"Optimise your daily budget for more clicks"...what does "optimise" mean?

[lousemeister]

I've been getting these suggestions for weeks. Every time I think, well of course I would like to optimise.

So I follow their suggestion. Now they just keep asking me to push it up and up and up.

So I'm starting to wonder, what does "optimise" really mean?

To me, "optimise" is defined by refining, reworking, enhancing WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE, not increasing and increasing and increasing what you don't.

Would increasing by budget work 100% of the time? Well of course it would. There's always another x% of the market I could get by spending more, but spending more isn't necessarily the definition of optimise!

Is this all Google is doing? Getting more money out of me? Because I don't find this amusing at all. If so they should at least be honest about it and say "increase", not "optimise".

Or have I misinterpreted this? Does this eventually taper off and will they find an "optimal" budget? Because I would really like to be able to trust the advice they are giving me.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by lousemeister

To me, "optimise" is defined by refining, reworking, enhancing WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE, not increasing and increasing and increasing what you don't.

Not with adwords. It's about increasing ROI.

That means all factors that go into bidding at the right time
and the right price.

You can optimize for clicks and/or conversions.

What you describe is testing and tweaking leading you to discover
the ads, prices, times, etc. that can be utilized for optimization.

Paul

[lousemeister]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Not with adwords. It's about increasing ROI.

That means all factors that go into bidding at the right time
and the right price.

You can optimize for clicks and/or conversions.

What you describe is testing and tweaking leading you to discover
the ads, prices, times, etc. that can be utilized for optimization.

Paul

What I'm asking is, why is the only optimisation strategy Google keeps prompting me on is to increase my budget? I keep increasing it but surely it's not just about throwing more money at it...

I'm just questioning whether it should be called "optimise" when all they are asking me to do is "increase".

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by lousemeister

What I'm asking is, why is the only optimisation strategy Google keeps prompting me on is to increase my budget? I keep increasing it but surely it's not just about throwing more money at it...

I'm just questioning whether it should be called "optimise" when all they are asking me to do is "increase".

Probably because at your price you won't even get shown.

You have to get shown first before anything else.

You have to find the price that gets you shown in a position that will get
clicks and conversions.

If your QS was 10, then they would be suggesting other things, like time
of day.

Paul

[lousemeister]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Probably because at your price you won't even get shown.

You have to get shown first before anything else.

You have to find the price that gets you shown in a position that will get
clicks and conversions.

If your QS was 10, then they would be suggesting other things, like time
of day.

Paul

I don't think that's it either. I've been listed for weeks now, and 90% of the time I'm #1. I'm paying a fortune to be at the top and that's fine...but I don't know why they keep asking me to pay more!

If I was only at the top for 1 hour a day and then pushed down that's understandable, but I'm at the top almost every time I check...

[DudleyDog]

Have you checked to see what the effect of increasing/decreasing your budget has on the number of impressions you get?