Shortest way to No1?

How long should I keep CPC Up, for the CTR to improve?

[Kukenan]

I understand that by keeping your CPC high for a while you can force your CTR up and then Adwords will reward you by maintaining the Ad in a higher position for less money.

My question is: How long must I pump up the money? Days, months?, N number of Impressions?

Lets not consider Ad copy on this one.

Any comments?

[Robsp]

Lets not consider Ad copy on this one.

Ad copy is a key factor so forgetting it does not make any sense. Just make sure your ad copy is strong and very relevant and your CTR will go up and so will your position while avg CPC goes down.

There is a relation between max CPC and position but if your CTR is lousy you will end up paying way to much and your competition will be happy.

[Syzygy]

Ad copy is a key factor so forgetting it does not make any sense. Just make sure your ad copy is strong and very relevant and your CTR will go up and so will your position while avg CPC goes down.

Sounds about right to me Robsp. I've just got a couple of ads promoted up to the prime 'G-Spot', and I'm incredibly impressed particularly as I'm paying absolute min bid for them. Good copy, and thus relevancy, is key.

Syzygy

[Kukenan]

Good point but...

Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly.

Ad copy is a factor, maybe THE factor.

But lets supose there are two identical Ads.
One of them has been online for a while and gets a lot of clicks. The other Ad is new and has never been clicked.

AdWords wil give preference to the oldest Ad. The new Add could only top the other by bidding ..say... 3 or 4 times what the first Ad pays per click.

There has to be a limit to this, based on time, clicks or something else. After this time, both Ads would have the same chance of appearing on top.

Am I making this more complicated?

[Robsp]

This is very hypothetical but adwords is very quick in these cases. If ads have the same CTR, a higher max CPC will put you on top almost direcly and hence get a slighly better CTR as Nr 2.

This is very hypothetical as there is no such thing as ads with the same CTR.

What do you want to accomplish here?

[Kukenan]

Robsp,

I used to have a good position with some Ads I wrote a long time ago. I could reach No 1 by bidding about $1 per click.

I tried to save some money and reduced the bidding to about 20 cents and I fell down to about No 9 or 12 on average. This went on for about a year and I relied on the free listing for those products.

The thing is that going back to where I used to be will cost me about $5 per click since the CTR fell down as a result of not being in a good position.

Should I pump it up to $5 and (loosing money) wait for the CTR to be decent and then lower the CPC to a more reasonable price? How long should I keep the $5 level for AdWords to realize the new CTR and allow me up for less money? another year?

I know my competitors are not bidding 5 bucks. The margin on the products wouldnt allow it.

Am I making any sense here?

[GuitarZan]

Hey,

I too would like to see an experts answer on this question. I have never used this method of gaining CTR.

All the Best,

C.K.

[PatrickDeese]

I sat thru the Google adwords online presentation and learned something that I hadn't known - Google actually has a ranking algo based on your title and content of your adwords - so it is very advantageous to target individual keywords with tailored adverts.

[eWhisper]

Here's a thread from earlier in the year on this topic:
[webmasterworld.com...]

There's another one around here from last year as well, but I can't seem to find it ATM.

[4crests]

Kukenan, I would change your Ad slightly before you pump your bid up. That way you start from scratch working on your new CTR.

I may be wrong on this, but it seems to have worked in a couple similar cases for me.

Someone else on the other thread suggested that you may have to delete the keyword totally from your campaign for it to reset. I wasn't aware of this, but could be the case. Whatever, the case, i would think you would want to start with a clean slate.

I agree with the post above that Adwords is pretty quick on calculating.

[Robsp]

As usual I agree with eWhisper and that is an excellent post.

When we deal with issues like this we also work with much more specific keywords and generally longer keyword lists. Many of our competitors are fairly lazy bidding on a handfull of words and driving the price up (to a point were no one is making any money other than Google).

We use much more specific longer keyword lists and get better conversions at much lower prices this way.

It is more work but that is what we are getting paid for :)

[Kukenan]

I believe I get it now.

The CTR is averaged from the total life of the Ad. So If I delete the Ad (or just edit it) I will have better chances of rising to No 1 than by using a 2 year old Ad.

Time to run some experments!

Thank you guys.

[HarleyGuy]

if google uses a algo of ctr as well as ad price for the sole porpose of keeping big money from dominating. then how could paying more get you higher?

[eWhisper]

The CTR is averaged from the total life of the Ad. So If I delete the Ad (or just edit it) I will have better chances of rising to No 1 than by using a 2 year old Ad.

Just to clarify, in the Bid Rank Formula the Ad's CTR doesn't matter.

The only reason the ad helps you in this process as it has a good proven CTR in it's established history so you know it works well and gets clicks.

It's the keyword's CTR that matters when trying to get into the premium position, but a keyword won't be clicked without a great ad to promote it.

Hope that makes sense - think it's time for a coffee break soon :)