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Zero Impressions With Google Adwords - How Can This Be?
rudolf
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15 Apr 07 12:40 pm

Zero Impressions With Google Adwords - How Can This Be?

Hello guys,

The day before yesterday we started our adwords campaign.

The first day we did some research on keywords with the Overture tool.

Keyword prhase #1 shows ~200 queries a month
Keyword prhase #2 shows ~2300 queries a month
Keyword prhase #3 shows ~2400 queries a month

We decided to use #1 for one day to see what kind of results we could be expecting.

The keyword costs around $0,40 per click, daily budget is $15. We ran the test for one day, with three different (splittested) ads, perfectly optimized using Mark's tips, with a link leading to a long sales pitch, with also all the optimization (keywords, meta tags, 30 articles, etc.)

Results after that day of testing:

35 impressions
1 clickthrough
0 sales (this is nothing unusual)

We decided that we were now ready to go for keywords #2 and #3. Otherwise it would take too long before we see any results.

The second day we targeted some more keywords that also cost around $0,40, with a daily budget of $25. We used the exact same ads to rotate.

After this day, we were rather surprised with the results. ZERO impressions for the keyword phrases #2 and #3. Phrase #1 was kept running and received (only) 2 extra impressions without clickthroughs.

..How can this be? After some quick research I have some suspicions, but I just don't know what the exact problem is. We've checked the following:

- Campaign settings are all OK. We didn't change these after the first (successfull) test so that just can't be it.
- Keywords are all active. We've bid up to places around 7th place.
- Ads are showing. We've ran test with Googles Ad test tool and the ads are definetely showing.

Could it be that Google wants to review our ads first, thus keeping our ads "on hold"? This would be odd, since you'd expect they would review your ads before.

Or, perhaps our max. daily budget is too low? With queries for #2 and #3 around 2400 a month (and that's just for Yahoo) the competition might be tough, and advertisers who set a bigger daily budget might be given the advantage. But then again, why is the Google ad test putting us at 7th position? Everytime we refresh the page our ad maintains a solid position at 7th place.

There's no problem with our account; there are no messages, no emails have been sent to us, and our billing information (by creditcard) is perfectly fine.


Any help would be really appreciated! Thanks a lot,

Regards, Maarten & Rudolf
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sean06
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15 Apr 07 1:47 pm

 I'm a bit confused. You say there are no impressions, then you say you can see your ad at #7? That's an impression right there.

I would also try raising your budget. Put it up to a few hundred a day, then just keep an eye on it. I can't really think of anything else that would be causing it.

Let me know if you still can't work it out.
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rudolf
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15 Apr 07 1:55 pm

 Hi Sean,

Thanks for replying.

What I am saying is true. Google reports no impressions at all, not one. And when entering my search term in Google, I see my ads appearing exactly as they should. That's exactly whats getting me so frustrated! My account balance is still only that $0,40 plus startup fee. So I definetely did not get a single clickthrough.

I shall increase my daily budget to an extreme amount like you suggest, see if it helps. Hopefully Google will let me in then. Will this option also affect my impressions:

1. Standard: Show ads evenly over time
2. Accelerated: Show ads as quickly as possible

Which one is recommended in this situation? Currently it is at 1.

However, my #1 phrase still only got 2 impressions; while the day before I got 35. So what could have happened to that? We did not change a thing to that campaign. Those ads are also still showing when I search for that phrase.

Thanks again,

Rudolf
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sean06
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15 Apr 07 2:48 pm

 The only thing I can think of is that in certain countries (like the US) your ad is on the second page.

Apart from that, I really can't think of anything.

I like to put my ads on accelerated too :)
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rudolf
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15 Apr 07 5:42 pm

 Alright then, accelerated it is! I guess all I can do now is wait.

- Rudolf
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sean06
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16 Apr 07 12:11 am

 Yep, give it another day and if it still hasn't changed, let us know. Someone will have an answer for you :)
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rudolf
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16 Apr 07 1:03 pm

 Well, thanks have indeed changed.

Yesterday I got 64 impressions and 1 click for #2. #3 still hasn't received one impression yet, but I'm pretty sure that's because we set a very low bid for those keywords; Google couldn't tell us our estimated position for those keyword phrases. We'll increase #3 and see what happens.

However, #1 only got 2 extra impressions, just like the day before yesterday. Maybe I'll try increasing that max. daily budget as well.

Anyway, I'll raise the max. daily budget even further, currently it is set at ~ $ 120 for #2 and #3, I'll max it to ~ $375. (Our currency is shown in Euros).

Does this all make sense?

Anyway thanks again. Regards,

Rudolf
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sean06
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16 Apr 07 2:26 pm

 Yes, sometimes it's worth spending a little extra at the start to work out if the campaign will be feasible in the end. And give it a little time :)
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rudolf
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16 Apr 07 5:08 pm

 Even though we don't have hundreds of dollars available to spend every day, the amount of clicks decides the daily costs. I don't expect people to massively click our ads from one day to the other, so while we raise our max. daily budget to extremes, our daily costs will be just as high as we initally planned.
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rudolf
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17 Apr 07 7:49 pm

 Alright.

We are now definetely in need of help.

We've targeted some very good keywords, even though the competition is quite high.

What we just can't understand is how Google Adwords "works".

It's almost as if were left with two options:

1. Target less competitive keywords
2. Target higher competitive keywords

With 1, Google refuses to display our ads because they say the phrase is not searched enough for.

With 2, We're competing with a lot of others, and even though we bid up a lot and raise daily budgets to ridiculous heights; again, Google refuses to display our ads as much as we want to.

What in gods name are we supposed to do?

I mean, we've got the money, but Google just won't allow us to spend it!

Any help would really be appreciated here.

I just don't understand why this problem is not mentioned in the video lessons. Or are we the only ones experiencing this problem?

To give you an example; we're targeting phrases with over 6000 searches a month. That should be around 200 impressions a day for a phrase. We bid up to $0,90 and even then our ad is still not displayed, just zero impressions.

We're really stunned about this; we're ready to bring tons of money to Google but they just won't allow us to spend it!

Hopefully someone can help us out here. Thanks again.

Regards, Rudolf & Maarten
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sean06
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18 Apr 07 12:18 am

 Whats your quality score guys, I haven't heard of this problem before.

Can you give me an idea about how many adgroups you're using and how many keywords per adgroup?
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akius
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18 Apr 07 2:41 am

 though I have nothing to say and am just sticking my head into things.

Don't google charge $.10 per click and
are u really spending $375 a day!
u r freaking me out.
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sean06
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18 Apr 07 2:57 am

 His budget is $375, it doesn't mean he's spending that much each day.
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rudolf
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18 Apr 07 6:15 pm

 Hi Sean,

Our Adwords account is a bit of a mess, here goes:

Campaign #1 - 4 Groups
Group #1 2 Keywords
Group #2 2 Keywords
Group #3 6 Keywords
Group #4 6 Keywords

Campaign #2 - 4 Groups
Group #1 1 Keywords
Group #2 2 Keywords
Group #3 1 Keywords
Group #4 4 Keywords

Campaign #3 - 3 Groups
Group #1 1 Keywords
Group #2 2 Keywords
Group #3 1 Keywords

Campaign #4 - 3 Groups
Group #1 1 Keywords
Group #2 2 Keywords
Group #3 1 Keywords

Campaign #5 - 3 Groups
Group #1 1 Keywords
Group #2 2 Keywords
Group #3 1 Keywords

We're using keywords with 2-3 words, all on exact match. Some ad variations can be done using the brackets, but most need their own group because of the exact match.

In the last two days we only gained a total of 3 extra clicks and about 150 impressions (that's when we added the 3rd, 4th and 5th campaign.

Does this help? Thanks again.

Regards, Rudolf
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lssolutions
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18 Apr 07 10:21 pm

 Rudolf,

Sounds like you have a highly targetted campign there, especially when you're using 1 keyword per adgroup and exact match at that.

I usually set my daily budget high for highly targetted campaigns. I set mine at approx $800 sometimes more a day.

Of course I never spend anywhere near this amount, but it ensures that my ads are shown all the time.

Another thing to check is whether your display URL is the same as anyone elses.

If it is (Direct Link) campaign then you may be competiting with one advertisers and there bids could be higher than yours.

But you mentioned that your ads are showing...if that's the case then all I can suggest is to set your daily budget higher. Then keep an eye on it.

Hope this helps,
Frank
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sean06
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19 Apr 07 12:20 am

 Are all 5 of your campaigns based around the same product? This has nothing to do with your problem, but I find it easier to make a new campaign for each site, then just use lots of adgroups to sort the keywords.

But anyway, I think Frank hit the nail on the head in that last post. If you are direct linking (Which from memory you are) and you are promoting a popular product, there's going to be a ton of guys trying to promote the same site.

If you want to test if this is the problem, just change the appearance URL to something unique and see if that changes anything. Google will catch on eventually, but this should let you know straight away if this is the problem.
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rudolf
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19 Apr 07 10:29 am

 Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.

Our campaign is indeed highly targeted, [b]but[/] we do not link directly to the product site. We have our own domain name with a long sales pitch. I'll try raising the budget some more. Hopefully it'll help. Currently the budget is set around 500 euros (appr. $625). I thought that was pretty extreme already!

So we have our own site between the product site and Google. Do you know of anything that might also help?

I'll also try raising our max. cpc, perhaps its just a highly competitive market we're trying to compete in. For instance, sometimes Google estimates our position between 4-6 and eventually we're actually being placed at 7-8.

We don't really care about what it costs, as long as we get a decent number of impressions for our ads.

Anyway thanks again.

Regards, Rudolf
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sean06
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19 Apr 07 11:10 am

 I still don't remember you telling me your quality score. Is it bad, ok or great?


And why do you have your own sales page for a product? Has the product got a really bad sales letter? And is your site only 1 page?
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rudolf
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19 Apr 07 12:27 pm

 Hi Sean,

Where can I find our Quality score?

Also, we made a sales page because we initially thought that was what we had to do. We didn't know the difference between an article site and sales pitch back then. However, the product itself lacks a good sales site, so its not a bad situation.

Our site is well-optimized following Marks advice. If any improvements are in place then we are ready to make them.

Thanks and regards, Rudolf
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sean06
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19 Apr 07 1:04 pm

 When you look at an individual adgroup, theres a tab where you can customise what you see. In that tab is "Show Quality Score". It's important to know because it lets you know how relevant your landing page is.
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rudolf
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19 Apr 07 2:26 pm

 Well, all of our keywords have a "Great" quality score.

Does that help?

Thanks, Rudolf
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sean06
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19 Apr 07 3:10 pm

 Great is good :)

I still think you need to be bidding on more keywords.
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rudolf
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19 Apr 07 3:22 pm

 Well, all of our keywords have a "Great" quality score.

Does that help?

Thanks, Rudolf
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wak1970
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19 Apr 07 4:06 pm
Rudolf wrote:Also, we made a sales page because we initially thought that was what we had to do. We didn't know the difference between an article site and sales pitch back then. However, the product itself lacks a good sales site, so its not a bad situation.
Thanks and regards, Rudolf


Rudolf,

Is this a one page site that your are using for your landing page? Google's not been happy with those for a few months now. If it is, try adding a Privacy Policy, About Us and Contact Us page to the site.

Beware of continually throwing more money at Adwords, it can suck up a lot of money fast!

WAK.
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rudolf
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19 Apr 07 8:10 pm

 Hi WAK,

Our site has one very long sales pitch, and 10 other pages, all filled with content. Also, an additional 30 pages have been added containing articles. We've added outgoing links throughout the whole site, including the main page. We did everything Mark advised us to do, especially things mentioned in that update.

I think our problem might indeed be;

- Too little targeted keywords
- Too little bid amounts for keywords

With that said, the market might just be very profitable, especially when people are paying top dollar to get decent rankings.

Also, we'd love to throw money at Google. Problem is, Google just won't allow us!

Another thing, would Yahoo! Search Marketing not be a good option? Imagine I would also use MSN. That'd mean I still have 37,5% of the pie. That's only 12,5 less than Google. I've done some small experimenting with Yahoo SM and it seems like you pay a lot less for keywords than with Google.

Does this make sense? Any feedback would be great.

Thanks guys, you've been of great help.

Regards, Maarten & Rudolf
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chatyak86
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19 Apr 07 8:14 pm

 I wouldn't jump into Yahoo or MSN until you get one thing going well. Concentrate on adwords first... then once you have a consistent positive ROI move to other places.

I'm not an adwords expert so I can't answer your tech problems.... yet anyways :lol:
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lssolutions
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19 Apr 07 8:49 pm

 Without actually seeing your account its difficult to assess the problem further.

Sounds like you've done and checked out everything.

So all I can suggest now is to PM Mark and ask if he'll take a look into your account. I'm not sure if he does this, but sounds like you've exhausted all the other avenues. Give him your adwords login details and get him to take a look into your adwords account / campaign and see if he can shed some light on your situation.

regards,

Frank
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