I come back in the morning and was shocked to find that the ad group got no impressions, so I look in the ad group and it says.
"Inactive for search"
"Increase quality score on bid to $0.23 to activate"
Every keyword had this, some were even higher ($0.35)... How can it just go up like that out of the blue? It doesn't even warn you or tell you if the ads stop, as far as I can tell.
Sorry for the what amounts to a 'pre-written response below.
However, I wanted you to have a bunch of info so you'll have a good background regarding what is going on when you have keywords going 'inactive for search' - and it's quickest to use the info below which was written previously. ;)
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Lots more information about this subject, the understanding of which is important to success with AdWords, is available within the AdWords Help Center and AdWords Learning Center. Here are a few good places to start:
* Quality-Based Minimum Bids
[adwords.google.com...]
Excerpting from that page:
[...] Minimum prices are based on the quality and relevance of the keyword, its ad, and associated landing page. This minimum price is called a minimum cost-per-click bid (CPC bid). This pricing model favors higher quality ads by requiring lower minimum CPC bids for them to enter the auction. Lower quality ads require higher minimum CPC bids."
* What is a 'Quality Score' and how is it calculated?
[adwords.google.com...]
On the page linked-to below, you'll find some general guidelines regarding the creation of landing pages that could help improve your landing page quality score:
* Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines:
[adwords.google.com...]
Also, please be aware that there are some types of websites that will simply be difficult to advertise affordably with AdWords - as discussed on this page from the AdWords Help Center:
* Are there any types of websites that merit low landing page quality scores?
[adwords.google.com...]
Finally, in case you might wish to take a really deeper dive into the subjects of quality-based minimum bids, quality score, landing page quality and so forth you, will find literally dozens of pages of information, starting with the four links on this page:
* Ad Quality and Performance
[adwords.google.com...]
AWA
"Inactive for search"
"Increase quality score on bid to $0.23 to activate"Every keyword had this, some were even higher ($0.35)... How can it just go up like that out of the blue? It doesn't even warn you or tell you if the ads stop, as far as I can tell.
Just a curiousity question if you don't mind.
Are you US based?
Whenever they raise my mininum CPCs, it's always a fairly arbitrary base 10 amount.
.20 cents USD
.40 cents USD
.50 cents USD
1.00 USD
5.00 USD
10.00 USD
Never an amount that seems like any proper calculation went into it. In fact since the Min CPC seems to be done in an automated fashion, I'm accustomed to seeing "red widgets" untouched, where "gold widgets" shoots to $10.00.
I presume because 'gold' is perceived to be "valuable", even though the items are equal in selling price and 'gold' simply refers to a color, not real gold.
This will be so when 'gold' actually appears in a seperate Adgroup. It's obvious no one is actually reading the ads before upping the Min CPC.
******
I recall the days when I used to get an email from a human about an ad if there was an issue, showing they actually looked at the ad first.
Where are those people now? It's painfully apparent that the old ad approval process by a human is long gone. Humans are able to read the ad and interpret it in context.
Israel
AWA has given you all the official adWords info. you need, but the real adWords world is very different.
You are going to see wildly fluctuating QS. At least initially.. It wil range from Poor to Great overnight and just when you think, you have cracked the algo..you will be hit with a 'poor' QS. They call it the auction based system, but in reality adWords is now primarily a very unstable QS based system. The parameters that go into QS are mostly unknown ( and a little random) and you should be ready to face 'inactive for search' every few day, till you crank up some history. My (limited) experience shows, it will take 2-3 months to find a level for your website. However, you still could wake up one day to USD 5- 10 bids. ( this is called a Google slap, with no real recourse).
The phrase match and exact match is the right way to go, BUT it will not really help you build any real solid 'history' (on account of low volume), so even though it is controversial, you may have to use broad match initially to gain a toehold in.
I normally do rely on 'content' also to generate impressions initailly so as to avoid frustration ... You may get a decent ROI, if you target and handle this well..
You may therefore, intially lose a little money in the interest of long term stability and business. Try your luck.. and enjoy the ride.
As of right now I am getting pretty good impressions (in my mid at least), though the click through rate is 0 at the moment. I also added dynamic titles to my ads, but they only show up sometimes which is kind of odd.
