When this calculationis done, is Google using the Daily CTR, or the overall since the keyword's inception?
Furthermore, doesnt this mean that, if i have a KW Widget with a CTF of 1%, and change it to "Widget" - its now listed as a new KW with 0% CTR, and ive in essense hurt myself, correct?
When you change the parameters of a KW it is essentially "Deleted" - so all the stats from the last month or however long are forever lost, which is pretty unfortunate. Now i wish I hadnt messed with it.
I also (after reading up on KWs to their ADs) specialized some of my KWs by moving them to another AdGroup, which also of course erases all of their history. Was this all a bad idea?
Thanks for all your help, great site!
I know that the general formula is CTR * CPC and something else about where your competitors are ranked = Your Ranking.
Actually just CTR X Maximum CPC = Your rank number. Your rank number compared to your competitors rank number determines positions. (The higher number = higher position.)
When this calculation is done, is Google using the Daily CTR, or the overall since the keyword's inception?
It is the all-time CTR for the keyword that is considered.
Furthermore, doesn't this mean that, if i have a KW Widget with a CTF of 1%, and change it to "Widget" - its now listed as a new KW with 0% CTR...
Well, not quite. When you change a broad keyword to a phrase match keyword, our system sees it as a new keyword. However, as a new keyword it isn't started out at 0% CTR. It will actually start at the current average CTR for that keyword, as used by others, at that moment.
When you change the parameters of a KW it is essentially "Deleted" - so all the stats from the last month or however long are forever lost, which is pretty unfortunate. Now i wish I hadn't messed with it.
This is essentially true, because in the eyes of the system it actually is a new keyword when you change the parameters.
BTW, many on this forum are in the habit of using the same keyword, targeted in multiple ways, to see which performs the best.
Hope this helps a bit.
AWA
When you change a broad keyword to a phrase match keyword, our system sees it as a new keyword. However, as a new keyword it isn't started out at 0% CTR. It will actually start at the current average CTR for that keyword, as used by others, at that moment.
I don't think I've seen this specific amount of info before as to what the phantom CTR rate is for a new KW.
To make sure I'm clear (I'm glad you have a lot of patience to answer all these questions :)), if I make a new phrase match KW. G will look at only the other people with that phrase match KW to determine my phantom CTR? Or will it look at every ad that qualifies, i.e. broad, exact, and phrase for that KW CTR?
And based on this new knowledge and info Ive obtained from my other post, I think Im going to go the route of Adding Phrase or Exact KWs to my Broad KWs, but NOT deleting the old ones. If thats what those who are proficient in AdWords are doing than hopefully it will work for me too.
Thanks again!
I've also recently discovered that changing any creative(even just by putting a space in), resets the historical data of the creative and how often its served. Very similar to keyword history getting erased. In addition, the this sends the creative to the approvals bin and sits there, which means these ads are also not being distributed across the network until its approved. So, just like not deleting keywords with good history, i've found it risky to change creative with good history.
The difficulty here is that when you want to add aadditional new creative to test to this campaign, it hardly ever gets served,(1% in my case) since the history of the old is so good. This is why I inserted a space in the old creative, which reset it as new, so the two creatives would be served equally, but for several days, neither creative was served across the network, and I lost the ca. 2 months of incredible historical data behind my old creative. Lesson learned.
If you're having problems seeing multiple creatives being shown to find the better CTR rate - disable the ad optimizer for that particlar campaign until all your ads get the number of impressions you want to make decisions.
This way your historical data is still saved for that creative and you can try out new ones as well.
To make sure I'm clear (I'm glad you have a lot of patience to answer all these questions :)), if I make a new phrase match KW. G will look at only the other people with that phrase match KW to determine my phantom CTR? Or will it look at every ad that qualifies, i.e. broad, exact, and phrase for that KW CTR?
Yep, this is an excellent question eWhisper. (We've come to count on you for those!)
I want to get confirmation on this one before I reply, but I'll get back to you all ASAP. This has turned out to be quite the busy day, and I'll be away from my desk for most of it. (Just now got the chance to visit WebmasterWorld for the first time today, in fact.)
As a result, I may not get to this question until tomorrow - and probably the same for the one or two other threads to which I owe a response.
Thanks for bearing with me!
AWA
To make sure I'm clear (I'm glad you have a lot of patience to answer all these questions :)), if I make a new phrase match KW. G will look at only the other people with that phrase match KW to determine my phantom CTR? Or will it look at every ad that qualifies, i.e. broad, exact, and phrase for that KW CTR?
Well I finally managed to connect with the authority on this subject, and here is the scoop:
If you enter a new broad matched keyword the system gives you the average CTR for other advertisers using that keyword as a broad match, at that time.
And the same basic rule applies for "phrase" and [exact] matches:
* Phrase is given current average CTR of advertisers using the phrase match.
* And exact is given the current average CTR for advertisers using the exact match.
Way better than 0%, that's for sure!
AWA
What initial CTR does the system use for keywords it has never seen before?
thanks for the response.
Out of curosity (and this is just curosity so you don't need to track down the 'techy guys') if there is no one bidding for that exact KW, and yet others would show for it due to broadmatching, what kind of CTR do you initially receive?
Of course, a high initial ctr % for this type of KW could be advantageous to finding different ways of making an ad show for a kw if the default % could be higher than some of the ctr rates some very broad kws get.
If people are bidding on blue widgets, and blue widgets is a very broad term that has an overall low ctr, but has a lot of impressions.
And its found out that the broadmatch term crazy fuzzy widget (which no one is bidding on), is also broadmatched for blue widget. (and you manage with negative keywords to pretty much just show up for crazy fuzzy widget and blue widger searches which are your target market).
If you get a decent initial CTR rate when no one is bidding on a term, then bidding on crazy fuzzy widget when you want the blue widget exposure could produce a lower initial cpc and higher ranking than extablished terms as your phantom ctr rate given by G is higher than what people are maintaining with their blue widget ads.
