Google keywords-no ads yet keyword is $0.86

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Struggling a bit with Google adwords so looking for advice guys.
So I find a keyword that has no ads on at all and I add the keyword to my adwords account.
Now I'm expecting to be no1 ad as there are no ads, but Google tell my bid is below first page bid? Huh, there are no ads for this keyword.

They also tell me that I must bid $0.86 to rank 1st page, but on the keyword planner, my keyword was only $0.12.
Can some one explain whats going on please?
#pay per click/search engine marketing (ppc/sem) #$086 #ads #google #keyword #keywordsno
  • Others might blow a lot of smoke but heres the truth - Google is a business.

    They have developed a nice little system around QS (quality score) that forces you to bid against yourself and make them more money even when there is no competition.

    You can probably tweak things and might be able to lower the cost over time but you have come up against the perfect situation that demonstrates in many instances its really about forcing people to pay more money

    in any rational system the only bid should either be totally disqualified at any price for not being relevant or should be the top result as the only result.

    have you looked at organic search results without PPC?? One does not equate to the other but a fair amount of the time when there is no adwords results the organic search results are not very competitive to rank without paying per click.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I see it all the time. Yes, they are a business and they (I feel) arbitrarily set bids on some keywords higher.

    I have clients where their brand terms, with zero competition, require a bid of $.80 to $1 to show and other clients I can get away with $.05.

    With that said, it's also common when adding new keywords that I will run into the same issue. Bump my bids up to meet the minimum (or higher) and as soon as I start getting a little (positive) history the estimates they provide drop like a rock and I can lower my bids.

    Two other things to note, I almost completely ignore the keyword planner in terms of estimated CPC. In my experience it's usually wrong. Though usually it's telling me bids are higher than what it ends up being.

    Second, just because you search and see no competitors doesn't mean they don't exist.

    Maybe they aren't targeting where you are located. Maybe they schedule their ads at certain times and when you searched they weren't active. Maybe they were out of budget. Could be a number of reasons.

    As you get history (assuming there is enough search volume for the keyword) you can look in the auction insights report to see what other competitors are showing up.

    Lastly, also keep in mind, just because you have to bid that much doesn't mean you will pay that much.

    Best of luck,

    David
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Wow, really is an eye opener.
    The one key word i check all the time and no ads. checked other Google search countries also. I mean it could be they are advertising in the early hours but apart from 8 hours I have checked the rest and I see no ads-Ever!
    Which all leads to the earlier post of simple Google Greed!

    Anyway, so my tactic should probably be up my bids to reach est first page bid or better, then when I get some action, lower the bids, is this the general approach?
    Keeping in mind to set a daily budget or clicks could really cost.

    Why oh why, didn't I come up with this never ending money supply chain?
  • You may be right. You may have zero competition for that search term. I'm just saying if there are, there could be various reasons you may not see them when you search. So don't just always go by your eyes.

    As far as whether you should increase, that's a call you have to make. I don't know your budget or how sensitive you are to a click costing you $.86 instead of $.12.

    There is no guarantee it will drop if you do what I said. But I've seen it enough that it's what I would do to test it.

    The thing is, if it's going to happen you need to make sure the history you create is good. Because if your CTR (specifically) is lousy for the position they won't drop it.

    Another option is to raise to where you feel comfortable. If the keyword has enough volume you should still receive some impressions page 2 and you could still potentially see them drop estimates. It just takes longer to accumulate that history because you will receive fewer impressions.

    Best of luck.
  • If there is really no competition for your search term you will probably never pay $0.86 per click. That is just an estimation of the first page bid. However you should keep in mind that these estimations vary a lot.

    Also, it is good if you keep the ads running so that you could see information about QS and Ads Relevance as well as Landing Page expectation. Those metrics really point out what you should fix in order to get lower CPC rate.
  • Hi mikeb222,

    What you are trying to do hasn't worked since July of 2005 This is really old news. Google plugged the low quality ad gap back in 2005 with the introduction of Quality Scores.

    This means that you are no longer simply competing with other advertisers, you are also competing with organic search results. The Quality Score is intended to prevent low quality, or low relevance, ads to show up in search results harming the Google Search experience.

    It is possible that you have unseen competitors that are not targeting your specific location, yet still competing with your ads in geographic areas nearby. So you can never rely on what you see in search results from a single location. There are usually competitors that do not show in your personal search result page for several reasons including: geo-location targeting, daily budget limits, and ad scheduling.

    However, bear in mind that you are not simply competing with advertisers, you are also competing with organic search results. Google doesn't want to show irrelevant, or barely relevant results above listings that are more relevant. The Quality score, and minimum bids help to prevent low quality ads from showing in search results.

    You would be better off selecting highly relevant keywords and set you max CPC bid at whatever level you are willing to pay, rather than waste time looking for keywords with no ads. There is usually a good reason those keywords have no ads, and advertising on such terms is typically a poor marketing decision.

    I suggest you shift your focus away from low cost keywords and toward high value keywords that can be targeted at profitable CPC rates. (Value - Cost = Profit)

    HTH,

    Don Burk
    • [1] reply
    • I suggest that rather than take that piece of advice you explore other ad opportunities than overpay (unless its still profitable).. the suggestion that low cost equals less than high value is false

      As technology changes and new words and phrases emerge every year there are new search terms that are high value and have low competition and therefore lower rates.

      Any time you HAVE TO pick high cost to get high value for every single opportunity out there its a huge sign that you should explore other ad opportunities.

      Keep us informed. As others have pointed out - bid amount might not be what you actually pay. It does happen though.
  • like I said Mike

    mostly adwords management sellers as you can see from the post above this.

    Its to a large degree a money making scheme sold under a lot of distortion and spin . Google does not care one whit about you competing with organic leads. If they did they could just as well refuse to list you at any price to ahem stop you from " harming the Google Search experience" and certainly woudn't serve four ads in many search results in the organic column

    I don't recall you stating your quality score was low but if thats the case you should fix both the ad and the link to page for relevance but theres no doubt about it and its very often nothing to do with any hidden competitors. Its just about making money. its a classic well built bait and switch - advertise one rate make up some excuse why its more.

    best advice given as a couple people have stated - run the ad and then when you have click throughs your price may drop. You probably will never get the price they advertised. The system is rigged in that regard with fancy babble about why it is the way that it is to mesmerize you away from the fact that its about greed.
    • [1] reply
    • And there he goes again.

      For those that have been around awhile, Mike needs no introduction, for those that are new to the forum, meet Mike, the resident troll of the Warrior forum. I believe he may be personally responsible for driving away at least tens of thousands of active contributing members from this forum with his incessant trolling activity. Most people just go away and never come back, but I have never been intimidated by his onerous behavior.

      He likes to ascribe his "imagined" motives as absolute proof that your advice or opinion could never be of value to members of this forum.

      It's true, Google is a for profit organization, everything they do has a profit motive driving their decisions. But it may be a bit excessive to assign every decision about quality control as a scheme to force you to pay more. Nobody is forced to advertise with AdWords, there are plenty of other viable advertising channels available.

      And it's true I do own and operate and advertising agency and I actually charge money for my services. That doesn't automatically make my advice invalid, as Mike likes to infer as he cleverly employs this old worn-out trolling tool against all industry insiders.

      The fact is that I have never once charged anybody on this forum, nor anywhere else, for information. I have always offered it freely with no strings attached as thousands of members on this very forum can attest. I do charge for my time if you want me to work for you, but I have never charged for information, I always share my advice freely as a way of giving back to the business community.

      While I know Mike is relatively new to PPC I will try to explain it so that even he can understand, though I doubt he can. Mike tends to be a very binary thinker, he is full on, or full off, and completely oblivious to the scale that exists in-between.

      Google has never viewed relevance as an absolute value, instead they treat relevance as a relative value. Some things can be a little bit relevant while other things can be more relevant. That's the thinking behind the Quality Score system. Google sees some ads as extremely relevant and of high quality QS 10/10 while other ads migh be of a lesser quality, or lesser relevance QS 5/10 and some ads might be completely irrelevant QS 1/1.

      The Quality Score system was introduced in 2005 to solve a business problem that is true. You see before Quality Score was added, many advertisers realized that some keywords had little or no competition in the ad auction. And even though their ads had little or no relevance to the low competition keyword they could get away with displaying ads that would have very high impressions at very low cost.

      As more and more advertisers discovered this low cost advertising method it began to negatively impact the earnings of Google Search advertising. Google had to come up with a solution. The Quality Score system allows AdWords to rate each and every ad for relevance to each and every search term, in real time. If they deem that your ad is completely irrelevant it earns a QS 1/10 and is prevented from participating in the ad auction.

      That's exact what they do. So... maybe they do care after all?

      But that doesn't do anything to resolve the business issue of partially relevant ads, or poorly written ads (binary thinkers will not get this). So the Quality Score solution was designed to do more than a binary shutoff of ads, it actually scored the ad for quality and relevance using a 1 to 10 Quality Scale. This allows Google to earn roughly the same price per impression (CPM) for an ad slot regardless of how poorly your targeting or how poorly your ad copy was written.

      You see, while Google charges advertisers on a CPC basis they are not selling clicks they are selling ad impressions, so it makes sense that the ad auction compare bids on a per impression value rather than a per click value.

      The Quality Score simply uses CTR to normalize the ad auction bids so that the highest value bid is always the winning bid. This is basic accounting not some evil scheme to overcharge people. However, I can see how some people feel that way, especially if they are new and don't have the skills for targeting and ad copy writing needed to compete in the highly competitive SEM space.

      The underlying fallacy in your assertion Mike, is that Google must look at relevancy as an absolute value, it's that binary thinking getting in the way. Google sees relevancy as a relative value, not an absolute value.

      Likewise, Quality Scores are also set as a relative value, not an absolute value. Quality Scores simply normalize the ad auction bids so that Google can auction off ad space to the highest bidder based on CPM, not CPC. Afterall, why should Google be forced to sell ad space to a lower value bid in the ad auction? That seems pretty fair to me and has proven to be a solid accounting adjustment to make it fair to everyone competing in the ad auctions.

      Yes that "greed" driven corporation, Google, rigged the ad auction so that people with poor ad writing skills would have to pay just as much per ad impression as those advertisers with superior targeting and ad writing skills. Those "rich" in skill get richer, while those with poor skills get poorer.

      I get it that you think it not fair that poor skilled marketers should have to pay as much per CPM as those rich in the skill of marketing. It seems pretty fair to me.

      But hey I'm in the 1% and the 99% deserve to have all their stuff paid for by the 1%, right?

      I've heard this argument before, I just don't buy into it.

      What you call "greed" I call smart decision making based on healthy self interest.

      Yes, it is all about making money, but beyond that is where we part in opinion on this matter.

      Since you are relatively new to AdWords let me try to help you understand. Google doesn't advertise a rate, they never have.

      Google doesn't even set the rate you pay, other advertisers, your competitors in the ad auction do that.

      The ad slots are sold in an ad auction to the highest bidder. And just as any other auction the seller can, and usually does, set a minimum bid, a price at which they would rather not sell at all.

      I've never heard of an auction anywhere that forces sellers to sell their item at any price no matter how small, have you?

      Why do some people think that Google should be forced to sell ad space to low quality advertisers just because there are no competitors? Who's the greedy one in this case?

      Before any ad is allowed to run in AdWords the ad has to be reviewed by a human reviewer. If during the review process the ad is deemed irrelevant it is given a Quality Score of 1/10 which prevents the ad from participating in the ad auction. All relevant and approved ads are assigned an average QS 6/10 until sufficient CTR data shows otherwise.

      Your ads performance is what ultimately determines you Quality Score and that along with your competitors' Ad Rank score determine what you must pay to win an ad slot in the ad auction. Nothing arbitrary about it, it treats all advertisers the same way and it seems very fair to me. But then I get what "relative" relevance means, and I understand that it is impression slots that are sold in the auction, so it is just easier for me to understand.

      If you could just get your head around the idea that relevance and quality are treated by Google as "relative" values, not absolutes, I believe the other concepts will instantly fall into place for you.

      HTH,

      Don burk
      • [1] reply
  • Mike, I thought of warning you that a whole book was about to be posted complete with personal attacks against anyone that would expose adword's greed but passed on it.

    As you see the prediction not posted has come true complete with complete lies about me being new to adwords (I saw that part of the book ...I've worked with adwords for years loooooong before I ever joined WF) and personal attacks. The adword management seller I have angered even has the nerve to accuse of trolling when three times the people that have thanked him for his post have thanked me for my contributions to this forum.

    I trust anyone can see I am not selling anything much less to do with PPC but someone else surely is.

    You be the judge.

    Such as they say is life. Adword management sellers get VERY angry when you point out pure truth and logic.

    I haven't read the book above in entirety because like the spin that comes from Google I have seen the movie many times and the book is the same story.
    • [1] reply
    • The Truth is what it is, no anger here.

      I suggest you read the post above since it may actually help you understand the truth.

      Don Burk
      • [1] reply
  • Hi Mike,

    You have a lot to learn about AdWords.

    They have ad slots above and below organic results, not in between organic listings like you suggested in your silly retort.

    I'm suprised you didn't already know this as someone with only a few months experience would be well aware of this fact.

    You do indeed compete with organic listing in AdWords Search campaigns. Your ad listing has to be above average in quality, and in relevancy, to be placed above organic results, no matter how much you bid, even hundreds of dollars per click, you will never see your ad at the top of the page without first earning an above average Quality Score.

    Keep replying as I'm sure other people can learn from this thread even if you cannot.

    HTH,

    Don Burk
    • [2] replies
    • Not surprisingly it flew right over your head is more like it. Who doesn't know that there are ads at the top and the bottom?? Try reading next time. This was the example

      that never happens and why not? Because there is no one to one competition between an individual adwords listing and individual organic listings.

      You can have a MEGA relevant organic listing and as I already stated but you can't read a lick

      No organic link will beat it or even bump the second place bidder

      I wish I could say i'm surprised you couldn't read what was written but I am not.


      If no matter how good your organic page is you will be beat by even a half way as good a page and a high enough bid there is no real competition. Use your noggin.

      Thats like going go to a race and being told as long as someone else runs half your speed they will be awarded first place because they paid more money.

      Thats your idea of a competition? try and make more rational points.

      In this thread in particular you make even less sense than usual - for 80 plus cents Google is willing to show an ad that according to you is inferior to the organic listings but...ahemm your spin is - its not about getting more money but protecting results quality.

      You really think anyone objective is so stupid they are going to buy your spin because you want to sell your rep ?


      I and they are learning plenty about how far some adwords management sellers will go to defend the company that makes them money.

      This thread isn't about QS when there is competition among bidders. Its when there is NONE. Despite your desperate hand wave to fool people Google will not even show the ad below the organic unless more money is paid but will gladly show it when the money is paid.

      Same listing

      like I told the op in my first post in this thread its particularly when there is no other competition you see how Google has stacked the deck for themselves to make more money.

      Thats not to say QS never has its place and has no legitimate use like you will try and spin me as saying to save face from a demonstrably weak argument. Its that Google ALSO (try reading that word) uses it to jack up prices and that can be CLEARLY seen by anyone objective when there is only one bidder on a term and google's most visible suggestion is to up the bid against no competition.

      Try posting another volume. Since your argument isn't rational if you make posts longer while saying nothing of consequence to the actual context you might fool a few people who have never read the spiel before.

      Hope springs eternal...

      Good luck with the adwords management selling.
    • Pure misleading nonsense. Since you claim the adwords listing competes with organic then the ads at the top could never beat the average of the organic for qualitative relevance with lower relevance quality . Lets test that

      when I do a search for legal advice while travelling as I am now

      I get a service for $49 from adwords in the top spot. That is not local, outranks all local attorneys, outstrips government sources and has a sparse page. Above average quality my eye

      lets try something about adwords....hmm okay "adwords strategy"

      Surely Google is going to give me above average results for my user intent of looking for strategies for adwords....ummm

      https://www.google.com/search?num=40....0.orEB5GF2FeE

      nope. Google bounces the ads some of which don't even pretend to give a strategy just a sales pitch above other organic listings that are far more targeted.

      One more but you could do this all day and night and find where inferior relevance quality outranks organic relevant listings. lets try "make money online" since this is a MMO board. Surely theres no way Google would put an ad which is below average above all kinds of other really targeted articles on how to make money online?

      https://www.google.com/search?num=40....0.K9aADAMoxcM


      Really Google.,, in my area you are showing A t-shirt site? Over forbes, entrepeneur.com and other very targeted articles about making money online?

      THIS Site is above average QS to all those other relevant organics for make money online?

      https://www.spreadshop.com

      Please.....like I said . Don't try and fool the newbs when I am in a thread. Spreadshop ranks because it paid to rank on the top of the page not because its of higher than average quality or relevance.

      The end.
      • [1] reply
  • Bid $1.50 and the cost will go down as your conversions go up
  • LOL,

    It's quite clear to me which of us does not understand how search engines work.


    Search engines do not rank websites, they rank individual pages. Something you seem to struggle to get your head around, eh?

    Google ranks "pages" (not sites) based primarily on relevancy. They use hundreds of signals of relevancy, CTR being one of them. It's a core part of Google's algorithm.

    I will let Google engineers argue this for me, see more on that below.

    Google assigns an average QS rating to new ads until they have enough impressions to estimate CTR. Experienced PPC managers would know this, perhaps you will learn it too if you keep at it long enough.

    Quality Score is based primarily on relative CTR.

    Every search ad is listed on a page that contains organic listings, users aren't forced to click on ads, they can choose to click an ad, or an organic listing. If a user clicks an organic listing instead of your ad then it reduces the CTR of your ad, this is rather self-evident, don't you think?

    CTR = Impressions / Clicks

    It doesn't matter if the user clicks a competitors ad, or a competitors organic listing, it still equals an impression without a click for your ad. That impression counts and your CTR is effected. It's just basic math, there is no escaping the math here, there is no conspiracy theory, nor tales of excessive corporate greed, to explain away the failure of your ad to earn a click.

    Google doesn't force people to click organic listings instead of your ad, nor do they force users to click your competitor's ad, that is the users choice, not Google's. Google uses that behavior as one of their signals of relevance, both for your ad, as well as for organic listings. That is a well known fact, it is mentioned in Google's white papers and in their patent filings. If you ever read them you would already be aware of this fact.


    Sorry, have to disagree with you on this point. You didn't show what you claim to show, though I do think that you were sincere in your belief, just wrong again because you haven't yet learned how search engines actually work. Keep trying though, there are clear insights to be found if you dig into it to learn why, then you will have gained an insight that could be useful to you.

    Hears is a clue: CTR is an important signal in ranking all search page listings, not just ads, but organic listings as well.

    When a user's intent is commercial they are far more likely to click an ad than an organic listing. Google recognizes that user preference and provides the user with what they want, based on behavioral data. The primary metric used is CTR data.

    To learn more about how Quality Scores are calculated check out this video:

    Google Partners: How to Improve AdWords Quality Score - YouTube
    Note that a key point made by Frederick Vallaeys is that CTR is Google's way of measuring ad relevance.

    Here's another insightful video from Hal Valerian, one of Google's chief engineers:

    Insights on the AdWords Auction - YouTube
    Note that he mentions that Google uses CTR (user behavior) throughout all of Google's system.

    So there you have it, Google insiders explaining exactly what Quality Scores are, why they implemented them, how Quality Scores are calculated (expected CTR), and how the ad auction works. No secret mysterious scheme to overcharge advertisers, those "greedy conspiracy theories" are what develops in the mind that is absent of knowledge.

    HTH,

    Don Burk
  • Hi Mike,

    I didn't say that, you did, I won't try to defend your strawman arguments, they are yours alone to defend.

    I said what I said, not what you said I said.

    And no, I'm not admitting to the delusion of your strawman.

    Initial QS for an account with no history, like all Quality Scores, is based on CTRs. AdWords uses an average CTR as the basis for that score. So again, your strawman argument fallacy fails.

    Sigh yet another strawman?

    I know you are a binary thinker, so when i say "based primarily on CTR" you aren't capable of understanding that, seems you can't resist twisting it into an absolute, can you? I never said "just about CTR", you know that, yet you always like to twist things to make a strawman argument. You can defend your supposition, but lets be clear, it was your invalid strawman assertion, not mine.

    Even so, your strawman fails, because my assertion is true "SPECIFICALLY about a new listing".

    Seems it is you that needs to pay attention to the teacher, eh?

    You correctly point out that a new listing has no historical CTR for that new advertiser, all true, yet this in no way prohibits AdWords from using an average CTR as a basis for QS, which they do. Again, your assertion was wrong.

    However to be technically accurate, Google switched to a "predicted CTR" calculation about a year ago when they implemented AI technology to modify the baseline CTR calculation to allow for the variable effect of ad extensions. So, AdWords doesn't rely strictly on historical CTR data. Historical data is used as a baseline, which is modified for the expected effect of ad extensions on the primary metric, CTR.

    The "predicted CTR", of course, in no way invalidates any of my assertions. I just didn't want to confuse anyone that hasn't yet grasped the mere basics with a more advanced explanation of predictive algorithms. That's a completely separate topic, one that would likely overload the brain of a binary thinker.

    Nope.

    Because I didn't admit that.

    That's your false assertion, based on your strawman fallacy argument. You can try to defend your words if want, don't ask me to defend your strawman argument.. LOL

    I am arguing the exact opposite, that initial QS is based on expected CTR that uses average CTR as a basis for that calculation. CTR is, and always has been the primary component of Quality Scores. I provided specific videos that clearly and precisely explain that fact straight from the mouths of senior Google engineers. Yet you assert that the people that actually helped to create AdWords apparently don't know how it works, or is fibbing about it. I say that the Google Engineers are correct in how they describe the system that they helped build.

    I stand by my original assertion.

    I provided credible 3rd party explanations that collaborate my assertions.

    HTH,

    Don Burk
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    Google keywords-no ads yet keyword is $0.86

    Struggling a bit with Google adwords so looking for advice guys. So I find a keyword that has no ads on at all and I add the keyword to my adwords account. Now I'm expecting to be no1 ad as there are no ads, but Google tell my bid is below first page bid? Huh, there are no ads for this keyword.