Display CPC way more than max settings

[netfleet]

I'm not going mad (as I waited a couple of days just to make sure) but I am having a few adgroup reports Display clicks well above my max CPC.

First thought was maybe I reduced the CPC during the report period but I double checkjed, waited an extra coupld of days then looking at yesterdays I still have the same problem.

For this particular adgroup, the display CPC is set at 30c but yesterday I had 4 clicks for an average of 98c (total 3.93)

Is this a bug? How can it be resolved as it's hurting my CPA

Thank you very much in advance for any help!

[ppcjohn]

Do you have traffic optimizer turned on or are you bidding on a per CPA basis? Thats what it sounds like to me.

[netfleet]

Good thinking but I don't think so. That's a campaign option isn't it? - I have bidding option set as 'Focus on clicks, manual maximum CPC bidding' and I'm being bugged to use Optimiser which suggests that isn't turned on either (not sure where to be certain)

Besides, not all adgroups have this problem and the search CPC behaves itself fine

[RhinoFish]

Under Campaign Settings...

"Focus on clicks, manual maximum CPC bidding" is one choice.
"Focus on conversions (Conversion Optimizer)" is another.

So you don't have the CO turned on.

[RhinoFish]

"For this particular adgroup, the display CPC is set at 30c"

Set where?

You can set an Ad Group level bid, but can also set different bids for targeting mechanisms, G uses the one that's most specific / restrictive / applicable (for example, for a placement targeted click, your placement bid for that placement trumps the ad group default bid).

Check your bids for keywords, placements, audiences, etc.

[RhinoFish]

if you leave specific targeting bids blank, they'll default to the Ad Group bid (unless a different specific targeting mechanism applies).

leave the placement bid blank, it'll be grayed out, showing your default Ad Group bid, but if the person who clicked is cookied via remarketing and you've bid that up, bingo.

[netfleet]

Thank you - let me look into this. I do have someone working on a remarketing campaign so I suspect this is the problem as you say.

I'd assumed (reasonably) that a brand new remaketing campaign wouldn't affect my existing campaigns though...

Thanks again

[iwin]

If you have 15 conversions in campaign then opt for campaign optimizer. Also set your bid to max limit which you wanted to pay. Google will surly not going to hurt your CPM in that case.