clicks getting much more expensive recently

[tes2k5]

I have been at this a bit less than a year so this is my first experience with the holidays.

I have a few brand names I bid on and I have and continue to get clickthroughs of 30-50% daily

last month my avg cpc for these keywords was never more than 1.00

this month i have continued the CTR of over 30% but my CPC AVG has almost doubled!

so is this people trying to gear up for holiday traffic or what? Should I expect it to subside somewhat?

[PPCBidder]

man, i'm so cheap. All you guys talking about $1.00 keywords so often =S On my 10 cent average words, (yes they do exist) I've dropped on average a position or so for a good amount of them where I haven't upped my bid since thanksgiving, so yes I have seen some increases across the board although my CTR has remained pretty stable - so even being pushed down they are holding their own. :)

[eWhisper]

This is why I like looking at historical data. Comparing trends over months and years can give you an idea of what to expect.

Last year, across our retail based accounts, in December our CTR went up across the board almost 25% (i.e. that's 10% becoming 12.5% not 30%) and our CPC around 20%. The trend started to die in the first week of January, and by the end of January our CTR was back to normal, but our CPC was still up around 10% due to the new advertisers who continued to stick around and promote their products after the holidays.

Our service based accounts overall saw a slight CTR decrease in December, yet their CPCs remained fairly steady.

I've already seen this trend begin this year, and wouldn't be surprised if in January, CPC rates for retail industries are just a little bit higher than they were last month.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

This is why I like looking at historical data. Comparing trends over months and years can give you an idea of what to expect.

Last year, across our retail based accounts, in December our CTR went up across the board almost 25% (i.e. that's 10% becoming 12.5% not 30%) and our CPC around 20%. The trend started to die in the first week of January, and by the end of January our CTR was back to normal, but our CPC was still up around 10% due to the new advertisers who continued to stick around and promote their products after the holidays.

Our service based accounts overall saw a slight CTR decrease in December, yet their CPCs remained fairly steady.

I've already seen this trend begin this year, and wouldn't be surprised if in January, CPC rates for retail industries are just a little bit higher than they were last month.

An excellent question, tes2k5 - and another classic eWhisper post in response!

I love this place.

AWA

[farside847]

I know I increased my bids on Nov 20th to "be all I can be" this holiday season. Cool thing is, my conversion rate increased too to help compensate!