Desperate for more clicks.

My adwords spending is less each week.

[fischermx]

For some unknown reason my adwords spending is less each week. My ads are having a lower position (higher number) each time. This started on April, coincidently, a incident on many adwords campaigns showing crazy bids happened on April 5, I'm not sure if this is related.
But in order to help that situation I started to add more and more keywords each week, trying to get more clicks.

I've read that deleting keywords with low CTR will, indeed, raise my CTR!? Is that true? If so, how?
I just see less opportunities to get a click if I start to delete keywords.

[fischermx]

Any one could give an opinion on this?

[merlin23]

A couple of misconceptions there Fish; in my humble:

1)More key words does not mean more clicks

2)Deleting keywords does not mean less opportunities for clicks

Sure - deleting Keywords that are not working will increase your CTR.....

I think your (assuming) getting to tied up in the keyword thingy....

Concentrate on your Ad Copy.....thats the key...

Its Ad copy which gets the clicks - Keywords never got clicks..and never well.....

[chanceb]

I'm suffering from the same fate. I quite sure it's due to the adwords changes that took place the end of April. For me, I think it's due to a combination of two things. The first being the biggest issue.
1. Landing page quality score
2. The issue of broad match as opposed to exact match key words.

[fischermx]

I know about the Quality Score thingy, actually it was on April 5, how could I forget,
But about 2. The issue of broad match as opposed to exact match key words.
What's that? I've never heard of those changes.
And when that happened?

[jcmoon]

Fish,

Exact and broad are two options you have, referring to your keywords. I'd look into those, understand them then make a decision on which way you want to go.

good luck.

[jim2003]

Fisher.

I am not sure what the other poster means. But I think they may be referring to how broad "broad match" really is. I don't think anyone outside of the algorithm developers probably really know what constitutes a "broad match". But if Google makes "broad match" broader, all advertisers on that keyword get more competitors. More competitors usually mean fewer impressions and fewer clicks.

For example say you bid on only the exact match [peach pie]. Google may one day decide that broad match includes all phrases that include either "peach" or "pie". That adds a certain number of advertisers for you to compete with.

Now assume at a different time Google decides broad match for [peach pie] should be broader and expands matches to include any search term with "fruit" or "dessert" in the search term. That would add a bunch more advertisers for you to compete with. So even though you didn't change anything, Google has changed the landscape around you by broadening or tightening broadmatch. Personally I suspect this accounts for a lot of fluctuation in my own results, when I see big spikes or dips in impressions.

[elsewhen]

the theory described by jim2003 is verifiable... find an adgroup in which you have high impression values for both a broadmatch and an exact match keyword. chart the impressions over time. of course there are other factors that can impact the results, but if you repeat this charting for different sets of keywords in different adgroups a pattern will likely emerge.

my interpretation of the results, however, would include another component not mentioned by jim2003. if google was in fact tightening broadmatch, i would expect this to directly decrease the number of impressions for that keyword. this would happen regardless of increased competition:

That adds a certain number of advertisers for you to compete with.