Posted on another forum board a couple of days ago but just found this one today so I thought I'd post here as well.
"My gripe is with adwords. I have started to explore the business possibilities using adwords. I started off about 3 months ago, with vey little expeirience or knowledge
I procceded to read and research the subject, and then started my first campaign. Admittidly it bombed through no ones fault but mine. I had I adgroup with about 5000 keywords in it!
So I have gradually refined my method and have arrived at the point of utter hatred towards google.
My current campaign kept getting slowed resulting in $5 charges to get it back up to speed. I had put my keywords into what I thought were tightly grouped categories with ads optimized for them.
I was getting alot of clicks and impressions, but keywords were getting put on hold all over the place, new keywords were getting put on hold before they'd even had any impressions, let alone clicks!
I ended up sending an email to google to question the situation. I recieved a reply from the support team kindly letting me know that my keywords were still to general, and not relevant to my ads.
No worries, it's a learning process I thought, back to the drawing board. I started a new campaign again with the same keywords, this time making the groups even tighter.
I had about half a dozen extremely closely matched words or phrases in the adgroup, with the ad optimized for them. All told I had about 25 different adgroups, and still not finnished the keyword list!
Guess what? the delivery is still being slowed down, and I'm getting charged after every third time, keywords are getting put on hold straight away with no impressions, and because my adgroups are super tight, I have entire adgroups that have all the keywords on hold!
I sent another email to google asking for an explanation, and the response was that my keywords are TOO SPECIFIC! and not getting enough traffic. Remember that the first email from them said my keywords were TOO GENERAL! They suggested using words like PC Error, and PC Security to get more traffic. The same ones that were put on hold or disabled because they were getting a ton of impressions and no clicks. i.e too general
I think anyone wanting to start adwords now is peeing into the wind, google are having a laugh at everyone else's expense, and I think it's a joke that they get away with it.
Rant over! back to pleasant mood, and looking forward to playing golf tomorrow.
If anyone has any comments or similar, or even completely opposite experience with adwords feel free to chip in."
A Recent update to this, is that I have deleted all the keywords that were put on hold, and moved the in trial keywords into their own adgroup to see how they go.
I have just had another slowed delivery message, and I can only see 2 keywords that are in trial in my whole campaign, still with near to no impressions.
At this stage I am very open to advise regarding what I should do next.
[edited by: tedster at 8:33 pm (utc) on May 12, 2005]
[edit reason] remove specific kws, per TOS [/edit]
Welcome to Webmasterworld!
I understand your frustration. It sure sounds like a challange I'd like to set my teeth in but it's way too difficult to do so without specifics.
However I have a few questions you might want to consider:
- does the number of keywords match the daily budget?
- does your max CPC match your daily budget?
- are you using exact match and phrase match (as opposed to broad match)?
- did you add negatives?
Good luck!
It sounds like you are trying to force Google into the time frame you want. I think it's interesting you compared it to peeing in the wind, because that seems like what you are doing.
If you pee into the wind, do you blame the wind for the urine that got on you? I think it's foolish to do so. The wind is the wind. You can't change it (butterfly theories nonwithstanding). You can't direct it. The best thing you can do is lick your finger and hold it up to see which way the wind is blowing. Once you know where it's blowing, you can figure out where to point so you don't get wet.
What I'm trying to say here is that you're up against a large company that is basically doing what it says it will do - periodically review ads and phrases to determine relevancy. By constantly sinking $5 into resuming keywords and complaining that your keywords are being paused, you really are peeing into the wind.
The key is to accept this periodic review as part of the normal course of things. Relax. Go sit down and have a glass of ice tea (or whatever you do that is relaxing). Wait it out.
By waiting it out, you will (hopefully) have approved keywords that will run for a fairly long length of time (at least until Google needs to review them again). I'm assuming that a lot of these reviews take place at the same time, so after your keywords/ads have gone through their review, others will likely be paused while Google does the same with them as it did to you. During this time, your ad might move up a couple of spots.
You also need to find that happy medium between broad and targeted. Assuming your in the field mentioned (Windows security/troubleshooting), you'll find that it is quite likely very competitive. Like any business, the key is to find areas that aren't oversaturated. Like any business, there is trial and error involved. I've had lots of campaigns that have lost me money, but (overall) I have done well. Just learn from your mistakes, cut your losses, and don't complain about the keyword review practices. It might seem like it's arbitrary and it's just against you, but really it is equally applied to all AdWords advertisers and it's meant to ensure that (in the long run) searchers will click on the ads (since they will ideally be relevant to the searches being conducted). In this respect, I think that (in the long run) Google is acting in the advertisers' best interest.
By constantly sinking $5 into resuming keywords
Could you please explain what is that?
I mean, can one pay $5 to get old disabled keywords to live again? How is that? Never heard of it.
Answers to your questions.
1) I have set my daily budget at $50 for this campaign, Before I went through the refining stage, I had google recommend a daily budget of $1080.
2) Keywords are set at 5c, I know some aren't going to make it into the top 8, so once I knew the stats I would delete anything that was ranked at 9 or 10+ for the CPC.
3) I have been using a great tool called adwords wrapper. Once I have my keywords I run them through this tool and it generates the search terms for them i.e broad etc.
4) I have added negative keywords to the adgroups, but only a few.
As for you being able to sink your teeth into this one, take the biggest bite you can! If you want more info just ask, or mail me, it would be much appreciated.
@BriGuy20
I know I should have more patience, but when you see one of your friends go from $0 to $5000 per month, and maxing out at $35000 over a few month period, I know it can be done.
He achieved those figures in about an 18 month period. He has been great with me, helping me set my thing up and running throught the basics, but understandably he is reluctant to give away all his secrets!
@BriGuy20I know I should have more patience, but when you see one of your friends go from $0 to $5000 per month, and maxing out at $35000 over a few month period, I know it can be done.
He achieved those figures in about an 18 month period. He has been great with me, helping me set my thing up and running throught the basics, but understandably he is reluctant to give away all his secrets!
If you look at infomercials and some other commercials, you'll almost always see the same 3 words in really, really small type:
Results not typical.
Seeing somone do something does not necessarily mean it is easy to do, or that you'll have a similar experience doing it. Lots of people look at Alex Rodriguez or Donovan McNabb or Warren Buffett or Bono or Chris Moneymaker and say, "I can do that!"
The problem is, they are looking at the best in their respective fields. These people often have a combination of skill and luck (and experience) that gives them an edge. In many discplines, you see the best people, but there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people that don't do nearly as well and/or fail at the respective discipline. We don't like to hear these stories, so there is this false perception that if that star can do it, we can too. I think it is a fallacy to make this attribution.
I'll digress that, yes, there are some people that can become greatly successful at what they do. These people are inspired in the same way as others, by looking at the best and brightest in their field and following in their footsteps.
Still, just because somone else did it doesn't mean that it's easy or you can do it. It doesn't mean you can't do it, either. It just takes time and practice and perseverance (and an ability to learn from your mistakes). Maybe you are part of the more successful group. It's impossible to tell if you don't try.
I think your mere presence here in this forum gives you a leg up. There is a wealth of information here if you look in the right places.
Best of luck to you.
I am sorry, but the only good news I have for you is - You are not alone.
Dig through this:
Google Search on WebmasterWorld [google.com]
You may start with this one:
[webmasterworld.com...]
As you can see the "On Hold" feature is the most loved one by AdWords users.
I was pushing hard concerning this "feature", but it seems that nobody in Google cares. The users like you complains here still again and again.
...the response was that my keywords are TOO SPECIFIC!
Wow. Thay have really sense of humor.
So maybe one useful thing at the end:
Do not let go you average CPC of whole account under 0,5%. This cause slowing and paying 5$. Remember that you must have 0,5% on Google only (not partner sites, nor content). So turn partners and content off. Pause the campaigns with small CTR, watch it closely to not go under 0,5.
After several days of good CTR try to turn on the paused campains and maybe to partners and content.
The biggest troubles with On Hold are mainly when people are starting new account or campaign. Even I (as QGAP) am wooried of it.
[edited by: tedster at 12:05 am (utc) on May 13, 2005]
[edit reason] fix side scroll [/edit]
Try looking at "find alternatives" (back end - can be seen when adding or editing terms in an AdGroup) for some of your high impression terms to see if there are suggestions for other search terms you might have missed. Using "find alternatives" is also a great way to expand your negative list.
I have set my daily budget at $50 for this campaign, Before I went through the refining stage, I had google recommend a daily budget of $1080
Keep in mind that the estimated clicks given by the Adwords tool is often far from accurate and that the actual spend rarely meets the recommended budget; however, reducing your budget means your ads will only be shown a fraction of the time... therefore, if you are using very specific targetted keywords make sure your budget meets or exceeds the recommended one and try that for a while.
If it makes you nervous, just keep your eye on it, with your finger on the pause button, until you get a better idea of traffic & conversions.
Ideally you want to be able to track conversions as well, so if you start getting too much traffic you can weed out less targetted keywords and make your ads more targetted, which should bring better results than just lowering your budget across the board.
Hope that helps.
Keep in mind that the estimated clicks given by the Adwords tool is often far from accurate and that the actual spend rarely meets the recommended budget...
reducing your budget means your ads will only be shown a fraction of the time,spaced out over a whole day, which is no good to you if all your traffic comes between 7-9pm ...
It also helps to start with a higher maxCPC to break in and then gradually lower it ... but that's another topic... anyway, my point is to start out generous to find the traffic, and then do your pruning/tweaking later. It can be tough to break into existing ads - OTOH you'll come to appreciate that fact later ;-)
Deactivate the search and content networks as they use up your budget while they blurr your CTR. Use language/country targeting as specific as possible when you start.
Interestingly, I've been getting the delivery slowed messages still, but no email from google to inform me.
I have also noticed that new keywords that are put on hold straight away, often turn to normal 10-15mins later, bearing in mind that they are in small groups with relevant ads.
I have also noticed that new keywords that are put on hold straight away, often turn to normal 10-15mins later, bearing in mind that they are in small groups with relevant ads.
I wonder - how many impressions it receives during that 15 min?
Do you just go through your adgroups deleting the on hold keywords, or is there another trick?
ps the recommended budget seems to be always more than you actually spend, at least for me. My daily spend has never gotten closer the 25% of recommended budget.
This $5 charge to restart every 3rd time is a load of bull in my view :(
Have you ever thought of using a google adwords consultants, they specialise in adwords. there are a couple in the uk here.
[edited by: eWhisper at 7:33 pm (utc) on May 23, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't drop links. [/edit]
