Do your own impressions / clicks count?

[dmorison]

Does anybody know if Google tracks cookies between the Adwords administration tool and the main Google search engine, such that impressions of your own Adwords do not count towards the total impressions, and hence the CTR of your campaigns?

I'd like to do a fair bit of searching on the keywords for which my ads show-up (checkout out competition etc.), but i'm worried that it is going to adversely affect my campaigns.

Any thoughts?

[webdiversity]

All of your searches count in the same way as everyone elses. It's usually why we go ballistic when our clients say they have been looking and noticed X or Y. All it does is drive up the cost, and reduce the CTR.

There is no way of Google identifying your activity from that of others, to the point where they can exclude. If you think about it, do they do it for you and your staff, your agency (if you have one). So it all counts.

[dmorison]

Thanks - that's what i'd kinda assumed.

[hannamyluv]

Yeah, nothing thrills me more than when someone in another part of the company tells me they were surfing around on the web and noticed a few of our ads so they clicked on them a couple of times. :(

[Mike_Mackin]

We have a client with a relatively limited buget for their industry. The owner spends all day Sat & Sun trying to see their ads. Searches 10 to 20 times on a term and if they don't come up he sends me micro management type Emails.

I've told him time and time again that he will effect our CTR in a minor way. The ads are there but he will not take the time to look in the ad manager.

A least he does click when he finds one :)