It’s just too damn complicated! I’ve had an AdWords account for about 3 years now, and what started off as a nice and simple way of paying for traffic has turned into a no go zone.
This is my latest experience with Google.
A few days ago I started a new campaign. I did a little research, found some low priced and well related keywords and put them all in one campaign. I figured to leave them a few days to see which were working and which ones weren’t, and then do a "peel and stick" into another more highly targetted campaign.
I set my budget low and started it all off. I checked after the first day and increased the bid on some of the keywords, and deleted a couple which had mysteriously jumped to 50p (USD $1.00), and another one which had jumped to £2.50 ($5.00).
This just set the trend.
I now find that most of my keywords are inactive for search as they have all increased to either 50p or £2.50, with a cryptic message telling me to improve the quality of the words.
Well last time I checked in the dictionary, a word was a word. And if there’s somehow a new and mysterious way of increasing the quality of that word, it’s beyond me.
After already spending a couple of hours setting it all up in what has become the most tiresome interface I have ever seen, I now can’t be bothered any more.
Google, you’ve lost my business. Forever. Your PPC is just a waste of space, and it now matches the increasingly poor quality of your search results.
Take a hike. There are plenty of other ways of getting traffic without you.
Hi,
When google mean to change the quality of the words, they mean that your % is not high enough… e.g. 1000 people search for the keyword “smith”, but only 1 person clicks your link. This could be because you are not bidding high enough, or because the keywords you use are not related in any way to your site.
This could be one of the reasons that google have increased the costs you pay per click
Hey Jack,
How you doing? Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them.
Well, you’re right, some of these keywords were 0% after several days, so that’s fair enough. But others were over 6% clickthrough (which is awesome) and I’d had a couple of sales so I thought it was doing well.
It was only when I checked up on them after a few days to clean up the campaign that I saw most of them (including the high clickthroughs) were inactive.
So not only are Google slapping AdSense Publishers, they’re also now slapping the people who happen to find successful sets of keywords at low click cost.
It stinks. Of greed and arrogance.
Here’s examples of some of the keywords now marked as inactive until I increase my bid:-
digital download – 1.93%
“free ebook” – 1.47%
free digital – 6.45%
and there are others…
As an experiment, I’ve got running 3 keywords now that are costing me just 3p per click, and I’m waiting for Google to put their price up.
“digital delivery” – 6.49%
[digital delivery] – 8.33%
digital delivery – 1.29%
And oh my god! I’ve just noticed that where most of the keyword prices had been raised and were either £2.50 or 50p, they’re now mostly 15p, 20p or 25p. A handful are still at 50p and only a couple at £2.50.
So because I didn’t bite and increase my bids immediately, they’ve dropped the price, but it’s still more than I’m willing to pay. This is supposed to be a free market, where fair bidding increases the price, but this is just taking the mickey.
Maybe if I leave them longer they’ll become active again?
What *was* Google’s mantra? “Do no evil”?
Yeah, right!
😉
Cheers,
Frank.
Hi Frank
Yes, i can understand what you mean, and yes 50p and £2.50 a click is far too much (especially when it comes to ebooks etc that are not sold for an extremely high cost)
It may have been the case that your link was not high enough in the list and not because your site wasn’t targeted well enough. But, as google goes, the more targeted it is, the higher the ranking you can achive for lower money, unlike some other search engines, you can target well and be at the top for 5p, but be untargeted and be at the bottom for 50p.
The keywords i use at present now only cost me 30-50p a click, but initially i was paying £1 a click minimum because i had simillar problems… i started at a low bid, and my advert stayed low, meaning a low percentage. I wasn’t too pleased either when that happened, but I think i made the right decision and stuck up with the £1 clicks (which gave me reasonable standing in terms of position) and a few days later i was at the top of the list for £1 a click.
As soon as i noticed this, however, I reduced them down to the current prices and since then i have stayed at pretty much the same position.
Maybe it will help if you did something simillar ( although i would not recommend for £2.50 bids :P)
Another trick is that you run the advert… Click on your own link, refresh the google page and click again and then go and switch the advert off, you will find maybe only 5-10 people searched during the time the advert was on, with 2 clicks coming from you thats then at least a 20% click through rate… which is high when it comes to google.
( ps if you have msn or simillar, add info@wellglow.co.uk for additional advice if you need it )
Thanks
Jack
Sorry to post again, but also when you were saying they were inactive, even ones with high click throughs, its possible that google is measuring on the overall average click through percentage 🙂