Budget Optimizer

New feature on Adwords

[MarkHutch]

This message is showing up on my Adwords account.

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. :(

[AdWordsAdvisor]

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.

That sounds pretty odd, HitProf, and is probably the sort of thing that the AdWords support folks would be able to sort out with a look at your account.

Do we have to have "content" turned on for this feature to work?

Nope. So this won't be an answer to your earlier question, MarkHutch. (I'm still working on an answer for that one, BTW.)

AWA

[MarkHutch]

Thanks.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Thanks.

Doh!

MarkHutch, I think I forgot to ask the obvious question. Does the campaign in which the link is missing have more than 10,000 keywords?

If so, that'll be the issue - as the current max for keywords in campaigns managed by the Budget Optimizer is 10k.

This is mentioned briefly in a FAQ entry:

What's the Google Budget Optimizer(TM) tool?
[adwords.google.com...]

Sorry to not have thought of that before.

Brain fade, I guess. ;)

AWA

[eWhisper]

If so, that'll be the issue - as the current max for keywords in campaigns managed by the Budget Optimizer is 10k.

AWA - seems you beat your tech team to the response. I'm sure that's what they're going to come back and say - I didn't see that number before, and have plenty of campaigns with more keywords than that in them.

[MarkHutch]

Yes, it has more than that. Thanks. I'll fixed that issue and give this thing a try.

<Update> I paused enough keywords to bring the total number below 10K. However, the link is still not there. Do I need to wait awhile, or do I need to start a new campaign where there is on 10K or below in the total account; Active, Paused and Deleted?

[MarkHutch]

Started a new campaign and the link is now there. However, everytime I click it I get an error about the changes not going through and I'm redirected back to the main page. I do get the little pop up about the fact that this will change my settings for the campaign, but after that, nothing. Any advice?

<Update> I got it to work. Reduced the number of keyword on the intial setup, then added the rest after the account was going. :) I sure hope this works.

[MarkHutch]

Sorry to post three messages in a row, but the owner edit must go away after a certain period of time. I've had this feature on for a few hours now and it appears that the bid amount of my ads are changing all the time. I think this is based on some kind of program that keeps up with changes that are made on the keyword bidding level system wide. Some bid are going up while others are going down. This might just be a fantastic idea because there is no way this can be done manually on an hour by hour basis unless one wants to end up in an institution. :) I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but if what I think is happening is really happening, and this works out ok in the long run, this could solve a bunch of my problems with PPC advertising.

I'm only using 2K keywords on this campaign and a $750 per month budget.

My guess is it will take around a week to ten days to completely learn my keyword patterns and when it does, the real test will begin. I'll keep you updated.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

My guess is it will take around a week to ten days to completely learn my keyword patterns and when it does, the real test will begin. I'll keep you updated.

MarkHutch, I was doing a little late-night trolling for advertiser feedback, and spotted your most recent post.

It sounds as if you are approaching this in a really excellent way, and I'll be interested to hear how things shake out for you.

BTW, I think the idea of letting the system sort of learn whats happening in your campaign, over the course of a number of days, is right on the money.

Best of success to you. ;)

AWA

[MarkHutch]

Thanks, AWA. It's 1:25am in the Cental Time Zone and I'm still watching this thing. I hope it works the way I think it will. Thanks for checking back in these late hours. Even though it's not really that late on the West Coast. I'll keep you updated on what I find out. Have a good one!

[HitProf]

AWA: My own diagnosis: those keywords had the 0.75 individually set as max CPC as a legecy from a formerly lower general max CPC. This is most likely a "feature". :)

I'm surprised to see so many 0.05 max CPC's set by the optimizer.

And now I'm off for a couple of days :)

[graywolf]

Ok I've had a chance to take a look at the whats going here's the problem for my campaign

"blue widgets" is listed at Auto:$0.72
[blue widgets] is listed at Auto:$0.05

The exact keymatch bid price is too low. Should I turn the optimizer off, go in and give it an individual price, then turn the optimizer back on?

[inferno]

i have turned the optimizer on for one of the campaigns i am actually over delivering by quite a bit, our target is only 7 clicks a day, and we are getting about 20 clicks a day (long and complicated question as to why the cap)

anyways, i turned it on, and have 2 clicks today for an average price of 5 cents per click,

i usually have around 20 clicks at an average price of around 13 cents a click.

should be interesting :)

[inferno]

so im pretty much ending today at about 4 clicks at a CPC of 5 cents, much lower clicks than usual, and a significantly lower cpc, and CTR.

i think im goin to revert back in a day or 2.

[Spudstr]

oddly enough i turned mine on today, slightly higher CTR and lower cpc's.. overall ranking seems to be slightly higher than normal too.

*scratches head*

[inferno]

yeah my traffic has dropped today as well, saturdays usually ahve the most traffic for me, and i only have 1 click thru, usually i would have 10 by now.

[kory]

FWIW, I turned it off too a couple of days ago. I was averaging about 2-2.5% CTR and budget optimizer dropped it below 1%.

Regards,
Kory

[MarkHutch]

Update: It worked great the first day, then the keyword "On Hold/Disabled feature kicked in and killed it. This is such a shame. I know Google will get this worked out eventually, but until they do it's hard to make any money at any bid price. Even bid prices set via GBO system:( Please fix!

[HitProf]

I've been running the Optimizer for almost 4 days now in 1 campaign which was underperforming. I'm pleased with the CTR (up) and with the CPC (down) so I'm going to let it run. Much to my surprise the average position is lower.

AWA: the procedure for adjusting max cpc is far from intuitive. In stead of just accepting the new amount, the system starts the Optimizer dialogue and makes suggestions, completely ignoring what I've just typed into the max bid field.

[The real simon]

Our online agency told us they were testing one tool from google for two months now. I am not sure this is the same one though.

The problem on our side seems to be that for the agency it is wether on or off, we cannot select a few keywords for which we would agree to outperform. A few other problems but there are perhaps more related to the agency than anything else ;)

[whoisgregg]

Those are related to the agency, The real simon. For keywords you want to set specific bids (to reach a specific position), you just need to pull those into their own campaign and manage them "by hand."

[The real simon]

I am learning many things with this forum, soon this agency won't be able to trick me anymore ;)

thanks gregg! They were probably to lazy to do it.

[wrgvt]

I turned on the budget optimizer for the last 6 days for one of my campaigns. This is a campaign with both a low CTR and low CPC (usually less than a dime per click). This morning I analyzed the results for the last 6 days as compared to the 6 days before then.

With budget optimizer on, CTR is down, CPC is down slightly, and sales are down.

It's time to turn the budget optimizer off for me.

[inferno]

yep, ive disabled mine as well, but it harmed my ctr so much for one of my campaigns that my clicks are still down, but that is ok, i was overdelivering anyway ;-)

[dave741]

Update: It worked great the first day, then the keyword "On Hold/Disabled feature kicked in and killed it. This is such a shame.

It is really great feature - you turn it on and it kills your working campaing. For this cases I used link Delete Campaign in the past.

Sorry to be sarcastic, but I am so upset with the On Hold feature! It costs me, my clients and even the Google money and they do nothing about it. I am QGAP and I am not able run the campaign for my client the way I wish ... eh

Instead of repairing the problematic parts they build new features that are build on old broken features.

[Spudstr]

just turned off optimizer, clicks wehere actully higher than normal but conversion was absolutly terrible

[nyet]

I suspect Spudstr's result will be common.

<i>CTR is not a good measure of success</i> for anyone except Google. ROI is.

So if BO optimizes on CTR <i>without</i> ROI what good is it except for Deep Pocketed unsophisticated users or for business models where conversions don't matter?

No if BO factored in Conversion Data <i>That</i> would be something, but they make no claim of that and I wonder if it can be determined if they are doing that.

[Frequent]

Well, I am turning BO off on my test campaign as well. Given a campaign that was purposely underperforming (min CPC set (but with a good CTR) to reign in the clicks) the BO made it underperform even more. Despite having 'full control' of my bids BO managed to extract even fewer clicks than under manual control and never approached the daily budget.

Not surprised, but disappointed. I would have at least expected BO to successfully spend my budget since that's what it claims to guaranty.

Freq---

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Well, I am turning BO off on my test campaign as well...

Thanks to all for giving this tool a fair trial - and sorry if your results have not met your expectations.

I'll be forwarding a link to this entire thread to a whole lot of folks on Thursday evening, so your feedback will be heard by the right teams.

On quick note about the Budget Optimizer (I have not quite been able to call it the BO as of yet!) that is worth passing on:

It does update it's knowledge of your campaign regularly - so the longer it runs, the more 'expert' it'll be at managing the factors involved.

Conversely, the shorter the test, the less information it'll have to base it's management on.

Hey, that's sort of like real life!

Anyway, thanks again for both giving the tool a try, and for the feedback as well.

AWA

[Spudstr]

BO stinks..

now however if it worked off converion rates also with in google.. then you might have somthing.. if you could set a ROI or have it figure out a max ROI based on a montly budget.. that would superb ;-) but in an all perfect world.. which we know would never happen. :(

[MarkHutch]

NP, AWA. Always interested in trying new things. What's next? :)