How to combat generic terms?

Broad terms overwhelm my niche. What to do?

[okito]

Hi everyone:

I'm relatively new to Adwords, so I'm sorry for the newbie question.

I am trying to run ads in a specific niche, but I'm finding lots of competition from people who have bought up generic keywords that seem to get applied everywhere. For example:

[google.com...]

I used AdWords to great effect a few years ago, but now it seems like every page is overrun with these generic ads that make my ad practically invisible.

Can someone let me in on how you combat this? How does anyone carve our a niche on Google anymore when these broad ads are being shown everywhere?

Thanks,
-Charles

[mike_ppc]

You can only hope that Google will get rid of these generic ads, or at least consider them less representative and allow you to have 1st position with a decent bid if your ad is more representative.
The only way you could hope these ads won't be displayed could be "trademark" - if you can prove this..

[okito]

So, does that just mean everyone is paying a lot more for ads these days?

I picked my keywords using the Google keyword analyzer tool, where it said I could get 1-3 placement for .05-.10. Yet, when I actually set those as my maximum CPC, Google didn't run my ads at all. Only when I raise my ads to about .50 do they start to run.

Is this just par for the course? I used GoogleAds for a past business about 2 years ago and had great success, paying maybe .20 to .25 for some popular keywords.

Should I just assume that if I want to use Google ads I'm going to have to pay .50 or more per click now?

[mike_ppc]

We can see a general trend of increasing the CPCs.. And of course, this is G's purpose - to gain more money!
And the estimator is usually very far from reality - only the reality will tell you what happens... test and see!

[okito]

OK thanks. I guess I will need to change my strategy then to account for higher priced keywords.

[jim2003]

Okito,

The ads appearing on the search you posted appear to me to be relevent to the search term being searched for. What do you mean when you refer to them as "generic" ads?

[okito]

They are relevant, but many of the ads listed there I think happen because these companies have listed generic ads to cover lots of different categories. (The ads just have keywords inserted to make them seem specific.)

I guess the thing that confused me was that the Adwords interface claims there is little to no competition for the keywords I selected (such as the example i showed). Yet, clearly there is.