Keyword Bidding War - Now What?

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mstef

mstef

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Dec 11, 2008
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Hey,

Running my first 'real' adwords campaign since yesterday (2 conversions - 2.5x ROI so far so I'm a bit content with things). Anyway, for a majority of the adgroups containing keyword of the product itself, the first page bids have been going up every few hours like clockwork. I'm assuming the others keep trying to bid each other out of it. Well, the bids are at an average of 3x what they started at now. My QS has stayed at 7 since, and the ad CTR is quite irratic (40 ad groups, each w/ atleast 5 ad variations). CTR ranges from 0 to 20% (but some of the lower CTR's have like 20 impressions).

My question is - what is the best course of action to take in a situation like this? About 15 of the adgroups are semi-targeted, low cost keywords which relate, in a way, directly to what the product does. So I hoped to grab attention of people not intentionally looking for this product for some cheap clicks.

Any advice?

Thanks as always
 
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Curious..would assholes ever intentionally click on the other ads they are competing with just to fuck with them?
 
Curious..would assholes ever intentionally click on the other ads they are competing with just to fuck with them?
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possible. more likely in niches related to clickbank products (full of noobs with just 1 campaign). cpa guys are generally more interested in spending time generating clicks than being a douche and clicking other peoples ads.


as to your "problem" bear in mind that when you enter someone else's playground they are not going to be happy about the extra competition and will fight for their position. solution? man up, grow some balls and send a message "there's a new player in town, don't fuck with me". you'll lose some money for a few days but you'll have a lot easier time after that ;)
 
whoops. just re-read your post. my advice really only relates if you're going in near the top of the bidding and it sounds like you are targetting the bottom hence why the minimum bid is concerning you? bear in mind with google they can be a bit volatile when you first enter a market and have no keyword or ad historical history. i'd still maybe up your bids a bit and target the middle of the board for a few days until you've built up some history then target your bids to where you want to be. you'll find your ads will become more "sticky" as the history builds up and it'll be harder to shake you out of position.

hope that helps
 
Thanks for the advice - that sounds like it makes sense. I wasn't just targeting the bottom - the average position of the ads were like 4-7 until the bids got knocked up (from .5 now around 1.50ish). As long as I can keep a good conversion rate I don't have a problem bringing it up around 2 - but if the conversions dry up it sucks (obviously).

It's just a tricky situation because there is only small traffic volume for any search including the name of the product. Anything general related to it costs a fortune so I'm trying to be somewhat creative, but the creative terms don't seem to convert or even click through that much.
 
a rakish rise from .05 to 1.50 sounds like a QS issue to me. keep an eye on your keyword scores over the next 24 hours there may be a delay. yahoo is a good idea too. i always test there first but thats just me test where you feel most comfortable.
 
How does YSM's interface, etc, compare to Adwords? Never used it but I like that $50 signup bonus..
 
its a total pain in the ass to be honest. but if you can get up to a gold account you get import functionality and then you can just run your campaigns by spreadsheet. a lot more convenient.

i'm waiting for my api developer key then i can have some real fun :P
 
I'm signing up now. The whole intro process is ridiculous. Treating us like we're 5 years old..
 
"Every time your balance is low, you will be automatically charged either the amount you spent over the last three days, or three times your account daily spending limit, whichever is lower."

What?!
 
mstef said:
"Every time your balance is low, you will be automatically charged either the amount you spent over the last three days, or three times your account daily spending limit, whichever is lower."

What?!
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yeah, that's how they keep their shareholders "happy" I guess...

still yahoo is useful because you can promote pretty much anything and forget about being slapped to death
 
Find other keywords on google. Run your competitors on keywordcompete and go past them in scope...
 
adCenter have any promos for signups? I think I'm gunna try that first before retarded YSM..
 
mstef said:
"Every time your balance is low, you will be automatically charged either the amount you spent over the last three days, or three times your account daily spending limit, whichever is lower."

What?!
Click to expand...

Email support and ask them to have your account set to a pre-payment basis. They're good about it and do that for whoever knows to ask.
 
Looks like the increases have finally stopped. I grew some balls and upped the bids nicely. QS is steady at 7+ (one was even a 10 some how). Positions are averaging around 3-4. The campaign is spending money much faster now but I've already brought in more than I put in adwords so I don't care right now. I'm letting the rest of the funds run then I'll use all of the data to see whats working and what isn't. Then scale it out nice and big, include YSM, MSN, FB, etc...Hope I have the right idea here...
 
Split test and make you page outconvert theirs. Same with your ad copy. Then you can play with them. Bid the max bid where you still end up just below them. Changes are when you do that they lose money and drop their bids - so you can push them down like that. But first you have got to outconvert them + better CTR is also good of course.
 
Yea I have 4 different landing pages - each with a different way of promoting the product. I'm waiting to see which converts the best. Conversions could be a little better but I assume once this test period is over, I'll pick only the best LPs and keywords, lower the bids accordingly, then hopefully watch the money come in.

I wrote my own script for Drupal that keeps track of all of the data for each keyword and which page they land on, etc
 
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