A few weeks back one of my clients performed a search for one of his keywords and it didn’t come up in Google search. So of course I review the keyword in the AdWords interface by checking on the ad diagnostic tool and saw that the keyword was not showing due to a low keyword bid and that it wasn’t on page 1 of the Google results pages.
I had a few co-workers here in the office search for the same keyword and some found our ad, while others did not.
I asked my Google Reps about this and they mentioned two things of particular interest.
1. Because I was hitting my campaign budget almost daily, our ads were only showing periodically in order to keep our ads displaying for most of the day. This was happening despite the fact that all of my campaign settings are set to ‘accelerate’ which means they will show our ad each time someone searches for a keyword until the budget is depleted.
2. They also said that because my keyword bid put us below page 1, our ads would only show part of that time, whether your hitting your daily budget or not.
The ad is showing. It’s not showing all the time because of the low bid, says my Google rep.
I asked for any documentation on this and she didn’t have anything to give to me to support her comment.
The point of the story: watch out for those keywords that are below page 1 in the Google SERPS. If they’re important keywords that must be shown, maybe think about increasing their bids.
Also, I have had this problem with new clients before, where AdWords says their ads aren’t showing, but their campaign budget is set to $5/day and their keyword bids are at $1 each. Obviously, Google is going to stop showing your ads at some point to be sure you don’t go over your campaign daily budget.
And always remember to check your settings for each campaign and if you want your ad to come up as many times as it can throughout the day, then chance your default settings from ‘standard – show ads evenly over time’ to ‘accelerated – show ads as quickly as possible’. This will help you ads be active anytime anyone does a search on your keyword until you have hit your campaign budget.
     | do some of that social network stuff. |
Thank you Amber for a great and informative article. I am just beginning to think about using ppc and the timing of this was perfect to help me decide what to bid, and when. It seems to me that showing the ads on anything but page one is probably not going to make for a very successful campaign, unless I am confused.
Do you recommend bidding high on your keywords? I have looked at the numbers in the keyword finders, but am not sure exactly what is meant by them. Could you possibly show an example (real world preferably)?
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kim
Hi Amber, you mention:
“If they’re important keywords that must be shown, maybe think about increasing their bids”
When I have problems with ads not showing or only showing sporadically, the first two things I always check are if campaign daily budgets are being hit and if campaigns are set to accelerated delivery. I would only think about increasing keywords bids if both of these are OK – i.e. campaigns are set to accelerated and daily budgets are not being hit – or you’ll be effectively paying more for a lower number of clicks.
This is my first time leaving a comment on this website. Feel Free To Leave Me A Comment On My Blog, I would appreciate that. Anyway, I agree with you, I have a PPC Campaign and I have my budget lowering then what you described a day, And I seem like I am getting nowhere. I am a newbie when it comes to PPC Advertising and Just getting the hang of Google Analytics And Google Conversation Tracking. I have a campagin on Guitar Instruction And A Review Website On Guitar Instruction Like Jamarama and Unlocking Guitar Secrets. I know if you budget is too low, you might only get about 5 clicks a day because of the limit of your daily budget. This will decrease your odds at making any money. Because your ads will not be shown all day long. Now my question,. How much should you set your daily budget to become profitable. You said 5.00 a day is too low. If you bidding on keywords that are .40 to .50 a keyword what would be an adequate daily budget to make a profit.
Also is accelerated like you said better than standard so all your ads will show. And Rotating Your Ads Better if you are doing split testing with different ad variations.
If you could answer these question.
I would surely appreciate that,
Thanks,
Ray
Wow, this is what I needed to know about a week ago. But here is a question, my keywords are between $0.30 – $0.90 and I have set my bid to $3.00 and daily budget to $20. Only one of my ads shows on the second page – when three of them are showing high CTR and hourly doubling CPM. What might be going wrong here?
@Everyone, thanks for all your comments and questions. While there is a different scenario for each of you, my best advice is to start off your account by setting slightly higher bids (perhaps starting at .50 – .75) depending on the keywords, and allow yourself a larger budget so you can see what position your in and how much traffic that gets you. Then after about a week or two goes by, you can make edits based off those initial results. I would recommend setting a daily budget for the first couple of weeks at least $50 to $100 to start. You’re going to have to spend a little to make a little. Being on the second page isn’t always bad, but your traffic will drop significantly if you go from page one to page two. Just do the math, if you’re bids are set at $.90 and you only have a $5 or $10 daily budget, then you’re only going to get about 5 – 15 clicks per day which is too low and your account will be shut off early in the day.
One thing a number of people do not take into consideration with first page bid estimates and what Google says your current performance is the difference between Google.com and the Search Network. Your average CPCs are almost always going to be lower on the Search Network, and your positions will be higher. Thus, though it might look like you are appearing on the first page according to your average position, you are really just showing up on Search Network results pages, and not on Google.com.
That’s a really interesting point Ellerton, I’ve never thought of that. Guess it makes perfect sense though. I know it’s possible to separate by network within the AdWords interface, but it would be nice having that separation in the reporting and AdWords Editor. Advising people that they are actually appearing lower down on Google.com than they think would perhaps even be a profitable move for Google!
Amber says: “Because I was hitting my campaign budget almost daily, our ads were only showing periodically in order to keep our ads displaying for most of the day. This was happening despite the fact that all of my campaign settings are set to ‘accelerate’ which means they will show our ad each time someone searches for a keyword until the budget is depleted.”
Good post, Amber, but that snippet above is a little unnerving to hear from Google. The whole point of accelerated impressions is to maximize impressions and clicks until you spend the budget. If we wanted pacing, we would select standard delivery.
Thanks for pointing this out and it is something I want to keep a very close eye on.