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Adwords - Keyword Planner vs First Page Bid

by MarkoMK
9 replies
  • PPC/SEM
    • |
I was hyped when I was starting Adwords, keyword going for $0.05 to $0.10, pretty nice price, until I saw that they costed $0.60 for First Page advertising, then I saw that their Keyword Planner is misleading.

Anyways wanted to ask, what is the difference you are getting between your Keyword Planner estimate and your First Page recommendation on your campaign.
#adwords #bid #keyword #page #planner
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    HiMarkoMK,

    Sometimes it much higher, sometimes it's much lower.

    It's not that the data is inaccurate, it represents the average of all advertisers targeting the keywords. Advertisers have a wide range of abilities and performance characteristics. If you are below the average you are likely to pay a higher cost for the exact same ad position. If you want better CPC cost then you need to learn to better manage your campaigns.

    The actual CPC cost will vary from one advertiser to another because it is based on a lot of differnet factors, including: relevance, expected clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page. Those are all factors that can be influence by how you manage your campaigns.

    So, you might be seeing $0.60 CPC today, but after a bit of campaign optimization it could drop to less than $ 0.10. Actively managing your campaigns is an absolute necessity if you want to beat the averages.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarkoMK
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      HiMarkoMK,

      Sometimes it much higher, sometimes it's much lower.

      It's not that the data is inaccurate, it represents the average of all advertisers targeting the keywords. Advertisers have a wide range of abilities and performance characteristics. If you are below the average you are likely to pay a higher cost for the exact same ad position. If you want better CPC cost then you need to learn to better manage your campaigns.

      The actual CPC cost will vary from one advertiser to another because it is based on a lot of differnet factors, including: relevance, expected clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page. Those are all factors that can be influence by how you manage your campaigns.

      So, you might be seeing $0.60 CPC today, but after a bit of campaign optimization it could drop to less than $ 0.10. Actively managing your campaigns is an absolute necessity if you want to beat the averages.
      Thanks for the response, what if there is no competition on the keyword I am bidding. For example I am targeting my country which rarely anyone uses adwords here.

      All the keywords are $0.01 to $0.1 according to the Keyword Planner, if my Quality score is not bad I can still achieve that price?
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by MarkoMK View Post

        Thanks for the response, what if there is no competition on the keyword I am bidding. For example I am targeting my country which rarely anyone uses adwords here.

        All the keywords are $0.01 to $0.1 according to the Keyword Planner, if my Quality score is not bad I can still achieve that price?
        Hi MarkoMK,

        Maybe, but not at first.

        Google gives all new keywords a Quality Score of 6/10, which is going to push your CPC a little higher, even if you have little to no competition. After your ads establish a great CTR, and your Quality Score gets adjusted, then you might see the avg. CPC go down.

        Keep in mind that your CPC can also go up if you earn poor quality scores, so you must do a good job of managing your campaigns to get the lower prices.
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        • Profile picture of the author PPCDan
          Hey,

          I don't focus on that at all. It doesn't matter what CPC is on the Keyword Planner or the First Page Bid. I've seen hundreds of times where I started with a First Page Bid of $5 and up and it shot down to 0.70 cents within a week.

          As long as you focus on relevancy between your keyword, ads, and landing page your QS will be good and cpc will go down.

          If someone is searching in Google for shipping rates to australia. Then your ad and landing page needs to be all about that.
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  • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
    The keyword planner is just an estimate. It has to work with the data it has and sometimes, there is not enough of it or the data is skewed in some way that affect the numbers.

    A few things to remember. The price shown is not what you are likely to pay. It's the suggested bid. The bid to get in the top position. You may not want to be there, at least not yet. It also assumes an average QS. If your QS is below average, your actual CPC will be higher to be in that position.

    There is always competition somewhere. I believe the planner uses worldwide data so that can skew results for you. They probably use worldwide data for QS calculations too, or at least a portion of it.

    Like PPCDan, I also don't pay much attention to the planner's CPC. My goal is maximizing revenues. I use the planner to give me an idea of a starting bid if I don't know what the typical rate is.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarkoMK
      Originally Posted by LucidWebMarketing View Post

      The keyword planner is just an estimate. It has to work with the data it has and sometimes, there is not enough of it or the data is skewed in some way that affect the numbers.

      A few things to remember. The price shown is not what you are likely to pay. It's the suggested bid. The bid to get in the top position. You may not want to be there, at least not yet. It also assumes an average QS. If your QS is below average, your actual CPC will be higher to be in that position.

      There is always competition somewhere. I believe the planner uses worldwide data so that can skew results for you. They probably use worldwide data for QS calculations too, or at least a portion of it.

      Like PPCDan, I also don't pay much attention to the planner's CPC. My goal is maximizing revenues. I use the planner to give me an idea of a starting bid if I don't know what the typical rate is.
      Right, well that's why I am calculating what can I pay in order to see if it's worth doing this project
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by LucidWebMarketing View Post

      There is always competition somewhere. I believe the planner uses worldwide data so that can skew results for you. They probably use worldwide data for QS calculations too, or at least a portion of it.
      Hi Lucid,

      Actually the Keyword Planner allows you to select any location you want, even down to the individual city, or group of cities. Which is particularly handy for local business campaigns.
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  • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
    Yes, but part of the CPC estimate may use worldwide or national data. If so, this data may skew the estimate one way or another, especially for a smaller city.

    As we both have told others many times, it's a tool but the information given is not the be-all and end-all. The information is also nearly useless if one does not understand how the tool gets and processes that information. It can be a rough guide for certain things.
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  • Profile picture of the author svetod
    I personally never look at the Keyword Planner, as in most of the time it is misleading.
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