As part of the Google AdWords upgrade that brought us the new Content Network and Placement Targeting features, Google has gone and pulled a fast one on us. Within the new tabs, Google is removing your Content Network average position and has temporarily replaced it with “N/A.”
The funny thing is, if you switch over to the Keywords tab, you can still see an average position. Though, this does not come without a fair warning. If you’re a good little boy or girl and have separated your Search and Content campaigns, this will still give you an average position for Content. But if you’re a bad so-and-so and still have Search and Content running in the same campaign, this number will be a total of Search and Content average positions!
When we asked our Google rep about this find, we were given this response: “Great Catch!”
I’m not sure what that means, but to summarize, Google’s Technical Team is in the process of removing Content Network average positions from the Campaign Summary tabs. But for now, you have to stare at the N/A in it’s stead. Am I wrong in thinking that this is extremely weird? I manage my Content campaigns using average position as one of many data points in my decision making. Why remove it? On the up-side, you can still access average positions for Content via traditional reporting in the Report Center.
Does anyone else find this as odd?
     | do some of that social network stuff. |
I never really understood what the avg position for the content network really meant. Since the content network doesn’t display the same way the search did it didn’t really make that much sense to me. With this change though I hope I’m not missing out on anything.
I´ve seen yesterday the same thing.
[...] Hero noticed that Google has applied “N/A” (not available) to all the columns within the content [...]
I saw the same thing as well. As much as it rubs me the wrong way that position data is being taken away , I am not THAT surprised.
[...] More from http://www.ppchero.com…; [...]
It’s annoying because content position can be used as an indicator that you need to be bidding higher.
Hey I just setup a brand new adwords acct and setup my first campaign in content network only. it is showing avg. pos. maybe this got changed back to showing again in the new adwords interface.