Adwords and Overture

Actual Prices and Estimator Estimates

[Advertiser 123]

I have tried to use their estimator and would like to know if anyone here can say how close are the estimator prices to what you are actually paying?

Which one is known to have higher prices (in general) Overture or Google?

[eWhisper]

The estimator prices on G are pretty worthless. If I want a good price, I go for niche keywords with high CTR. If I want max exposure, I overbid. Due to Gs system of price vs. ctr for ranking and the fact they lower your bid to be just above the next competitor once it's done, you can overbid but never pay the inflated price in many industries (just be careful you don't get stuck with the inflated prices for the industries that really watch people doing that).

As far as which is more expensive, it's totally industry specific. Some of my clients pay a lot more on one or the other, and it really depends on the keywords involved.

[Advertiser 123]

So is the estimator a measurement tool you can trust that will provide you with a close estimate (-/+ 10%) accurate information on how much you will indeed pay when you will be bid for a position on an ad?

Dont they use an average CTR to estimate and provide you with a price and position per click?

Have you been paying more or have you been paying less than what you have seen on the estimator after using it in real time?

[eWhisper]

It realy depends on the keyword. I have some that the estimated traffic and position are way off, both higher and lower. One particular keyword Google estimates to budget $50/day for, and I only spend maybe $10 a day and am always in the first 1-2 positions. The only way to tell is to experiment and see how the words preform.

[martinibuster]

The estimator prices on G are pretty worthless.

I have some that the estimated traffic and position are way off, both higher and lower

In many cases, some of those figures may appear a little off because there are other keyword combinations, possibly irrelevant to what you are bidding on, that others are bidding on, at a higher rate.

So, if you are bidding on "A" and "B", there may someone else bidding on "A" "B" and "C" at .90/click.

Because you're ad will show up for the terms "A" "B" and "C" the estimator will tell you that you need to bid above $0.90/click. Even though the lowest rate for "A" and "B" is $0.27, the estimator is being accurate in telling you that you need to bid above $0.90.

[eWhisper]

I analyze the logs pretty closely, and terms that only get 20-50 searches a day are still estimated too high or too low. I'm not talking about terms that get 1k+ searches/day -- for those, I'd completely agree that there could be other terms that mess up the formula.

As an experiment, I looked at our broadest campaign. Google estimated the campaign price should be $50/day to maximize our bids. We put the spend cap at $50/day. After one week, we'd been number one the entire week, and spent a total of $135 with a nice ctr for that campaign.

It could be that the G estimator doesn't take into account negative keywords, and the impact that has on search totals.