[edited by: Rehan at 4:10 am (utc) on May 31, 2007]
You have a much better chance of having your ads show if you have all those variations included in your list of keywords.
If your competition only bids on the one broad term because he assumes Google will show his ad for all those variations...and you take a few minutes to include all those variations in your adgroup...you will definitely have the competitive advantage.
The other advantage is that Google sees each individual word as a unique keyword with a unique history, quality score, CTR, etc. Broad "catch all" keywords historically have lower CTR's than the longer, more specific keywords so your competitor with one broad keyword can work hard at improving his landing page and testing new ads but he will probably never beat your CTR's.
since we're supposed to target specific keywords, this REALLY blows!
i have a very tightly targeted ad group, I mean super tight. Very specific keywords, phrase matched or better, i've bid in the range of $2 to $4 per click, no content network. here's some stats:
month clicks imps
feb07 2 8
mar07 2 10
apr07 3 10
may07 0 0
if you perform searches, my ads no longer show. the diagnostic tool says too low volume to show my ads.
my quality scores for all of the keywords in this ad group range as follows:
min: Great / Minimum bid: $0.02
max: Great / Minimum bid: $0.04
this is something people search for (though it is quite specific) and it did make money for me -- of those 28 clicks, i had 5 sales conversions, $463 in revenue, $69 in commissions for me as an affiliate.
so i guess Google doesn't have enough processing power to handle these keywords. with all the preaching about relevance and specificity (which I do agree with and preach loudly myself), there appears to be a limit. and that's super sad because in this instance, i am delivering exactly what the consumer is looking for - but G won't show my ads.
the painful part for me... there are ads shown for the keywords i am bidding on... 5 ads show for the core keyword my ad group is centered on... none of these 5 ads provide what is being searched for, but rather they provide a broad match to one of the words in the 2 word phrase... the consumer is NOT being served... what is searched for, is not provided in the ads G does show... this, of course, leads consumers to dismiss the ads with more frequency going forward... so this isn't good for me, google, all other adwords advertisers (ad blindness ain't good!), consumers, my merchant i'm advertising for OR for the advertisers running the competing ads... nobody at all benefits here.
And it blows!
[edited by: RhinoFish at 3:50 pm (utc) on June 1, 2007]
if so, what are your thoughts on it?
if not, think i should report this as an issue to adwords (their tool is giving me a programmed response, seems they've planned things this way)?
as i said, not allowing them, sours the consumer on the ads relevance and quality. it's also to nobody's benefit to show the ads they are showing, so this isn't sour grapes on my paret for getting beat or out positioned or whatever, what they are searching for is NOT shown in the ads, yet I am bidding on it. shame for all parties.
anyone else see their long tail clipped due to low volume?if so, what are your thoughts on it?
This is something similar to disabled keyword status (at least I think it was called this) they had before active / inactive status for keywords.
Was under the assumption that this didnt happen anymore but came to know a few months ago that Google has 2 keyword buckets. One the ad serving bucket of words and the another with keywords that dont generate enough search volume. It helps them save on server space or something. The only time such words will because truly active and move into the ad serving bucket is when the word(s) start generating high number of searches.
This is obviously silly because google is making us actively buying expensive words. I am sure no one minds getting 1 click a day on a long tail keyword. Usually long tail (depending on how you define it), might help get better conversions but unfortunately we dont even get the opportunity to figure that out.
95 groups x 6 clicks x $2 cpc = $1140 / month
i think they can fund an extra server.
:-)
Let's get AWA in here to tell us how he doesn't know the answer...oh wait that's another thread...LOL
Anyhow, the google reps are really pushing low numbers in adgroups and broad match all the way. The days of hundreds of thousands of exact matched keywords are over for google. Fortunately those days still exist on OV and MSN.
the consumer loves long tail - when they search for something very specific and it's there to click on - they come to love the ads. since G is making huge efforts to measure specificty and relevance, it is beyond my understanding as to why they'd shave the very best from the auction.
low volume is a horrible reason to block bidders. i understand they want volume, as any biz does - but including the long tail improves the consumer's experience and makes them more likely to keep on clicking on those ads.
if a search engine emerged that focused more on the long tail, i think they'd teach others a thing or two about roi. littering every serps page with broad match junk isn't sustainable. people, those that search, that i talk to everyday reiterate my beliefs in this regard. long tail ads are more than a necessity to sustaining interest in ads, they are the backbone.
looking at some of my low volume stuff that's not showing, again, I put my feet in every party's shoes - g, consumer, me, my competitors who are broad matching, etc - nobody is benefiting at all - and all are getting less than the best.
if not G, that's an opportunity that somebody will eventually cover.
Exactly. And when a consumer is looking for taupe, they mean taupe and not brown. If I then go ahead and enter a bid on that keyword and a landing page that goes with it and an ad that also goes with it - and i know from history that my CTRs will be very, very high - and so will my conversion rates... then i scratch my head when G turns them off for "low volume"...
In years past, when G couldn't verify that I really had taupe on my site to offer (they used to completely ignore the panding page), then I understand why long tail was viewed as overhead (where many people would be gaming G and entering vast amounts of long tail)... but today, with built-in specificty and relevance and ability for g to measure it so well, and to measure its outcomes so well too, blocking long tail is backwards... completely backwards.
Yes, this is low volume, but the point is that relevance and specificity shouldn't have limits imposed without very strong reasons - ones that are insurmountable. My own gains aside (this is a very tiny piece of my business), it's too important to serving consumers and preventing ad blindness.
