So I check google and do a search and look, before I decide to up my bid. And I notice that my ad is actually showing sometimes entirely alone (so at 1st Pos), sometimes 3rd-4th, but never as low as AdWords says.
How come?
FWIW, it's an English-language ad, I'm in France, but I'm using google.com to do my checking. I have the ad set to target language=english, target countries=all.
How come?
FWIW, it's an English-language ad, I'm in France, but I'm using google.com to do my checking. I have the ad set to target language=english, target countries=all"
Lou:
AdWords' predictions are just that - PREDICTIONS. They may or may not be accurate. They may be high. They may be low. They may be (to borrow from Goldilocks) just right. It's a guess, and like all guesses, it can be wrong.
As for fractions, chalk it up to multiple keywords and ad churn (i.e. some people dont show their ads all the time).
I'm suprised you're complaining at your higher position, though. As they say -- don't look a gift horse in the mouth. :)
But I've just done some more testing. Some of my ads appear higher than "estimated". Some so much lower that they don't appear at all. In fact, the estimations are entirely off most of the time. And here I was using them as a calculated tool, for positioning. Harumph.
This means that for any serious use of Adwords, you have to open up a google search window and test each KW? :(
I actually have two ads that are "competing" for the same keywords. I notice that one of them appears and the other doesn't at all. It's the one with the *lower* bid that appears.
This is making it hard to trust ggle to run this thing honestly!
(aka, Google knows where you are)
The avg position is probably across the world, but there are probably very few people bidding for the same keyword in France....
Shak
[edited by: Shak at 8:28 am (utc) on July 14, 2003]
This is making it hard to trust ggle to run this thing honestly!"
Remember that it is the COMBINATION of (max) CPC and CTR that determines placement. The more people per thousand that click on your ad, the less you have to spend to keep a given position.
So it is thus possible that your lower-bid ad is performing better (higher CTR), which is giving it a higher position on the search results. :)
Google is ONLY showing you advertisers who actually HAVE France in their list of displayed countrieshmm - is there anyway to test google "anonymously" so that I see what people in the US see?
So it is thus possible that your lower-bid ad is performing better (higher CTR), which is giving it a higher position on the search results.wow, that's entirely new to me - I had not understood at all that CTR affected positioning! So writing good ads and getting click-throughs not only improves, um, click-throughs, it also moves your ad up in terms of order of competing ads displayed?
Shak
ok, now I have an ad that's getting a whopping 1.5% CTR. I guess that's pretty bad, but I think that my ad copy is pretty good. How do I get it to show up better? I mean since the CTR is bad, it's showing up lower and since it's showing up lower, it's hard to get the CTR to move up, right?
Yes.
NexQuoth the LouPonne:
"ok, now I have an ad that's getting a whopping 1.5% CTR. I guess that's pretty bad, but I think that my ad copy is pretty good. How do I get it to show up better? I mean since the CTR is bad, it's showing up lower and since it's showing up lower, it's hard to get the CTR to move up, right?"
Firstly, 1.5% is pretty good as far as CTR. I'd experiment with ad copies and see if you can get over 1.5% with another ad, and I'd also try (CAREFULLY!) raising your max bid on clicks. I forgot to mention that it's MAX BID instead of CPC that affects positioning. Be sure not to bid too much, though. I found out very quickly how easy it is to overbid on keywords. :-P
