the daily budget is very low - as its only a test - but the whole thing doesnt seem to be working properly at all...
the first key phrase in the first group is responding - and doing ok - but not filling up the daily budget - and yet none of the other keywords/phrases in this group, or in the other are showing a single impression
cost per click is set pretty much as low as it will go - as the key phrases have no competition - even though it says my average position if say 1.6
is the due to the recent adwords problems - do i need to up my CPC or my daily budget, or both?
Thanks so much,
Harley
I used an ad words campaign and its mostly a hit and miss affair. The hit ratio is based upon averages - so if the people dont use those keywords - you get no hits. I found one keyword was gold but the others got little or no activity although google hit ratio said otherwise.
I am no expert but it's a case of waiting and watching.
It's also a good idea to setup a test like you have done as you can see what happens in a real world environment and not just a projection of what should happen.
yet none of the other keywords/phrases in this group, or in the other are showing a single impression
That's the problem with some keywords that may be specific to you, especially the geographic keywords: Low traffic.
Sometimes you have to dig around in your noodle to find those keywords. Sometimes they're in your access logs.
Sometimes they're in your competitor's meta keyword tags...
Sometimes they're in your competitor's site map...
that cant be true - using wordtracker i can find a keyword that has thousands of daily hits - and google itself is predicting 100's - yet still, all but one (which has has 2000 impressions in the 3 days - have no impressions - not a single one...
fair enough if they only had one or two, but zero? all of them?
sounds fishy... :(
Harley
Note: Anything around 30/month could probably be a webmaster checking their ad position.
the daily budget is very low
This could be one of your problems, up it for a day or so to do a true test.
Also, if you set the maximum amount per click on the ad group below Google's minimum for that particular keyphrase, your ad will not be shown for that keyphrase.
For example, if your ad group is set at .10 and keyphrase1 requires a minimum of .11, you will have no impressions for keyphrase1.
One thing to remember, impressions refer to your keyphrase/keyword and not to the number of searches on Google. Impressions show how many times your ad was shown and not how many times the keyphrase/keyword was searched, so if you have your ad group not set up correctly, you'll have zero impressions.
Hope this helps.
You didn't mention seeing that, so I assume that a low bid isn't the problem. As you posted above, "the key phrases have no competition."
One reason for a lack of competition is that the impressions aren't there.
that can't be true - using wordtracker i can ...
About Wordtracker
Although WordTracker is an interesting tool, I sometimes see that WordTracker's results are wildly different from the Overture and Google reports of the number of searches and impressions.
This is not surprising, as WordTracker uses dogpile and metacrawler search query information. The problem with that is that those two engines receive less that 1% of search traffic, and that information cannot be compared to the Overture and Google traffic, only to the traffic going thru dogpile and metacrawler.
Overture search statistics are important because they directly relate to searches done on Yahoo and MSN, among others. Google is important because it is.
Because WordTracker data is relatively small to begin with, in order to make it correlate to a pattern you may expect to find for Yahoo or Google, WordTracker multiplies the results in order to "Predict" (read, "guess") the searches being done on Yahoo, Google, and MSN. And that is all that wordtracker is giving you: A guess. You can read it here [wordtracker.com].
Authoritative Search Data
If you want actual and genuine search query information from sources with Authority, then I suggest to you again (see message#5): Give the Overture Bid Suggestion Tool a try.
I have greater confidence in the Overture Bid Suggestion Tool and the Google Impression Stats than the wordtracker results because the Google stats are real results based on the real Google Search Data, and likewise for the Overture data.
The wordtracker results are guesstimates.
I use them all, but my favorite by far is AdWords. I usually place a ton of words and keyphrases (including all kinds of crazy combinations) in an ad, and after a week or so, I have a pretty good idea what people are searching.
This is one of the great values of AdWords
