Lowering CPC on Google Image Ads. Need Advice.

[webtrend]

I recently launched an image ad campaign (my first one) on google content network. I am currently targetting only one image size (300x250px). My bidding is at $1.50 and my current average cpc is at $0.90. My average position ranking is hovering right at around 1.1

When I initially started my campaign, my average CTR was 0.1%. I have been slowly weeding out low CTR sites since last few weeks and my average CTR has now improved to 1%. The problem is that my campaign is barely profitable (~15% ROI). I have some good days and some bad days. If I can lower my CPC by 20-30%, it would be great. However, I am not sure what is the best approach. I came up with the following list but I am not sure which one should I focus on.

1. Manually lower the bids? I tried that in the past but Google reduced the number of impressions. May be I tried it too soon.
2. Scale up the campaign, collect more data and eliminate sites with negative ROI.
3. CPM bidding
4. Change Ad and LP, rotate offers. I have already tried this but not seen any significant gains.

Any Advice?

 

[invisible777]

5. You may have found the "happy spot" where you can't lower the bid without losing that huge level of traffic you're getting. Even a .01 reduction in CPC bid could put you below the imaginary line. And for many on the content network, a 15% daily return on your money is pretty nice.

I'd keep weeding out the poor CTR and poor converting sites, and also introduce new creatives in hopes of finding one that improves on the overall CTR, then maybe try dropping CPC bid (slowly) again.

 

[webtrend]

Invisible

Thanks for the input. 15% is not daily unfortunately. On good days it is 15% and on bad days it is negative ROI. So I definitely need to optimize some more.

 

[bb_wolfe]

Invisible

Thanks for the input. 15% is not daily unfortunately. On good days it is 15% and on bad days it is negative ROI. So I definitely need to optimize some more.

Once you have enough data, schedule the ads to show only where they seem to be the most profitable, like 6am to 9pm, or whatever your data provides. that helped me turn a 100% roi campaign into a 600% roi campaign in Jan/Feb. Then google got it's fucking period and killed my campaign, then sent a 'final warning' email.. cunts.

 

[redmonkey]

1_ Don't scale it up yet unless you have new banners tested and ready to be rotated or your ROI will drop like a rock.

2_ Try to moving the site that has HUGE percentage of impressions but small ROI different adgroup

3_ Pause the url that has lots of impressions but barely profitable

4_ Move the url that has high ROI but less impressions to another adgroup

Dayparting.

Then you could decide which to pause depends on your budget, etc...