One search, multiple impressions?

Am I getting distorted figures because of this?

[intwo]

I did a search on one of my keywords yesterday, and up pops my AW ad over to the right. I was checking for my page in the free listings (testing SEO), but it wasn't on the first page. So I went to the next page. It wasn't there either, but my ad was -- one of my other ads for the same keyword. Next page? Another ad for that keyword.

I had gone through my whole ad rotation in four pages.
(Didn't find my free listing until page 5, but that's another issue.)

Question: Did I just register four impressions for my ad?

If so, it would be way too easy for your CTR to be distorted. If G doesn't have ads for those next pages (not enough people bidding on those keywords), then I'm happy to have my ad repeated -- but if they didn't click on it on the last page, why are they going to click on it later? They're clearly looking for something else.

As someone who watches those statistics, this is worrying. And it might explain the low CTRs for those broad match keywords.

Anyone know?
Cheers.

I2

[sem4u]

Question: Did I just register four impressions for my ad?

Yes you did. Why not set the number of results to 100 using the advanced tab?

[intwo]

Why not set the number of results to 100 using the advanced tab?

Sorry, but for the life of me, I can't find an Advanced tab in the Adwords Control Panel. Can someone tell me where it is?

I2

[eWhisper]

It's not in the AdWords CP, its on the G search page right next to the box where you input your search terms.

[intwo]

Why not set the number of results to 100 using the advanced tab?

...or do you mean the Advanced tab on the search?

If so... I'm not worried about my four impressions. I'm worried everyone else that searches for my broad match keywords, and goes down four or five results pages, and sees (and ignores) my ad every time.

My CTR would have no relation at all to my actual CTR.

If that happened with every search (hypothetically), it would drop your CTR by over 75%, wouldn't it?

Example:

Say I got 1 click for every 10 searches.

And every searcher was going through 4 pages.

If there was one impression no matter how many pages they went through, that would be a 10% CTR.

But if I got four impressions on four pages, that's 1 click for 40 impressions. 2.5% CTR.

This makes the concept of CTR meaningless.
At least on ads with few competitors.

After all, if you see (and don't click on) my ad once, why should G be continuing to show it?

I2

[eWhisper]

If your CTR is going down because of that, so are your competitors, and since CTR matters in relation to how others are doing, your going down equally.

I've been known to click on an ad on page 5 that I've seen 4 other times, I'm sure others have as well.

[intwo]

If your CTR is going down because of that, so are your competitors, and since CTR matters in relation to how others are doing, your going down equally.

Agreed, but it's not much consolation if my KWs are listed as "At Risk" because of it.

I've been known to click on an ad on page 5 that I've seen 4 other times, I'm sure others have as well.

Me too. And repetition in advertising is a good thing. But that's not the issue. Multiple impressions in that scenario distort my CTR, and make it virtually impossible to gauge KW effectiveness.

There should be an option to run it both ways. Then I could test the search-to-click ratio, and get a less distorted figure.

I2