That being said, here is just a segment of keywords I have that have been put "On Hold" just today. These statistics span the past 7 days combined.
Clck Imp CTR Pos
53 2,842 1.8% 3.7
45 1,595 2.8% 1.7
15 1,028 1.4% 2
14 1,407 0.9% 1.2
13 421 3.0% 2.6
12 938 1.2% 1.3
6 643 0.9% 1.1
6 432 1.3% 3.1
6 182 3.2% 6.1
5 537 0.9% 1.7
5 143 3.4% 3.3
5 47 10.6% 4.7
4 269 1.4% 2.9
4 158 2.5% 3.4
4 109 3.6% 4.9
4 97 4.1% 4.1
4 23 17.3% 8.4
3 199 1.5% 12.3
3 65 4.6% 11.8
2 106 1.8% 4.3
2 79 2.5% 5.5
2 69 2.8% 2.7
2 49 4.0% 4.9
2 49 4.0% 6.4
2 34 5.8% 2
2 11 18.1% 2.5
1 69 1.4% 5.6
1 67 1.4% 3.3
1 39 2.5% 12.2
1 23 4.3% 9.4
1 14 7.1% 2.3
1 13 7.6% 4.4
1 11 9.0% 8.8
1 9 11.1% 3.8
1 9 11.1% 4
1 8 12.5% 4.3
1 8 12.5% 8.2
I find it very hard to believe that ALL of these keywords (and more in my account) fail to meet Google's minimum CTR requirements.
Now some observations. Most of these keywords are niche keywords. They receive relatively few impressions per day (most <100), but they are extremely targeted, mostly 2-3 word matches. These keywords are fairly new (Created Oct. 30), but many of them already average 5%+ total CTR.
It seems that almost every low impression count keyword has been placed on hold amongst 'newer' ads in my account. I have other groups that are almost identical in form to this one but have been around for months, thankfully, those seem unaffected.
Now, assuming what I've observed is of meaning, hasn't Google shot themselves in the foot? Much of the idea of adwords is to be relevant by being specific and using well honed in keywords. If they immediately kill ads for terms that receive a relatively small number of searches per day, they lose a huge overall segment of ads that are of peak relevance.
I remember Shak mentioning a possible sandbox effect for adwords. With christmas around the corner, I was excited and wanting to ramp up adwords usage this season. Now this apparent rule change on new ads gets thrown in our faces. I'm afraid now the season will be filled with frustration and heart-ache. And all for what... if anything I thought google should be trying to INCREASE ad display this season, not killing them off without a chance at all. Sometimes 1 impression and poof -- the ad is gone :(
I want to be on record as saying one final thing - in my experience it's a very bad idea to try to continue to use the same keywords. Google's now sending a message - "Pay more for these keywords, or they won't be your keywords anymore". That much is clear.
Another warning: my account was -actually- slowed three days before it was "officially" slowed - the next day my account went 40 clicks, 65 clicks, 68 clicks, 0 clicks, 1 click, 1 click - and my website referreals matched. Then I was again slowed three times successively in the next few days.
To lay my cards on the table (since I'm no longer an AdWords affiliate), I'm in the web hosting business - a very competitive business indeed. My prices were great and clerly listed in my ads - causing incredibly high CTRs when they actually hit. However, I was apparently not giving -nearly- enough money for them.
I deleted all my keywords, ad groups, and campaigns last night but I've had four hits to my website today (period) - all from Google's IPs. I'm not sure what they're up to, but it's actual browse activity, not automated hit-and-leave type stuff. I do know it's not technical support trying to ascertain the problems I've emailed them about, since they've only hit twice before and in rapid succession, and that was the time they actually emailed me back.
Say what you like about conspiracy theories, I don't care. I've had my account slowed 4 times by Google in one week, as I shifted keywords and campaigns - without a single keyword going "on hold" or "in trial". If you try to change matching options to evade the keyword blocking, you -will- pay for it. I've been slowed without a single keyword over 30 impressions, and most at 0.
Google still perpetrates the fallacy that if you simply "increase the relevance" of your advertisements and keywords, you'll be ok. As a certain friend of mine put it after a long tirade I emailed him:
"Wrong. If you further increase your relevance, and not your CPC, you'll be bounced so quick it will make your head spin. Remember what's relevant to someone selling advertising - the amount they can sell that space for, and not a damn thing else. There's a limited (and understood) number of clicks a keyword can get a day - if yours is on the 10th page but takes 50 of those clicks away and only gives back $5.00, you're a loss because the top guy would have given $5 for each of those clicks. Don't dare target specific (yet high value) keywords if you value making any impressions at all."
I guess, after reading his (long) email regarding my blogging of some of my experiences with these jokers, I've been looking at it wrong - Google's not intentionally being evil or anything else - they're trying to maximize profit. Why sell to me for less, what others will pay more for?
I hope each of you finds great success in your Internet marketing ventures - personally, I'm going on hiatus for a while. I need to sit back and take stock of exactly how I feel about a company that can sell falsified paid results for a particular brand, and if those are the highest selling ads, systematically blacklist all keywords and all keyword variants used by those who aren't willing to give enough.
And I have to decide if this is actually the right business for me - I can sell a lot of things, but probably not the particular commodity that will let me compete in that arena - integrity.
Use the 'Ad Diagnostic' tool, and use the exact matching options in the keywords you suspect (like big bike) - it will actually tell you if you are slowed for that exact keyword (Google seems to use a "phrase match" system for slowing any type of keyword it doesn't like, however you've determined it should be) about half of the time - sometimes it will respond "Our system is having technical difficulties", these ads are slowed too.
what's relevant to someone selling advertising - the amount they can sell that space for, and not a damn thing else. There's a limited (and understood) number of clicks a keyword can get a day - if yours is on the 10th page but takes 50 of those clicks away and only gives back $5.00, you're a loss because the top guy would have given $5 for each of those clicks. Don't dare target specific (yet high value) keywords if you value making any impressions at all
Good theory ,but it dont explain why they are 'on holding' keywords with just 1-2 ads or worst keywords with no ads ...
If your max CPC for a valuable keyword is too low, there's no reason to even let you use it. If that ad were clicked instead of one above it worth 10x more, then 10x the revenue that single click could have generated has been lost.
As AdWords results become less relevant to a user's search (regardless of the increase in value to Google), searchers who -are- looking specifically at the advertising links will surf through more pages of results to find ads that seem to offer what they are looking for. Thus the higher-value ads will receive lower CTRs, and if the most relevant (to a searcher) ad is at the back, it's CTR will go through the roof as the few people that make it back there find exactly what they are looking for.
As such, Google will either need to drop CTR as a calculation metric, or prevent advertisers with extremely high predicted CTRs and extremely low CPCs from advertising within certain keyword themes, lest those ads suck off clicks from higher paying ads and cost revenue.
That is, assuming users become savvy to the fact that the first few pages of sponsored results don't have anything to do with what they're interested in - much like most of us know when our standard search results have relayed us not to a site full of content, but to some affiliate's AdSense keyword farm. I think most already have, from what I've read from Atlas.
You can be sure that Google's CTR prediction includes a "growth" value, so uniquely relevant keywords with low value today that are predicted to increase in usage will also be flagged tomorrow if CPC is not increased. This prevents smaller accounts from dodging the "bidding war" by using different terms.
No , i means ads . I see for so many keywords there are no ads in the serp and so if i go ahead and bid on them i get "on hold" within <100 impressions
It makes sense to do this for the exact reason you're doing it - potential advertisers are attracted to "an open market". I lost a bit of money on these ads myself (repeatedly trying what seemed to be available keyword variants, causing my account to be slowed and charged $5).
Clearly CTR's weight in ad placement calculation has already been lessened quite a bit, perhaps it's a sign that AdWords will become strictly a CPC service - who knows.
Also, as I'm fighting a disabled issue with the name of our product. I WONDER, could it be that in spite of the CTR history for this term that the new system sees the two word combination as gibberish and disabled it anyway. They haven't disabled our other terms like "buy weirdword gadget" but they disabled the term "weirdword gadget" which in normal human language doesn't make sense but that's because it's a unique product name.
With christmas around the corner, I was excited and wanting to ramp up adwords usage this season. Now this apparent rule change on new ads gets thrown in our faces. I'm afraid now the season will be filled with frustration and heart-ache
Since this thread was revived anyway I wanted to comment on what I said Nov. 11. While I have still had a bit of trouble with "In Trial", it became not as major a nuisance as it appeared when the system first kicked in on my account.
I did ramp up adwords usage, and the season went well, although in some sectors it still seems a bit harder to spend cash than one would think. But no heart-ache or major frustration, thankfully.
It just doesn't make sense to me. These could be good performing keywords.
