Still struggling with bids and impressions. Higher = more?

[pavlovapete]

In the new Keyword bid idea panel I recently got some advice that has me scratching my head.

If I increase my bid I get more impressions.

My current bid was attracting 1000 impressions (for example).

The top suggested bid was 400% my current bid with a corresponding 20% increase in impressions.

Currently my CTR is 10% (for example) - by bidding 4 times as much the KBI is suggesting I can get 15% CTR for example.

How can my CTR improve if I pay more per click? What levers are being pulled to suggest this outcome?

Thanks

[RhinoFish]

as you bid more and your position goes up, your ad's ctr will increase - at the top of the page, it's gets more notice. but G corrects for positional effects on ctr, so your quality score won't go up just because your higher position's ctr went up, so the higher bid will reduce your ROI / ROAS. so you've got to decide if you want to chase more volume at the cost of lesser unit margin.

likely the best method is to optimize your ROI / ROAS, not the other metrics. see this G video for more on doing that:

Google AdWords Bidding Tutorial
with Hal Varian, G's chief economist
[youtube.com...]

[Mark_A]

Yes, higher up means more visible and more clicks, which means more clicks per exposure which means higher CTR.

But you will be paying more for your clicks, do you want to do this?

[Mark_A]

I have a situation where it seems I am being bid up, my competitors seem prepared to pay a lot for position.

Further than that, it seems my moving from broad match to phrase has caused some key phrases (2 & 3 words) to become quite a lot more expensive. Which is a pain.