Many features within an adwords account are often ignored, or are not configured optimally. Using them may bring great results almost instantly.
Showing posts with label cpc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cpc. Show all posts
Content Network has now become Display Network - But, It is not mere Change of Name!
Did you notice the Display Network in your reporting and adwords interface. It is the new name for earlier content network. However, it is not just the change of name, and like every other change, google has imposed Ignorance tax with this too. Earlier, content network used to take the default bid of the adgroup in question to decide upon the max CPC of the adgroup, if you don't set the specific bid. However, its new incarnation, display network, will use avg. of all the adgroup's CPC. So, if you were in the habit of setting default bid for the content network, you might see unexpected CPC in your campaign. Most of us used to set up separate content network, and so we all were in the habit of leaving the field blank, so that default bid may be used as content bid. However, now, if you are continuing this practice, display bid won't be the default bid of the adgroup, rather it would be using an average of all your CPC bids. This average includes, in the order of priority:Individual placement bid
Managed placements bid
Default bid
So, the default bid is the lowest in order, and you should know, it does not equals auto in your adgroup. If you have set up managed placement bid and individual placement bids in your adgroup which with rare exception we set up at higher value would impact the auto bid. Hence, if you were thinking that default bid would be used if you leave the desplay network bid ad blank, you are wrong. If you haven't set it up, you should do it as soon as possible, so that you are not charged in excess of what you wanted.
Position Preference on Google Search - Why, When and How to use it.
Position preference was the choice of very few advertiser. It was mostly used for ego satisfaction to always grab the first impression of the users. Not anymore, it is the necessity on few search result pages. You know, first fold of SERP has been occupied by big box of Local Listing. So, on these pages if you rank low, you are out of sight. Some queries have the tendency of very low click through down the order. These are the queries where users do little research work before taking the final action. If you are an advertiser advertising on those keywords, you cannot afford to remain low. In such type of circumstances, position preference becomes necessity. Also, your CTR may get spoiled if you absorb most of the impressions below the fold. Moreover, there are definite advantages of remaining higher in the order, because clicks and conversions follow the the Zipf's Law. So, higher the rank, higher the clicks and higher the conversions and the degree of difference has the propensity to increase as you go higher up the order, that is to say no.3 is more beneficial than no.4, no.2 is more beneficial than no.3 and proportion of benefit between occupying no.2 and no.3 is more than no.3 and no.4. Hence, in circumstances where you have clear cut evidence of low conversion rates at the bottom, it is wise and pofitable to cut down the impression from these positions. Hence, a florist may find, impressions below position 4 is useless because so many sponsored link and Local listing are already present above them that users have little incentive to go any further. Blocking these impressions would not only cut down low converting clicks but would also boost CTR and hence Quality score and hence lower cost per click. So, there are definite advantages of not advertising below certain positions.
Google has made it clear that bottom preference of your ad is treated as hard limit, which means if you have chosen 1-3 as position preference, your ad would never show below 3. However, if you have chosen 2-4, your ad may show above 2 (See:Position Preference Failures). Google's policy of honoring bottom preference as hard limit, is sufficient to block unwanted below the fold impressions, which is required in some situations.
Biggest mistake, while choosing position preference is to choose 1-1. Although most tempting, this position can be very easily beaten by your immediate competitor, andworse for you, he won't feel the heat of your bid because what he pays is based on the bid of the next ad showing! The bid of the ad not shown is not taken into account while calculating the actual CPC an advertiser pays. To understand this situation let us take the case of Advertiser A, B and C. Suppose for the sake of simplicity, they have almost equal quality score and positioning is determined by the bid alone. Let A is bidding Rs100 with pp 1-1, B is bidding Rs150 with pp 1-3, C is bidding Rs50. in this case a won't show at all while B would show at Top and would be paying only Rs51 or something around that. Strategy of B is much better in this case compared to A which does not show at all. If A changes its strategy and decides to become flexible and opts for position preference 1-3 just like B, the game changes. In this case, B would still be at the top, but A would occupy the second position and also, determine the actual CPC paid by B. So, B would now be paying something around Rs100 to occupy the top slot, and would start feeling the heat of A's bids and may be tempted to lower the bid if it gets too hot to resist. The wisdom, is in judiciously choosing the bottom limit.
Conversion Optimizer: It does something Beyond Conversion Optimization !
Anyone managing a campaign with at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days can use conversion optimizer. This rule is a big relaxation over the previous rule which required a very higher conversion number within 90 days period. In that way only big advertisers could qualify for it. No more now, however, nearly anybody can qualify now with less than one conversion a day. Let us see how it works:
It places your ad into historically high converting zone more often.
It manages the bid on its own. So, if exhorbitantly high bid is required to occupy a slot, it would place your ad there keeping in view the cost and probability of conversion.
If you are not meeting the required number of conversions within cost your ad automatically slows down.
When conversion goes down, it starts pushing your ad into low CPC zone. So, you start getting low cost per click.
Some important observations rearding the behavior of campaigns on conversion optimizer with respect to CPC are:
If your campaign is meeting the required number of conversions within the specified cost. Cost per click may be pushed up higher in your campaign. your ads would be occupying some highly coveted slots more often in this scenario.
if your campaign fails to meet the specified number of conversions within the specified cost. Your Cost per click will show dramatic fall. You may also see some unbelievable figures of avg. CPC.
It works better with Content rather than Search campaigns.
Where lies the Trick:
First and foremost, you should not believe what system suggests you to bid. Always choose the most comfortable level of cost of conversion. Check your weekly, monthly, average of cost of conversion and accordingly select a figure.
Keep conversion optimizer switching on and off, targeting reduction in Avg. CPC. It automatically produces Quality Score enhancements about which I had talked about in some previous post. Yes, the conversion optimizer needs a bit of shake to make it work properly.
Conversion Optimizer works well with campaigns which have even flow of conversions throughout the day. It is not advisable in situations where conversion flows are highly erratic. Your campaign may stop at wrong time, or may continue at a high delivery frequency at wrong times.
In case of you disqualify in above mentioned condition, consider using a back up campaign, which is not on optimizer. if you don't have all campaigns on optimizer, you may use it even in the case of diasqualification in the above scenario. Mostly campaigns related to stock markets disqualify. Remember, you should not use high cost per conversion bid in such a case.
In a branding campaign, you should use it to produce Low CPC, defining your conversion is a real trick here. Try something near to home page (Landing Page), and home page too!!!
When Optimizer produces Low CPC:
If your target is to achieve very low cpc through it, make view of a page, which is not too far away from landing page as conversion. Remember, the more difficult it is for the system to get the desired level of cost of conversion, the lower the cpc gets.
System should, however, be able to produce conversions, within not too far away of the limit. Otherwise, it would stop the campaign.
Keep on reducing the specified cost per conversion, till the system starts increasing the cpc value. You would be able to discover the best bid that way.
Always, give your campaign a spell of manual cpc bidding in between. This will help you create conversion history which is helpful for optimizer to behave properly.
How to beat $0.01 bid barrier by Google Adwords
Google Adwords does not accept bidding below $0.01 and CPC value below it is very rare. However, you might achieve it by playing around smartpricing algorithm. google offers discount for your bid when it fails to place you against exact theme that you have made in your adgroup.The system will try to match you with the available themes and then place you with some percentage relevance offering discount for not meeting full relevance. So you should build up the theme very strongly which google is less likely to place accurately, and whenever it places you it is highly relevant to your business. So, a theme around camera lens may get 100% match but theme around camera lens zoom 400X throughout the adgroup is difficult to match and makes you eligible for smartpricing discount. similarly, tighten your adgroup around more and more specific keywords and get the smartpricing discount on most of your clicks. Infact through this principle I could really beat the system to produce abnormally higher click volume costing less than $0.01 ! Yes, it again stresses the need for highly focused adgroup.
Read This >>