My keywords remain inactive no matter what I do.
Within the last few months my keyords, that use to show up, are ALL inactive. I have to pay anywhere from $.50 to $10.00 to get my ads to display.
For the keywords that required a bid of .50, I bit the bullet and paid .50 and my ads began showing at #1 position with a 30% CTR, however I didn't really want to be #1, I would have been happy with a lesser postion or even the bottom of page but bidding anything less than .50 my keywords went inactive.
I know a lot of this has to do with quality score but when my ads showed up my CTR was 30%. I would think that would make for a good quality score.
How do you find out what your quality score is anyway? Google tells you what makes up your quality score but how do you find out what it really is?
Anybody?
Elizabeth
May I suggest you keep a small daily budget and let the 30% CTR register with G for a while. As your ads perform well, your bid prices should start falling.
Try the content network. Reduce bid prices to what you think is affordable, you should get hundreds of impressions and hopefully clicks also. (You do know, that you can bid for 'content' and 'search' seperately.)
The seniors will guide you better.. Just my way of working..
Do you by any chance know how long I'd have to keep my keywords at .50 for the bids to go down?
Thanks,
Elizabeth
Try keeping a small budget for a few days and track carefully. There is no fixed 'time' as such..
However, do make sure your keywords accurately descibe your website. A totally unrelated keyword may not help increase your 'quality score'...
1. Your quality score based on your ad text and landing page are low causing you to pay more
2. Your CPC and even possibly your daily budget are too low for your market competition.
When I did this it put my ad at #1. I don't want to be #1. I would be happy with #2 or 3 or maybe even 4, but bidding anything lower than .50 puts me out of the running. It's #1 or nothing.
I don't think anyone knows why it works this way but it seems like all the changes Google has made has caused some problems in certain areas.
I'm checking with Google but they are slow to respond.
Elizabeth
At 49 cents, you don't even deserve to show in last place.
For another penny, you're in the hot spot, best ad of all according to the scoring!
Think that was really how they intended it to run?
Israel
Then you kick in Google's smart pricing and pay only one cent more above what the #3 position is paying even though you have said you will pay $.50 you will not with these setting.
Google has acknowledged as much... so, I've disabled this feature after having results that did not (at all) follow the preferences that I had set.
Nancy, I wish position preference worked that way - but, for now, it doesn't.
position preference is a great tool, but it takes time to adjust to your preference. for me desired result is achieved only 4-5 days after preference is used.
...where did they acknowledge this?
In correspondence with me. They are aware of the "issue" of ads showing up higher than their preferred position and they "don't have an "estimated time for a fix."
Based on this, Google really ought to post a warning about using this feature.
Are those successes with formerly "Inactive" keywords though? I hadn't thought of using Position Preference until you mentioned it so I did a test on a small campaign which wasn't doing well anyway.
Google wanted 20 cents for the keyword. When I did raise it to 20 cents earlier, it was always getting charged the full 20 cents and was in the #1-2 position. I didn't want that, too many curiousity seekers on that first ad.
Now the keyword had been around for 2 years, accumulated 17000 impressions with an all-time CTR of 4.59 and an average cost of 14 cents in the 4th position overall before it was suddenly "Inactive". Not shabby performance, IMHO.
When I enabled Position Preference, I went as far as to raise the bid to 19 cents (a penny shy of what was requested). I said I'd settle for positions 9 - 10+.
Still wouldn't show, still wouldn't go active. Even though currently there are only 2 ads showing for the keyword, one for an auction house that couldn't possibly provide the service. The other ad, I have no clue why it's showing. That ad is a textbook case of being irrelevant for a keyword!
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Does my strategy appear sound? BTW, I also tried higher positions since there were only 2 ads anyway. A penny below the requested bid and asking for dead last I would think was enough for the darn word to qualify.
Even assuming one says they'll settle for 9+, if there were only 2 ads showing, one would think they'd place me third. Or would I have to wait for more advertisers to arrive to guarantee at least 9 ads showing? Keep in mind that I had already tested higher positions with no success too.
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I'm glad it's working out for you of course. However, that was enough to discourage me from wasting more time on Position Preference.
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I'm generally wary of new Google enhancements unless I hear tons of rave reviews first.
In fact, I think it was unwise of Google to roll out major interface revisions (and who knows what else behind the scenes) on the cusp of a major holiday in the US, when they're no doubt understaffed. No shop I ever worked in would dream of unleashing potential disaster by taking risks like that!
Thanks for the idea though!
Israel
Still, it was converting very profitably until the disabling started. And being just a penny short of the "Requested" bid should have gotten me something, IMHO.
Israel
