice.
I was willing to try it on one account but got cold feet when I couldn't find any information on how to switch it off if I don't like it. Especially the 30 day cycle gives me the creeps. Could you explain a bit more AWA?
HitProf, you can turn the Budget Optimizer off at any time with just a few clicks:
Once the Budget Optimizer is running, a 'Disable Budget Optimizer' link appears on the Edit Campaign Settings page. When you click that, you're given the option to either "Apply my current Budget Optimizer values" or "Apply my previous daily budget and CPCs". When you save that choice, the Optimizer is then disabled.
Also, you can turn it off, reset the values, and turn it back on again - this will re-set to a new 30 day period, under the new values.
The FAQ entry below speaks to this a bit.
How long does the Google Budget Optimizer(TM) tool run?
[adwords.google.com...]
AWA
Please reply. Thanks.
If Adwords wanted to add some bid management tools that would be really useful, I'm with Eurydice. Here's my list:
* Target ad position (e.g.: 1.5 or 2-3)
* Relative ad position (e.g.: above sample.com, below widget.com with bid jamming, below widget.com without bid jamming)
AWA, I've got a question. One day the GBO was available on my campaign settings and now it's not there anymore. Is this because the system now believes they can spend my monthly budget without changes, but a couple of days ago it didn't?
MarkHutch, I've not heard of this. I wonder if re-booting and/or clearing your cache might be the ticket?
In the meantime, I'll do some checking and post again later.
AWA
Oh I forgot: gives me a 6 times higher estimated number of clicks now than it did this afternoon, for a 30% lower average click price. Hm.. must be the transcendent estimator at work!
[edited by: HitProf at 9:29 pm (utc) on April 7, 2005]
MarkHutch, I've not heard of this. I wonder if re-booting and/or clearing your cache might be the ticket?
Gave that a try and even tried with a browser that I had never logged into Adwords with before. Still no link to turn it on. The reason I made the statement I did about conversions is that the day I first saw the link in my "edit settings section" my CTR was under .05%, now it is higher than that figure.
Also, the recommended budget has jumped a great deal since that time, too. Daily budget is still the same.
When activating the Optimizer I set 0,50 as max CPC. Now I'm looking at my account and I see several "Automatic 0,75" as max CPC. How can that happen? 0,75 was actually the max CPC before the optimizer.
For those interested: most keywords now have their own max CPC, marked as "Automatic" (or something similar, it's a translation). Most are different.
