Additionally I am not sure forecast position is correct either - when I use Ads Diagnostic tool it tells me that my ad is not on the first page, yet, the estimator says current/forecast position is between 2 and 3.
The discrepancy between forecast and actual is so huge that it totally depressed me as I hoped to get decent traffic using AdWords :(
The only solution is to effectively see what's happening by doing it.
As positions depend on CTR & CPC, it must be very difficult to compute accurate predicted position and click data. Throw in everyone else chaging their ad copy and CPCs and it must be even more complicated!
I think the estimators are based on a CTR of 2%? If so it will not take into account a doubling of clicks if you are achieving a CTR of 4%.
Also, it is very poor at those very specific keywords with few searches. These can often be the ones with the highest ROI so I like them! :)
You just have to test things yourself as the traffic estimator is just not reliable IMO.
I can understand inability to predict everything but the delta between current prediction and reality is just way too high.
And what really gets me is that $5 charge on restart of campaign, its pretty sneaky and it almost tempts to click my own ad to get CTR above minimum threshold :(
I tried Overture's estimator and they say similar number of clicks but for the whole month rather than day, and they base it on 5% CTR: something is seriously wrong somewhere.
While on the subject -- is account slowed down on the basis of overall CTR or it is sufficient to have one or more words that don't perform?
