Comments on: Beware of Low Bids and Low Budgets When Setting Up Your Google AdWords Account

By: Mark Kennedy

Mark Kennedy — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:53:34 +0000

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.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:50:52 +0000

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!

By: Ellerton Whitney

Ellerton Whitney — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:08:41 +0000

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.

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:25:02 +0000

@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.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:14:25 +0000

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?

By: Ray

Ray — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:56:25 +0000

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

By: Alan Mitchell

Alan Mitchell — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:46:03 +0000

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.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:43:57 +0000

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