So I changed all (well, most) of my affiliate ads

now my positions have dropped

[suzyvirtual]

I know that I am suffering from losing my established CTR rankings by having changed all my ads. The question is, will i regain them? My ads are all basically the same, just with a change to the display url (and the actual url). My display urls are all relevant to the topics.
I just wonder if once you ditch your established CTR, can you expect it to get back to the same level, or am i missing something. Is part of the algorithim based on the length of time the ad has been running?
Like would a 5% CTR over the course of a year outrank (assuming bid price is the same) a 5% CTR over the course of a week?

[dazz]

I presume only people at google know the full ins and outs of their CTR but I would say that if your ad has performed well in the past it should eventually get it back.

It might be worth upping the bid just for a couple of weeks to speed things up!?

[Import Export]

suzy- Your problem may be directly related to an editorial review. If your ad positions were previously 'premium' locations, your new ads may be pending a review by the editorial team before they can show the same as your previous, already reviewed and approved ads.

[veroxii]

Which is why it's been recommended on here many times that you should create a second ad and only delete the old one after the new one has been reviewed and approved.

-V

[eWhisper]

Which is why it's been recommended on here many times that you should create a second ad and only delete the old one after the new one has been reviewed and approved.

When you change an ad, it's put back into editorial review. When an ad is in editorial review, it's not shown on partner sites or in the content network.

To keep full exposure on all the available channels, keeping the old ad, which has passed editorial review running, allows your old ad to be shown until the ad passes editorial review and can be shown across the entire network.

Once you have another ad which can give you full exposure, then you can delete the ad you no longer want.

This is also why I suggest always keeping more than 1 ad in a group. If something suddenly happens (price change, landing page changes, etc), having an ad (even with a lower CTR) available if you MUST delete the better ad, at least keeps your exposure across all channels.

[patient2all]

This is also why I suggest always keeping more than 1 ad in a group. If something suddenly happens (price change, landing page changes, etc), having an ad (even with a lower CTR) available if you MUST delete the better ad, at least keeps your exposure across all channels.

However, if you do continuously run 2 ads in a group in order to have one as a "backup", you have no choice except to have the "worse" ad showing at least occasionally. Unless there is a way that I don't know about to pause an individual ad within an ad group. All I see is "Delete" and it doesn't even provide the customary confirmation prompt.

patient2all

[suzyvirtual]

yeah, i usually do the creating a new ad thing instead of changing the ad. I just got in an irrational tunnel vision sort of moment where i wanted to "start fresh" under the new rules.
My ads had all been approved at the time of my original post, my rankings seem to be slowly creeping back up, although they still haven't reached their previous levels.
We'll see what happens.