Has Google reached maximum capacity?

[jr7591]

Great QS, but not one of the new ads in the new campaign will show as, even at the long tail, existing advertisers have taken all the top spots, and some.

Not one cent spent, and the campaign will end in a couple of weeks.

Google is losing out, and that cannot be good for Google. It's certainly not good for the ad campaign and project.

My question is has Google reached maximum capacity?

What can Google do about it?

[tomasvdb]

you can always increase your prices...

[jr7591]

They are already well above the maximum. ;)

[mike_ppc]

Depends which maximum...

[jr7591]

"Depends which maximum... "

Would you care to elaborate?

Daily budget is over the Google recommendations, CPC is well over the Google recommendations.

If you get the message that its rank is not high enough to place it on the first page of search results suggests to me that Google's system is at its capacity.

I'm open to suggestions, for the sake of everyone suffering the same fate.

[LifeinAsia]

I'd never go by their maximums- pretty meaningless to me.

If you get the message that its rank is not high enough to place it on the first page of search results suggests to me that Google's system is at its capacity.

That suggests to me that your bids are too low.

If "existing advertisers have taken all the top spots" that also suggests to me that you are bidding on very competitive terms and that you should expect to increase your bids.

[jr7591]

"That suggests to me that your bids are too low."

How do you decide what is high enough? It's set for nothing less than many times the Google figure. For example, if it's a 0.03 item kw (according to Google), and set for 0.50, are you telling me that's not high enough?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

jr7591, it sounds as if you may be confusing Minimum CPC (which is the minimum amount that the AdWords system determines that an advertiser must pay in order for an ad to appear for a given keyword) and Maximum CPC, which is the most that an advertiser is willing to play for a click, per keyword.

In very brief summary:

Minimum CPC does not effect your ad's position relative to competitors. Rather it determines if your ad will show at all. Minimum CPC is set by the AdWords system.

Maximum CPC does effect your ads position relative to your competitors. Maximum CPC is set by the advertiser.

It's set for nothing less than many times the Google figure.

I'm curious to know which 'Google figure' you are referring to. Minimum CPC? An estimated CPC figure from the traffic estimator?

<added text below>

As I re-read your initial post, I am also not clear whether you are getting any impressions at all?

Has Google reached maximum capacity?

This one's easy. In a word: no. ;)

AWA

<edit> fixed typo and added text as noted </edit>

[edited by: AdWordsAdvisor at 8:50 pm (utc) on Nov. 15, 2007]

[LifeinAsia]

How do you decide what is high enough?

That's entirely up to you. First, you have to decide what are you trying to accomplish with your campaign.

If all you want is lots of clicks, then keep increasing the bid higher and higher until you start getting the number of clicks you desire.

If you're trying to maximize ROI, then you need to figure out your target acquisition costs and bid accordingly. If you can't bid below that number, then you shouldn't be bidding on that keyword, since it won't meet your ibjective.

[HRoth]

I have been using Adwords for a while now, although I am sure what I spend there is very small potatoes compared to the vast majority here. Still, I am getting a good clickthrough rate on most of my terms. I feel that's because for one, I don't even bother trying to compete on really popular terms in my niche. Second, after finding that I did not want to pay what Google thought was necessary for me to "re-activate" a term, I went through all my terms and tried to think like a customer instead of thinking like my competitors. I was able to come up with a number of terms that no one was bidding on at all and that get me high click-through rates, a few as much as 70%, once in a while even 100%. These terms continue to do well months later and still no one else is bidding on them. So that is one way to get around the feeding frenzy on certain terms.

Along those lines, recently I was searching to compare prices on an item I sell and found my own site in the top five results. I was surprised, because I never optimized that page or thought much about it. I looked around, and turns out there was this whole little subsector I was ranking really well in and yet I wasn't thinking of that group of customers as a separate entity, wasn't trying to market to them. This made me reconsider the type of products I will expand with.

Sometimes it is hard to think like a customer instead of a merchant.

[mike_ppc]

jr7591, I hope your questions have an answer now. AWA's post was very clear.

"How do you decide what is high enough? It's set for nothing less than many times the Google figure. For example, if it's a 0.03 item kw (according to Google), and set for 0.50, are you telling me that's not high enough?"

If your bid (maxCPC) is above what Google is requesting means that your keyword is eligible to be displayed, but on what position? Have you searched for that keyword to see what position are you displayed on? It could be 50-80-100 ... and of course you don't get many impressions on that position!