Ive done a ton of reading and a ton more reading to the point where my eyes are blurring ;) But, one thing i seem to have a problem grasping is strategy......
I do understand that how much you pay is governed by "The Formula". How well your CTR * Max CPC. Now, this sounds like the chicken/egg problem to me....
Is it safe to say that a good strategy when starting an adwords campaign is to bid high in the beginning in order to get the CTR up by getting more impressions and adjust from there?
Or better yet, perhaps a better question is how do you guys determine how much to bid on a campaign or keyword when you are just starting out a campaign; do you bid high or low? One thing i want to avoid is the death of a thousand cuts (ie. a slow death).
I have searched everywhere and read several books but am still confused as to what the best strategy is with respect to setting a bid price and how to govern that, do you always want to start out on the first page (ie bid high), etc....
What is your strategy in the beginning of a campaign?
Your input is much appreciated guys and girls.
the days of ROI from day 1 are long gone (in a lot of sectors), however at the same time I have seen ROI day 1, and then going downwards until your actual CTR?CPC is calculated.
google has some form of new account bonus points to help you get some impressions and let the marketplace decide on the rest.
Shak
1) Bid Low, very low (experience will help you judge what is a suitable bid for various keyword themes).
2) If bids are indicated as "inactive for search" consider whether or not you are prepared to offer the minimum bid. If so, raise some or all of your bids to at least the minimum.
3) Run the Ad and monitor the results. Make sure you monitor performance closely over the hour or two immediately following setting the bids - bid errors have been know to cost $k's.
4) As impressions and, more importantly clicks, start to be accumulated, adjust your bids as your budget and profitability permit, to achieve a suitable average position.
5) If insufficient Impressions are being obtained, increase your bid until you start seeing impressions of reach the maximum you are prepared to bid. Note that Search impressions usually start accruing immediately, Content impressions can take longer and may not reach their full potential for several weeks.
6) If Impressions are being obtained but no clicks, look to improve your Ad copy.
7) Don't make any major decisions without having data covering at least a whole week. Performance will vary significantly over a weekly cycle.
"your ad is not showing on the first page"....
Not necessarily the end of the world - for popular topics you can still receive some traffic from ads that do not show on the first page. If you are getting impressions but no clicks then you may be able to improve the performance by working on the wording of your ad.
If you are not receiving impressions then you need to work on improving the quality of your landing page and site and making these more relevant to the keyword, the ad text and generally provide a better experience for the surfer.
For some topics, it may be necessary to bid much more than you indicate unless you have a high quality relevant page and site.
