I get about 4% CTR and know most of this is due to AOL/ASK and GAIN (which, although I don't particularly like the GAIN thing - these positions happen to convert well so this is exactly where where I want to be!)
But because the traffic isn't pure Google, I get disabled.
Please - what do I do to get back into the game?
And how do I stay out of the darn "at risk" room at the hospital?
New and better ads. Dump a bunch of them on. The pros seem to recommend that you turn off the automatic ad rotation thing so that all ads are displayed in in equal amounts until you find out which ads perform. It also seems that ads get stale. I don't know how this can be but I've read that it happens.
Secondly try increasing or decreasing your bid amount to increase or decrease your position. That can produce results.
Or keyword relevance could play a part.
Quite simply, if Google's disabling your ads then not enough people are clicking on it. You need to get more people to click on it (I know that sounds simplistic - the problem is actually that simple. More people click, no more disable ads).
I figured this was only going to be good for a click or 3?
I don't need hundreds, but 50 or so would make a difference every few months or so and unless I miss my guess, the big G won't go for this, right?
My preference would be to hear about other 'legal' tactics once the ad is improved, the negatives are in place and the tracking is showing these words are "money words".
One trick seems to be to turn off content and partners (where I get my best conversions!) for a while so as to get pure Google clicks.
Another trick would be to lower the bid so it is below # 3 so as to not be syndicated for a while.
Another might be to turn off the negatives for a while to build up those clicks.
I can imaging plenty of tricks - I just wish there was a better way than watching and tweaking things every now and then (and walking a very fine TOS edge)...
AWA are you listening?
I am blessed with high CTR from AOL / ASK / GAIN.
Concurrently, I am cursed with a low pure Google CTR.
(I am also blessed with .05 cost keywords and well over 2 man years into this account!)
Yes, 5 clicks per 1000 is no big deal, but when you are dealing with dozens of campaigns, it sort of gets tedious trying to figure out where to get those 5 clicks (times dozens of campaigns) every month...
Alternately, I end up having to open new adgroups, which also gets tedious, month after month.
Honestly, I tend to forget them if I don't watch them closely, and when that happens, there's always the scale up before they syndicate out to AOL etc and that hurts conversions...
All this analysis and running around (sort of like getting pecked to death by ducks) - there has to be a better way!
AWA are you listening?
Yep, although I just got here again, in-between other tasks.
Wholly apart from whether or not is officially OK to click on one's own ad, I'd never suggest it as a way to keep an at-risk keyword running. It is, at best, a expensive work-around for a problem that should be directly addressed instead.
The problem is the one wheel suggested in this quote:
Quite simply, if Google's disabling your ads then not enough people are clicking on it. You need to get more people to click on it (I know that sounds simplistic - the problem is actually that simple. More people click, no more disable ads).
To what wheel has written, I'd add a bit of clarification: In terms of keeping an at-risk keyword running, it is not the simple number of clicks that you get that matters at all. Instead, it is percentage of users, who, having seen the ad find it relevant enough to click on, that matters. This is your CTR, of course, and it a very real measure of the relevancy of your ad to the users who see it.
The problem you are facing, to boil it down to it's essence, is that users on Google are not finding the ad that comes up relevant to the search they performed.
And the solution probably lies in creating an exceptionally well targeted ad.
Wheel wrote:
My 2 cents only, but I think you may be overanalyzing the problem. If you can't even get to a 1% CTR on Google then I think the problem is likely to be fairly fundamental. Improve your negative keywords don't delete them. Try more ad copy (and then some more again). And tinker with your bids up and down. And failing that, make sure you're keywords are relevant to your ads. Low CTR is almost certainly one of these issues. I think the stuff you're talking about is used more when you've got 4%CTR and you're shooting for 5 or you're trying to increase your ROI.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Except I'd say that making sure that your keywords are relevant to your ads (or the other way around actually), is the critical first step.
AWA
Thanks AWA - I knew you were going to turn up sometime!
I can't stress this -- I have optimized the ad copy to a fare-thee-well.
I name the age group. I offer them genuine free stuff. I've modified this many times and know what pulls best. I'm optimized about as far as I can go with ad copy, and with several hundred negative adwords.
I get GREAT CONVERSION with AOL/ASK/GAIN. Yes I use a very sophisticated tool to do this and I and my client are extremely pleased with the (rather labor intensive) outcome.
There's only so much I can do with ad copy, and having overanalyzed the copy and all the silly tweaks for over 12 months, I can't really make many improvements other than to do the impossible and 'cloak' the add for Google Users only and say something about Brittany!
Kids just don't seem to use Google enough to be able to make any difference, particularly when I get thousands of clicks from AOL/ASK.
<rant>
Back when we started, a large campaign was operating on 'set it and forget it' mode. It worked fabulously. Then along came the 'status' rules and things started to drop off as certain critical keywords got disabled, unbeknownst to me. I figured it out, but now, it takes all this silly time, when once it worked wonderfully.
Google - please don't continue to make things MORE difficult!
</rant>
