How does adwords work?

[venrooy]

If ther are only 2 other competitors for a certain keyword I bid on, what would cause my ad not to show up every time that keyword is searched?

I'm going through my adwords campaigns today, just to see what the competition is like, and I'm noticing that my ad will not show up sometimes unless I hit the search button a few times - and this is even on adwords that have little or not competition.

Also - what would cause the minimum bid to go up - if there is no other ads showing up for that word?

Just curious - Trying to figure this whole thing out.

Thanks

[AdWordsAdvisor]

How does adwords work?

Now there is a big question...Welcome to WebmasterWorld venrooy!

I have just a couple of minutes before I'm due at a meeting, but wanted to very briefly answer your two specific questions:

...what would cause my ad not to show up every time that keyword is searched?

This is almost certainly a low daily budget - in other words a daily budget which is too low to support all of the keywords in the campaign, and safely allow for showing your ad 24/7 without exceeding your chosen budget.

You might want to consider reducing your keyword list to include only your best keywords.

what would cause the minimum bid to go up - if there is no other ads showing up for that word?

Your minimum bid is tied to the Quality Score of the keyword as used in your account. It is not connected to the number of competitors (whether zero or many) nor with their bids for the same keyword.

The key here is to use specific keywords which bring up a excellent ad about the exact same thing as the keywords. This will help to raise your Quality Score, and lower your minimum bid.

Hope that helps. ;)

AWA

[venrooy]

Excellent answer. You explained that brilliantly. I'm going to do some tweaking to see if you're right (and I'm sure you are).

Thanks for the reply.