I have been using Adwords for a little while now and was wondering what is the best way to receive low cost clicks.
A) Run adverts in key positions (1-3) paying a high CPC and reducing this using targeted adverts with a high CTR?
B) Run adverts in lower positions bidding the minimum CPC with a targeted advert hoping the user will scroll down the page to see your advert and click through?
I have always used option 'A' averaging around 10% - 15% CTR on campaigns (whether this is good?) however I have not seen the CPC reduce to anywhere near the minimum CPC.
Any feedback on this will greatly help.
B) Run adverts in lower positions bidding the minimum CPC with a targeted advert hoping the user will scroll down the page to see your advert and click through?
I've actually had some amount of success with this, although not with every client. (Some of them just want to be in the top 3, no matter what)
It occurred to me one day that when *I* am searching in Google, I will search all the ads down to the bottom, because there's often so much crap at the top. If I see a really well written, targeted ad further down, I'm much more likely to click on that one then "find all the widgets you need at largeauctionsite.com."
So I decided to test it with a client whose main keywords were starting to inch over into "too high to maintain decent ROI given the cost of the product" territory. I targeted for the 5th to 8th position, and rewrote the ads to be as specific as possible. Much to my surprise, the number of clicks went up, and the CPC went way down. In this one market at least, there's a huge different between CPC at #6 and CPC at #1 or #2. Freed up a lot of budget dollars for expanding the campaign.
I just wish I could get some of my other clients to sign on for a test, but the one spending the most money is deathly afraid of not being at the top for even five minutes.
The reason I was asking the question was because I have a potential client with an existing Adwords campaign which is currently running with a CPC of 15p and a CTR 2.7%.
From looking at the campaign I can see what I would call the structure of the campaign is wrong. For example masses of keywords ranging from brands to actual products in a single Adgroup with only one advert created to cover all the keywords.
I would be confident that if I recreated the account and set up the keywords correctly and targeted the adverts in the right way would I significantly increase the CTR. However my concern is that with a new account being set up the CPC would be significantly higher than 15p, therefore how effective is Google in rewarding adverts with a good CTR history in reducing the CPC quickly?
If you delete your old campaign and restart , you are likely to lose any past CTR (perceived) benefit. You are also likely to lose your traffic from the content side as the algo will restart your campaign. I have gone through this and lost for 20 days before things stabilized.
However don't you think it will be more beneficial for the client to bite the bullet and dump a campaign which is not set up in the "correct" way for a campaign which will be structured correctly and should gain long term benefit, providing the algo reduces the CPC?
Very difficult to guess what will happen.
The CPC is sure to go up in the short term. It may not go down in the long term. So it is a gamble. It may be better to try and tweak the old campaign ..... Maybe lower bids on Content?, Reduce bid prices on Search and see if impressions still occur with inactive keywords etc etc . Maybe a better narrow (specific) match. Pause/remove 'broad match' keywords ...etc
If you delete your old campaign and restart , you are likely to lose any past CTR (perceived) benefit. You are also likely to lose your traffic from the content side as the algo will restart your campaign. I have gone through this and lost for 20 days before things stabilized
Don't know if this helps (from the go figure department) but last night I set up a new adgroup within an existing campaign, using similar keywords and going to a new landing page. It's running great -- no high minimum bids (yet), AND it got approved for content network in record time.
