My apologies if this is a FAQ, and for it's length - I am a newbie.
I've had a quick search and could only find one other relevant post [webmasterworld.com...] but I would have thought this is a popular question.
I started an new ad-group and it blitzed my old ad-group so I dropped the max CPC from $0.30 to $0.10 because it was going too well and I wanted to reduce the cost. All keywords were strong or moderate.
Within one day I received notice "Your AdWords Account Has Been Slowed". Now, one of my keywords at the time had a CTR of 50%. There were only 4 impressions since the start of my campaign so it hadn't reached the magic 1000.
Anyway, I increased the max CPC back up to $0.30 and clicked on "Restore Full Delivery". 3 days later my account got slowed again!?!? I can't afford to keep restoring my account - as you will see below, I'm only small time.
I have looked on the adwords help but can't seem to find what I'm doing wrong.
What am I doing wrong?
So far this year I have had:
Keyword____status___clicks__imp__CTR
Total - search________8____1478__0.5%
Total - Content_______9____5001__0.1%
Keyword-1__Strong_____4_____332__1.2%
Keyword-2__Strong_____1______98__1.0%
Keyword-3__At Risk____1_____211__0.4%
Keyword-4__Slowed_____1_____200__0.5%
Keyword-6__Slowed_____1______76__1.3%
Keyword-7__Strong_____0______51__0.0%
and a handful more KWs with 0 clicks and < 100 imps
and in the other ad-group over the entire ad campaign
Total - Search_______42___7,707__0.5%
Total - Content______12___3,845__0.3%
Keyword-1 Strong_____28___2,305__1.2%
Keyword-2 Moderate____7_____922__0.7%
Keyword-3 Moderate____1_____125__0.8%
Keyword-4 Slowed______1_____413__0.2%
Keyword-5 Slowed______1_______5_20.0%
Keyword-6 Slowed______0______14__0.0%
No other KWs
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Kenton
Very briefly, the trick here is to take a look at all your keywords account-wide, and make an informed decision as to what to do with each of them.
Often the keywords themselves may be good ones, but the ad that shows up is not highly related enough. So you may want to consider breaking things down into more (and more targeted) Ad Groups. Ideally each Ad Group would be about one thing, and all of the keywords should be highly related to that one thing. IMO, it is almost always a good idea to put your 'best' keyword in the ad title too.
Developing a good CTR is all about meeting your potential customer's expectations. Bottom line, if a user searches on a keyword, then make sure they see an ad about that very thing. This will give you a good CTR per keyword.
Also, keywords that are specific to what you have to offer, as opposed to being very general, will get a better CTR.
And an account full of keywords with good CTRs will not be slowed.
It is difficult to offer specific suggestions here, due to the limited information available. However, if you write AdWords Support and request specific optimization tips, they will be happy to provide them. Please be aware that such a response usually takes several days, due to the high volume of email coming in, and the time it takes to review an account.
Hang in there, and I wish you the best of success!
AWA
I'll break up the adgroups.
I've spoken to support and they say that there is something wrong with my account as 25% CTR should not be showing as slowed.
In fact that KW is not slowed, just marked as slowed. This is a problem in itself in that it makes it hard to fix issues.
Oh well...
Kenton
I have split up my ads in to more relevant groups and things are a lot better.
However, in one ad group I am still being marked as "at-risk" for a couple of my best performing KWs
One has 1365 Imps, 0.4% CTR and 4.9 avg pos
The other 366, 0.8% and 3.4
I thought these figures were OK. Am I wrong?
Kenton
Personally I work on any terms that are not getting at least 1.0% CTR, because a slight change in click habits can quickly take it into a bad CTR for the 1000 impressions. I try to keep stuff above 2% if possible, though I really liek the 10% plus ones. :)
10%+ ..... you should be in advertising ;-)
