Adwords Keyword Status

something new afoot?

[mcguffin]

It seems that the Adwords Campaign manager now rates the relative strength of each keyphrase in the group, based on its CTR. Status terms include:

• Strong
  
• Moderate
  
• At risk
  
• Slowed
  
• Disabled
  

I checked the recent threads and searched the archives, but it looks like this is a new development. Have we seen this before?

[ed]completed status list, cleaned grammar, and added bullets[/ed]

[edited by: mcguffin at 2:59 am (utc) on Dec. 12, 2003]

[qfguy]

how long did he wait? CTR is hours behind real time. Perhaps status is not as far behind or not behind at all?

Perhaps when you drop to add #5 you will not be displayed on many Adsense sites (because x number of sites only have the top 4) and the algo factors in your ad's fewer projected impressions and the resulting probable changes in ctr?

lots and lots of possibilities.

to allege 'criminality' is, frankly, ridiculous.

all the whining aside, business is business. I don't like paying the real estate broker 6% and I am free sell my house myself.

[RedWolf]

Is it possible that Google maintains a projected CTR for positions based on historical data? If the terms are relatively new, or slow to get impressions, the historical CTR for the position would have a bigger effect than that of the ad at first. Similar to the estimators behaviour. without knowing more about the situation, there seems to be too many factors that are involved to deduce much. And how can you determine that the CTR is unchanged when you do not see the Google CTR and the reports are usually three hours or so behind?

[justageek]

how long did he wait?

Don't know. Only he can say.

to allege 'criminality' is, frankly, ridiculous.

About as ridiculous as 'price fixing' an auction when all agreed to pay more :-)

business is business.

Yes, and an IPO is on the horizon.

JAG

[qfguy]

Redwolf,

precisely.

It is good for us to remember (or acknowledge) that we cannot and should not know with much precision the ins and outs of the algo. That is the only thing google has to sell. They must maintain a balance of proprietary secercy while allowing their customers (us) to be able to determine value.

I think they do a pretty good job. My company would not exist without adwords.

[qfguy]

About as ridiculous as 'price fixing' an auction when all agreed to pay more :-)

ahhh.....I see.

[justageek]

Is it possible that Google maintains a projected CTR for positions based on historical data?

I'm sure the data is collected but going by historical data could in theory change the status at anytime for anyones campaign which would make the status indicator of no value to each individual. In other words, if the status is less than stellar then just wait for someone elses similar campaign bring it back up for you.

JAG

[justageek]

It is good for us to remember (or acknowledge) that we cannot and should not know with much precision the ins and outs of the algo.

Agreed :-)

JAG

[spud01]

Now people who don't know the system will panic if they see 'at risk' and bid more.

This brings the point home, for those of as only choosing to advertise on google and not on the partnered sites, we are faced with no option on improving the CTR for that keyword. Outbidding isn't going to help a keyword be safe from been disable, as it does not have the influence of Google's search pages if niche keyword is performing poorly over a period.

Classic example would be 'super bowl' as a keyword which will not perform well in google when the super bowl is 10-months away. Of course a keyword like 'super bowl' will probably have loads of searches regardless the time of the year, but it shows that poorly performing keywords on google cannot be save on google CTR alone.

Only remedy IC to improving the status of a keyword is to run the ad also on the partnered sites/Google Adwords network.

[Eternity]

spud01: i think your remedy might work.