lowering search bids?

[dahunter]

Hey guys, I've been running profitable campaigns on obscure keywords in google search for a while but as I'm targeting more competitive keywords i find myself in a dilemma where I wanted to see what you guys thought.

If i start on obscure keywords then the bid doesn't necesarily go to exorbitant amounts for a minimum bid, but it takes a while to be able to bid on keywords like that.

Hoewever, if you go for the more competitive keywords like "web hosting", "life insurance" or "payday loan", then your ass is going to have to bid up to 30 dollars per click.

Now, unless they know something I don't know, the top guys in these positions are definitely not paying even close to that amount. I know because I am ranked highly on some keywords where I am on top and paying just a few cents.

The question is: besides building through obscure keywords first and then eventually getting to the main keywords, how can i get on top of these competitive keywords with bids that aren't ridiculous?

If i spend 500 dollars a day, just totally overpaying and losing money, will it eventually go down and if so, how long could that take.

Any ideas, suggestions are much appreciated.

D

 

[zorba]

Well, I've seen three tactics for this:

1.) Bid high to start with, lose tons of money up front, but make it up later. Clearly this is what you don't want to do in this question.

2.) Bid broad terms with tons of negatives instead of bidding on a high-value phrase. You need a lot of negatives to keep the broad terms from matching stuff you don't want, though, and you'll never think of them all, so this probably also involves losing a bunch up front.

3.) Don't bid for #1 placement -- instead, bid lower and try to get #4-#6 (still first page, but cheaper), and write your ad for CTRs, not conversions. (I.e. instead of filtering "free" out as a negative, go ahead and promise freebies in the ad.) Make sure your ad is more appealing than the #1 ad, even if it's going to pull in nonconverting clicks. This way you get a lot of clicks (hopefully as many as the #1 guy) and your CPC goes down. Of course, those nonconverting clicks... will still cost money up front. But not $30 a click -- you'll still lose some, but you'll lose less.

I don't know of any way to "steal" the #1 CPC spot without sinking a bunch of money into it to get a good CTR, though.

Also, with all of the above, make sure you have a 8-10 Google QS (5 on Yahoo) on the page. Custom write landers for every adgroup to get good keyword density, have an interlinked site, etc. Bidding on competitive keywords with direct linking or low QS landers will be insanely expensive. If you already have low QS, improve the page, start a new domain & campaign, and move it there so Google/Yahoo will rerate it.

 

[r1se.x]

as written above the key is called quality score:

• get a high ctr. ( you can achieve that by relevant ads. put the keyword at least in headline and display url.

• you dont need to bid for the first position to get a good quality score, but you should at least bid high enough to be displayed on the first page. Google will determinate your quality score for your specific ad position! This means your ads click trough rate will be compare against other advertisers ads, which are shown on the same position. And then google determinates your quality score. So this means your ctr on position 8 will not be compared against the ad of another advertiser on position 2.

• in the beginning you should start only with exact matching and phrase keywords -> this will work out as a better overall campaign ctr.

• Your landing page will also play a role in the quality score determination.

• your quality score will take a while to rise because you need to build ctr history. This can take a while if you´re doing low volume. For example one of my campaing had a quality score of 7-9 for 3-4 months and since 1 month i got a quality score of 10 for nearly all keywords.

you should also consider checking out other traffic sources than adwords so you can expand your campaign. there are literally dozens of other ad networks out there.

 

[vladb2]

Well, I've seen three tactics for this:

1.) Bid high to start with, lose tons of money up front, but make it up later. Clearly this is what you don't want to do in this question.

2.) Bid broad terms with tons of negatives instead of bidding on a high-value phrase. You need a lot of negatives to keep the broad terms from matching stuff you don't want, though, and you'll never think of them all, so this probably also involves losing a bunch up front.

3.) Don't bid for #1 placement -- instead, bid lower and try to get #4-#6 (still first page, but cheaper), and write your ad for CTRs, not conversions. (I.e. instead of filtering "free" out as a negative, go ahead and promise freebies in the ad.) Make sure your ad is more appealing than the #1 ad, even if it's going to pull in nonconverting clicks. This way you get a lot of clicks (hopefully as many as the #1 guy) and your CPC goes down. Of course, those nonconverting clicks... will still cost money up front. But not $30 a click -- you'll still lose some, but you'll lose less.

I don't know of any way to "steal" the #1 CPC spot without sinking a bunch of money into it to get a good CTR, though.

Also, with all of the above, make sure you have a 8-10 Google QS (5 on Yahoo) on the page. Custom write landers for every adgroup to get good keyword density, have an interlinked site, etc. Bidding on competitive keywords with direct linking or low QS landers will be insanely expensive. If you already have low QS, improve the page, start a new domain & campaign, and move it there so Google/Yahoo will rerate it.

you can't put google and yahoo on the same boat