Yesterday I calculated that I did no profits on 6 of my campaigns. I deleted them all. Next thing that happend was that my account was slowed. I removed all keywords that was below 0.5 and over 100 views without any clicks. Started full delivery.
I added a new campaign and it was late at night so I started keyword analyzer to see which keywords would get high clicks but didn't had to much with the affiliate program to do. I removed them and I hoped that I could catch up the bad keywords tomorrow (this day).
I wake up and was excited to see how my campaign was doing. I experienced a disaster. My account was slowed and I had to remove all slowed keywords in the new campaign. All the keywords that had no clicks was slowed and I mean all, from zero views and up. I removed them all and I guess I will have to start over.
Then I went to my other campaigns that was doing so well and tweaked to perform very well. Right? Wrong! I had to remove many keywords. Some keywords was slowed even if they where above 0.5% CTR. Every campaign I have has been slowed.
My question is. What is wrong with Adwords?
I don't know if I dare to add new campaigns.
Sincerely
Andla
/Andla
...My account was slowed and I had to remove all slowed keywords in the new campaign. All the keywords that had no clicks was slowed and I mean all, from zero views and up. I removed them all and I guess I will have to start over.Then I went to my other campaigns that was doing so well and tweaked to perform very well. Right? Wrong! I had to remove many keywords. Some keywords was slowed even if they where above 0.5% CTR. Every campaign I have has been slowed.
andla, this is actually a very big subject, and amounts to a short course on how to be successful with AdWords. There is no way to cover the entire topic in a single post, so I'll only be able to hit the high spots. There are lots of past threads on WebmasterWorld that cover this topic, so a site search should net you a lot more information.
With that said, here are some headlines:
* It all boils down to one thing: the whole AdWords program is founded on the principle of showing relevant ads to our users, as judged by our users.
* Here is how it is judged: what percent of the users who saw an ad found it relevant enough to click on? (In other words, CTR.) The minimum CTR standard is not unreachably high, BTW, and is about half of the average CTR.
* To avoid having your account slowed, you'll want to be very targeted every step of the way, rather than 'general'.
* This means that, at least until your account has a solid history, you'll want to use very specific keywords to trigger ads about the exact same thing as the keywords. Use multiple Ad Groups to allow the advertising of different products or services in very targeted ways.
* When an account is slowed, it means that the CTR performance for the entire account, measured across all campaigns and Ad Groups, has not met the minimum performance standard.
* The most recent 1000 impressions are weighted more heavily, but the entire history of the account is taken into account. This will prevent an account from being slowed when it has performed well over time, but badly over just a few days.
* Using large numbers of untargeted keywords, especially at first, can be a real problem - as they can get 1000 impression within a few minutes, if not within a few seconds - which can cause the account to be slowed if the CTR standard has not been met.
* When an account is slowed, all of the keywords which are a part of that pattern of low performance will be marked 'slowed'. However this does not mean that must delete all of them. Rather, it means you should evaluate all the words, and make an informed decision as to whether or not you should keep them. I'd suggest keeping words that you think will prove to be highly relevant to what the ad in that Ad Group is about, and getting rid of keywords which are not relevant to that ad.
* For newer advertisers, I'd suggest starting with a very limited number of keywords - because it is much easier to monitor and manage a dozen keywords than a thousand. Being new to AdWords, not really knowing how the system works, and using many hundreds - or thousands - of keywords is a recipe for frustration, in my opinion.
I hope this'll give you an overview of what is probably happening, and how to avoid it in the future.
AWA
Suddenly I have a lot of keywords that has something to do with the ad and where some of them actually will get a high CTR but to sort them out will take a lot of time. Adding thousands of those keywords will get them but doing so is to take a risk of getting slowed.
Is there a smart way of doing tests with lot of keywords just temporary to find the one that gets CTR?
I'm thinking of adding a temporary campaign and run it for a couple of hours, pause it to se the stats when it has updated, and then delete it. The problem is that I don't know if it will help by deleting it.
Still I would really appreciate some variables to watch out for that can warn me. For example if a variable has decreased below X% I must pause campaigns and delete under performing keywords.
Sincerely
Andla
Still I would really appreciate some variables to watch out for that can warn me. For example if a variable has decreased below X% I must pause campaigns and delete under performing keywords.
The real problem here is that if you have an account loaded with keywords that get a very high number of impressions, but then show an ad that is not highly related and gets only a few clicks, there is a good chance that the account will be slowed before your stats ever arrive.
In other words, an account like the one described above can get slowed in 10 seconds, but the first stats won't arrive for a minimum of three hours.
My best advice is to build your account slowly. Start with very targeted ads/keywords, and let the account get a solid CTR history. Once the account has a solid history, you may very well be able to add keywords that are sort of risky, and not get slowed. The solid history will save you.
AWA
If you have any information on how to watch out for variables please let me know. I'm especiall intrested in knowing when I'm on the edge of beeing slowed.
Sincerely
Andla
It can be hard to do when working with affiliate programs, but some actually have keyword reports.
I often get suprised to see the word combinations used for searches that actually pull up my ads and get clicks. And it is also a great way to think up new keywords, and decide what keywords to detete.
You wrote:
>>The minimum CTR standard is not unreachably high, BTW, and is about half of the average CTR.
This gives me some hint regarding the variable.
I suppose this is counted for the whole account all time CTR.
So if I delete any campaigns I should delete campaigns that has only a low average CTR.
If not then the 1/2 average CTR will trigger slowed status very quickly. Like in this case :-)
Thanks for your help.
I whish clickbank could implement a keyword report on sales.
You maybe could have different clickbank accounts and connect each of them to different adgroups. Then you could figure out which adgroup got the sale.
I guess some forum experts do :-)
Sincerely
Andla
