I have spent around 8 hours over the last four days trying to get my AdWords working so if anyone could shed some light it'd be greatly appreciated!
I set up my account without too much difficulty and researched and picked some keywords (currently 22 in one group). The majority have a Quality Score of 7/10 and in all cases above 5/10.
When i hover over the link next to "eligible" the 'displaying ads right now' are all showing as 'No'. Why is this - am i misunderstanding or does this mean that my ads are not showing for some reason?
The campaign has been running for four days and so far my ad has been shown twice (2 impressions). This seems really low doesn't it? I've selected the Auto bid option as this was recommended to me to start off with as i am new to adwords. I've put my max CPC as £1 and my daily budget for the time being at £2 just so i can keep an eye on what's going on before committing to too much!
Any help/advice really appreciated - I'm starting to lose hope!
Thanks in advance
sugarflux
When i hover over the link next to "eligible" the 'displaying ads right now' are all showing as 'No'.
When you hover over the link in this way, you should see a link that says "Ad Diagnostic Tool." Click on that and use the tool. It should help you discover why your ads aren't showing.
Pal - I have a mixture of keyword matches - 10 are Phrase match and 10 are broad match which i added afterwards to try to broaden my results.
With regards delivery method i have this set as "Standard: Display ads evenly over time". As the campaign is set as automatic bidding i cannot change this. Should i be using the automatic bidding do you think? Again this was a suggestion off of forums as I'm new to adwords.
Patrick - I've used the Ad Diagnostic Tool and for the majority of the keywords i receive "An ad is showing for this keyword, but it does not appear on the first page of search results." The help for this suggests i should increase my bids which i have done - increasing the max to £1 per click - do you think i may need to go higher than this? Or optimising which i am not so clear on how to do if the quality score is already 7/10....
Thanks again for getting back to me,
sugarflux
Google ads have a session time. When an ad is shown that URL is valid for a given period of time. If someone performs a search and your ad is shown. Google remembers that and keeps that URL alive for a long period of time.
For example, if I perform a search query for "dog house" and Google displays ads for that phrase. I can walk away from my computer. Go have some lunch. Go cut the grass and then come back. With that page still displayed on my browser I can then click the ad. Google will still count that click and redirect me to the landing page.
The problem is that you've limited the number of ad sessions Google can keep active to just 2. So I think Google isn't showing the ad because it has a problem working with such a low session limit.
Increase your daily budget or decrease your bid. I find impressions work best when Google can show at least 10 impressions at the same time.
I don't work for Google. So this is just the way I "think" it works, but from what I've seen using adwords it does seem to fit.
Perhaps i will try moving the daily budget up to £5. Ideally i don't want to go too high as i'm still finding my feet and this is a trial period for me.
Thanks for the suggestion
sugarflux
My problem really is that I'm happy to put in the time, effort and cash but i'm really struggling to get the hang of understanding! I guess it will be one of these things that I'll need to play with for a month or two before I'll really get it?
I just don't understand why the auto Max CPC in the keyword screen says £0.16 for all keywords when I've put in the higher Max CPC and then returning the error that the first page bid amount is too low.
Maybe i will try switching off the Auto bidding and trying to guess my own amounts. So much to learn :0s
Thanks
sugarflux
Change your daily bid to $5
Change your max CPC for auto bidding to $1
Change all your keywords to phrase match or exact match.
Delete or pause all your broad match phrases. Broad matching is for people who have a clear understanding of which keywords work for them.
Google will not give you up to date stats for a campaign during the same day. You have to wait till tomorrow to see how it worked.
Tomorrow, check your impressions for each keyword.
Create a new ad group. Move your keywords with zero impressions to this new ad group. (I recommend using the Keyword desktop tool you can download for free from Google, this lets you copy/paste between ad groups).
Now you have two ad groups. One that will give you impressions and one that doesn't.
Make changes to your new ad group, but leave the first one alone for a couple of days.
Each day create a new ad group, and move zero impression keywords to that group.
Now, after a couple of days. Go back to your first ad group, and create revised phrases.
For example; let's say these keywords as phrased or exact match gave me impressions.
"dog house"
"doggy house"
You can now expand those active keywords into broader phrases, but still keep them as phrases. So you would create these new keywords (as phrased).
"big dog house"
"small dog house"
"living in a dog house"
You add a few new phrases like that. Again, the next day you move zero impression keywords to a new ad group. Slowly over time you build ad groups that have nothing but active keywords, and ad groups with nothing but zero impressions.
Now you know what is working, and what isn't.
It's at this point that you adjust your bids.
You also REPEAT the above steps for and keywords that get clicks. So that you build ad groups that contain only keywords that get both impressions and clicks.
That my friend is the life of an ad words marketer... :)
Just wanted to let you know a quick update - since increasing my daily max to £5 only half hour ago I've had two more impressions on my local campaign so hopefully this has made all the difference,
Thanks again - I'll post back if this pattern continues!
sugarflux
Thanks so much for this - it is the first clear "plain english" tutorial to make an adwords campaign work i have seen and i have been scouring the internet all week. I've removed the Broad matching keywords and amended my bid amounts.
Tomorrow I'll move the 0 impression keywords into a different group and continue with this on a daily basis.
Thanks again - this is perfect, just the advice i needed. Hopefully I'll start seeing some results soon!
sugarflux
[youtube.com...]
Mind you, the advise they give you often is this "pick a keyword", "spend as much as possible", and "make the keyword as broad as possible". That advise just makes them more money, but you'll learn tricks on how to edit your adwords account. Things you wouldn't discover just browsing the interface.
If you haven't tried the adwords editor. Watch this.
[youtube.com...]
I've had another 4 impressions that have been recoreded in the last half hour and although no clicks as of yet i'm now clearly running in the right direction. I'll continue to follow your instructions.
You should really create a tutorial out of the post above so others can benefit :0)
Thankyou once more,
sugarflux
I would have to find some nice popular website who would be interested in hosting the tutorial. In exchange for a back link :)
Hint.. hint..
Like you say if you have relevant content that is useful, then competition is slightly less of an obstacle and i really believe this could be useful to a lot of people.
I'm in the process of rebuilding some of it which i'll hopefully complete over the weekend. I might be able to find room for it on there - if so I'll give you a shout Monday with a link to it :0)
sugarflux
