Multiple sites targetting same keywords

Curious as to how this works..

[kenwx23]

Alright, I have a single campaign set up in my AdWords account right now for one web site. I have a few thousand keywords within a few AdGroups. Despite my monthly budget being set at something like $1000, I rarely get more than $4-6/day in click throughs because I have my max CPC set at $0.15 for very competitive terms. I am relying on the huge number of keywords to generate enough clicks for me to survive since I cannot compete with the big boys for the vast majority of the popular terms.

It is working rather well for me right now...getting about 40-60 clicks per day, which I assume is the maximum amount possible given the inventory for my keywords and my max CPC.

Now, in an effort to expand my business, I would like to create a network of very similar sites which link to each other as opposed to AdSense ads in order to keep these consumers within my network of sites. I figure every 5-10 AdSense clicks every day I receive are potentially lost customers.

My question is, if I were to set up different AdWords campaigns for these different sites, but use the same keywords in each campaign, are they going to steal from each other? For instance, if I set up 5 campaigns for 5 different sites, with the same budgets and same keywords, will those 50 clicks I receive every day be split amongst the 5 campaigns, i.e. each campaign would receive an average of 10 per day? Or, will each campaign receive the 50 clicks individually?

Thanks,
Ken

[abbeyvet]

Hi and welcome to Webmaster World!

I believe the answer is that they will steal from each other.

Are you sure you are going the right road in creating a network of sites? There are considerable down sides to that approach not least that you may incur a Google penalty, though I know some people are able to make it work for a time anyway.

I figure every 5-10 AdSense clicks every day I receive are potentially lost customers.

I wouldn't look at it that way at all. What they may well be are people who would never have been customers, and thus never worth anything to you, now leaving a tip at the door on their way out.

[eWhisper]

In the same Google account, at any one time, only one ad will ever show.

Therefore, if you're going to use the same keywords in multiple campaigns that you currently use in just one campaign, you're just going to split you clicks from one into many campaigns, and still receive the same amount of total clicks per day.

[kenwx23]

Thanks guys, appreciate the responses. I actually just figured out how to search these boards and was able to find a ton of great information about the topic.

Increasing my max CPC would appear to be the only way to solve the problem, but it is a frustrating solution since doubling it certainly won't double my clicks (I've tried.) I may receive 10-15 more, but the cost of my individual clicks will all rise and thus those 10-15 extra clicks will have an overall extra cost of $3-4/day whereas I'm used to getting the initial 40-60 clicks for nearly that much.

Guess there's no way around it really besides fine tuning my adgroups and ads to increase CTR, and that's really what we should be doing anyway I suppose.