Low share of voice after a bid increase

Confusing keyword status for short time

[smallcompany]

I haven't thought much about "Low share of voice" when I saw it first. I just decided to watch what happens.

I saw it whenever I was reducing my bids.

Just a minute ago, I saw it after I increased my bid:

A bid is 60 cents, and I decide to increase it for 5 cents, that is, to 65 cents. I do a bid change on an ad group level. There is one keyword only in that ad group with QS 10/10.

As I click on "Save", Low share of voice appears in the Status column.

As I go into the ad group, I see eligible besides the keyword. I go back to ad group level, it says eligible - low share of voice is gone.

So, I would say it is the way how system works, for whatever reason.

But why making people think over something that seems not to exist? Why triggering any stress with no reason?
Or, is there a reason for such system's behavior?

[300m]

I sometimes think it is designed to make you think if you do not raise your bids more you should worry. I think if you mouse over the querstion mark it explains that it will not serve your ad as much as it could. I personally think it is just another way to get people to raise bids so Google can make more money.

[shorebreak]

I believe this is because bid changes cause keywords to temporarily be taken out of syndication, resulting in a period of time during which you're actually getting less than full distribution of your ad.

[lucky]

I agree with 300m.

The system (!) makes you think that you need to increase your bid(s).

[LucidSW]

I'm not worrying about it just yet. Looks like that feature has some bugs. But it does make you think you should increase your bid when I think the intention is to warn you to increase your budget. If so, it should be a group level or campaign level warning.

[smallcompany]

Although I've been a big critics of Google AdWords, I would agree with shorebreak's and LucidSW's comments.

[DiscoStu]

While there have been bugs with the low share of voice system, there's a simple explanation why raising your bids could cause that warning. If you raise your bids without increasing the daily budget limit for that campagin, you will be able to afford less clicks. Raise it high enough and you will only be able to get a fraction of the clicks you would at the lower cpc before it maxes out for the day = low share of voice.

A 5 cent increase does sound a bit suspicious that it would have that effect though, but in general getting "low share of voice" if you increase your bid is not necessarily a sign of a bug (or a conspiracy ;))

[LucidSW]

I don't know if Google read my post but it looks like the message shows at the group level now instead of the keyword level. So that's fixed. However, there still seems to be bugs. All the groups where I've changed the CPC to a lower value displayed the message but quickly disappears when I come back to that group, seconds later.