Estimates vs. actual

A tip for Adwords advertisers

[webdiversity]

Without mentioning URL's or sectors, we have just started a camapign for a client just on Google.

This is an issue that became popular because of the date. The estimated number of clicks per day according to Google when we set up the campaign was 1.2 clicks per day.

Since we set the campaign up a day ago we have had 285 clicks, each of them has cost 4p.

The lessons here are :

1. Take the estimate of traffic as just what it says, an estimate
2. Don't accept the price guide, that too is an estimate
3. Be prepared to monitor the campaign like a hawk for the first few weeks of the campaign being live
4. Don't tell your competitors

[vibgyor79]

Google's traffic estimate tool is absolutely useless. I never bother to look at the figures provided for each keyword. They should replace the estimate with impressions collected for the keyword in the previous month.

Okay - it may not be absolutely useless. They do give an indication of popularity of one keyword over the other.

[Mike_Mackin]

You need to "learn by doing it" with adwords.

Can't trust the numbers from one minuet to the next. That said, the traffic will convert well in some industries.

[hannamyluv]

I love it when I am raising my bid amounts and their traffic estimator gives me numbers that are a tenth of the traffic that I saw at the lower bid. Their estimators are so far of, they are completly a waste of space.

[ghostMonkey]

hannamyluv - I noticed that, too. I entered some keywords and it estimated 31 clicks at £0.04. So I increased this to £0.05. It told me I'd get 19.

That's not just inaccurate, that's b******.