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How Do Small Businesses Work Around The New Adwords Sidebar Update?

by FinanceMarketingPPC
7 replies
  • PPC/SEM
    • |
I work with over 100 clients that are small businesses. Even with a great quality score, they are getting outranked by major corporations in the ad network because Google removed the sidebar ads where a majority of my clients used to appear. Now their lead and conversion volume is suffering terribly. Is there anyway to help keep the lead volume more consistent without increasing bids dramatically?
#adwords #businesses #sidebar #small #update #work
  • Profile picture of the author fasteasysuccess
    There's actually quite a few ways. One way is to increase your ctr by split testing ads and keeping best...and make your keyword group more tight if not already.

    With the change and as you stated, most people are freaking out online, just raising bids and causing raises on some niches now and more to follow. The key is playing it right, verus just raising bids. Let your competition send the extra cash.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wile E Coyote
    This is very interesting.

    Since Google changed their algorithms I've seen a 12% decrease in CPL as well as much higher sale conversions.

    My guess would be that your bids are too low. Test increasing the CPC a bit. Also plan to start more direct-marketing focused ads so you don't pay for as many clicks (since your cost will be higher)

    Just have to test things.
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    • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
      Originally Posted by Wile E Coyote View Post

      Since Google changed their algorithms I've seen a 12% decrease in CPL as well as much higher sale conversions.
      Which position were your ads showing before and now? What's your QS? Any change in your campaign that may account for this such as bid changes, ad changes, keyword changes?

      I have a campaign where the CTR is up for same ad position but I'm always making changes and have the last couple of weeks so it's hard to pin it on the change. And I've had just as high and higher CTRs before.

      CPC went up slightly last week but I've seen it higher and suspect a particular competitor increasing their bid for July last year. Maybe they are doing it again.

      Conversion rate off but they had been so great the previous two weeks for some reason, which may be due to some change I did. Compared to a typical month, the last two weeks' conversions are about the same.
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  • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
    Before panicking, keep in mind that the side ads have not been removed but simply moved. They are appearing at the bottom of the page. So it's not as if there's only four ads at the top, there are three more at the bottom. In effect, there is now up to four less ads but those are the four which were at the bottom right.

    While it would be desirable to be more visible, that is being above the SERPs rather than below, compare the results of ads being on the side compared to below. It's may still be early to tell but who's to say that you won't get the same results?

    If you want to be above, you say your QS is great so go ahead and increase bids. If your QS is great it sounds like you are not bidding market value for your keywords and that is putting you in lower positions. You will find in a lot of cases that increasing bids does not increase costs by the same amount. In other words, going from $2 to $3 will not increase your CPC $1 or even 50%. You may find too that you make more profits. As a PPC manager, that should be your goal for your clients.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rafay Zafar
    you need to improve the CTR of your ads and keyword selection.
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