New Google adwords system does not make sense.

Why more specific is more expensive?

[fischermx]

I didn't realize this until now. Sorry if I'm late to the party.
So, my ads are performing verywell for "widgets". It has 1.1 position for $0.05 cents. It had 2% CTR. I think that's good.
But why on earth google is asking me $0.10-$0.30 for "red widgets", "blue widgets", "very cool purple widgets",etc?
It does not make sense because my ad is showing anyway for those searches! (doesn't it?), since my keywords is in broad match.
Could anybody please explain me this?

[fischermx]

and more, for example.
"Keyword1" gets 48 impressions, get 2 clicks, that's 4% CTR and ask me to bid more!
Why?

[arikgub]

Regarding your second post. I guess 48 impressions is not enough to build reliable statistics. I believe G wants to gather more data before it rewards you on high CTR. In my campaigns I have seen the min bid falling dramatically after I got near 1000 impressions if the CTR was high.

arikgub

[fischermx]

Yes, that's make more sense. I'd expect google run a thousand impressions before doing any judgement but it seems is not in my case.

[BananaDude]

I don't think G waits for 1000 impressions before calculating CTR and basing decisions on that. I wish they did. My experience after just signing up is that on my initial 5 or so impressions, the CTR was probably 0% (some were my own impressions from checking if my ads were showing) and G bumped that keyword into inactive because of it. This is 3 hours after I activated my account and had the keyword running active on 0.35 CPC. All of a sudden it shows inactive and G asks me to bid at least 2.05 for the same keyword that was showing ads without problems 3 hours earlier. I suspect the initial 5 impressions or so got no clicks and that labels my keyword is irrelevant or unsuccessful or whatever.
AWA, can you shed some light on this? It seems I would have been better off clicking on my own ads (or asking some friends to do so) just to get an initial CTR going, to keep my keywords active at the lower CPC. I'm sure this is not what G wants.

[pastypossie]

yep - we're having the same issues. The more specific and targeted the keyphrase - the more money G seem to want.

I'm being asked to bid £2.55 for keyphrases where there is only one other competitor bidding (that competitor just happens to be ebay!). It seems as though the advertiser is being penalised for thinking outside of the box and using specific keyphrases which should cost less (as they do in the other search engines), and should achieve really good conversions.

If anybody has loop holes they've found or ideas on getting round this - i'm looking for a miracle.............

[wedouglas]

I think the CTR is determined from the get go, however, I don't think you get reviewed until after a certain number of impressions or clicks.

[fischermx]

I found another weird thing.
For "keyword1" there are like 7 advertisers.
I'm asked to bit $0.40. I accept the bid and my ad begin showing at the top of all! How on earth!?,
If it is $0.40 to being in the top why don't let me get started with less?