$0.01 clicks

[Hubie]

Anyone still get these? If you do, are you bidding .01....or bidding higher (with no competition)?

Or is bidding .01 a sure fire way to get de-activated

[Seb7]

I'm still getting 1p on some ads, but they seem to only work on specific niches.

[Hubie]

is your Max CPC .01 or your avg CPC?

[netmeg]

I got lots where my minimum bid is set to .01, and I just let it roll at that. Sometimes they drift in and out of active states - seem to shift between 1 cent and 3 cent and 5 cent a lot, but I just leave them alone when they go inactive, and pretty soon they pop back down to .01 or .02 and go active again. Needless to say, it's not a terribly competitive niche, nor am I looking to gain mass quantities of traffic - more just keeping my site's name in front of searchers.

[Hubie]

netmeg, i'll assume you meant "maximum" bid? or are you saying you bid higher than .01 where the minimum bid allowed is .01, and just let it run, regardless of active/inactive?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Anyone still get these? If you do, are you bidding .01....or bidding higher (with no competition)?

Hubie, I just wanted to make sure you are aware that minimum bid is not at all related to the number of competitors one has for a keyword. Here is an excerpt (minus four live links) from an Inside AdWords blog post back in 2006, which sums it up pretty well:

[...] The minimum bid, also known as the minimum CPC, is the least that one can pay to have an ad appear for a particular keyword in a particular account. It is very important to know, however, that one's minimum bid is entirely unrelated to how many other advertisers are using the same keyword. Instead, since August of 2005, the minimum bid has been quality based. To put it simply, the higher the Quality Score of a keyword, the lower one's minimum bid will be for that keyword.

So, very low minimum bids are earned by creating highly relevant ad text and keywords that get outstanding Quality Scores. And only the most relevant keyword and ad text combinations will earn a minimum bid of $0.01 (or its equivalent in other currencies).

It's worth noting that every keyword has a minimum bid that is unique to how successfully that word has been used in an advertiser's particular account. So the minimum bid for the keyword 'Kansas City BBQ sauce' will be different in your account than in your next door neighbor's account, who happens to be using the same keyword. [...]

AWA

[netmeg]

netmeg, i'll assume you meant "maximum" bid? or are you saying you bid higher than .01 where the minimum bid allowed is .01, and just let it run, regardless of active/inactive?

Actually, I mean that I have a number (hundreds) of keywords where the minimum bid is .01 or .02, and I have set my MAXIMUM bid to be the same as the minimum bid, either .01 or .02.

Now, because the precise QS is a moving target and is ever changing, sometimes many times a day - those same keywords will from time to time go dark, because of some QS algo change that sets the minimum bid to 03 or .05. This is still considered a "Great" QS; I suspect it just has to do with fractions in the score. I just leave those inactive, because odds are in a few hours or a few days, they'll go back down to .01 and .02 again, and go active.

Hope that makes more sense than what I wrote previously.

[Hubie]

so would it be advisable to make my MAXIMUM bid .01, even on items that google say the max is .03 or .05....in hopes that it will change and i'll get it at .01?

I'd hate to make something .01 max, and not get a single click for months...

[netmeg]

I'm not saying it would be advisable, I'm saying that's what *I* do. Your situation could be very different. This is obviously not traffic that I'm intensely worried about (you probably know what site it's for) so I'm willing to pay a few cents for the click, but no more. In my situation, since I'm not selling anything, if they don't come, it's not a tragedy.

Try it with a few keywords, and see what happens.