Traffic estimator broken?

Why is it showing different cost for the same traffic depending on entries?

[zgb999]

As Adwords support gave an answer as a politician would (saying a lot without saying anything...) maybe some of you have a clue for this.

I tried to get a best guess for a yearly budget for a non-profit organisation.

I entered different maximal CPC values and depending on the maximal CPC I entered the cost for the very same amount of traffic was up to 6 times higher (with the same settings).

Why is the traffic estimator increasing the estimated range of the cost of a campaign? Why is it telling me that the estimated range of the cost is 6 times higher for the same traffice if I increase the maximum CPC I am willing to pay?

[Marketing_C]

I tested this for one keyword and it is really strange. Depending on the max. CPC the results are different indeed:

With a max. CPC of 100 I get

Average CPC ... Position..... Clicks ...... Cost
2,79 - 3,48 .... 1 - 3 ........ 158 - 197 . 450 - 690

With a max. CPC of 4 (still above the average CPC mentioned above) I get

Average CPC . Position .. Clicks ..... Cost
2,03 - 3,04 .. 1 - 3 ...... 121 - 152 . 250 - 470

Those figures don't seem to make sense.

[edited by: Marketing_C at 1:41 pm (utc) on Jan. 22, 2007]

[zgb999]

Is this issue widely known?

It is strange that not more people are questioning why Google is asking for a higher budget for the same traffic if you are willing to bid higher.