Enhanced CPC is a new AdWords bidding option (for search as well as for display network) I was anxious to test. It seems that this option uses the conversion history to increase/decrease max CPC bid so we will get more conversions and a higher profit. If the system estimates that an auction has a high conversion probability, the CPC will be increased, otherwise will be decreased. Max CPC can’t be raised with more than 30%. So with Enhanced CPC, it can be paid more than the max CPC you specify.

Google does not specify if there is a necessary minimum number of conversions for this feature to work well. I already activated for few campaigns (with different conversions history – small or big number of conversions). I will let you know when I get relevant results .

Dimensions tab can be displayed by clicking the arrow next to the campaign tabs.

As dimensions, we can choose from:

We can display the below columns, the most important being the clicks, conversions and conversion rate.

Interesting to see a report that proves statistically that the greatest number of conversions is recorded on Friday, isn’t it?

Of course, to find out if it is Friday, you have to test it for your own product and campaign.

The test has run on two campaigns, both targeted on Google search. First I wanted to end the test on August 12th for both campaigns, but seen how the results are, I considered that I should delay the end date.

Test objective: to see how max CPC increasing modified the number of conversions
Experiment increased max CPC with 25% for both campaigns

For the non-branded keywords campaign these are the data I got:

More, the control conversion rate was aprox 4 times greater than the experiment conversion rate. Explanation I found is that the ads position increased. This brought a lot of traffic, but not necessary clients. Data being statistically relevant, I stopped the experiment on August 13th.

For branded keywords campaign, data are not statistically relevant, that’s why the test is still running.

Initial post version. Test Explanation

I noticed few days ago, a new tab in AdWords Campaign Settings.

It is called Experiment, it is in Beta, and it allows us to … what do you think? We can test a lot of things, from adding keywords to setting max CPC for an ad group. Depends a lot of what you would like to get how you will use it. More details about the steps you have to take for doing an experiment you can find on Google AdWords Help.

In this account (where I noticed for the first time the experiment section), I noticed that the conversion rate decreased while I was increasing max CPC. I decided to test and see what happens with conversion rate if I use a max CPC smaller.

I defined the experiment, as start date, end date and traffic – how much is controlled, how much experimental.

After I setup the experiment, an icon appeared in front of all the ad groups.

After I did the changes, I started the experiment.

I will let you know what I got and how the results look like .

Challenged is too much, as the solution is already offered by Google here.

To make the story short, you have to create a new empty page that should contain the below Java code:

Visit that page. And create a customized filter as below:

If you need more help, leave a comment at this post or contact me by email.

Update:

The nice part was when I realized that I implemented Google Analytics new code . So, what I wrote above wasn’t right. Especially thanks to the fact that the function was deprecated. Anyway, thanks to Madalin Dinu, I did it. For Google Analytics asynchronous code, the function is _setCustomVar and it can be called as below:

Function could be called in the body of the file, too.

I would like to see what bidding is more efficient from budget and performance indicators point of view. So, I ran a test: two campaigns with the same landing page, same ads – as message and formats, targeted on the same placements (to be sure that the ads placements on pages are almost similar). The campaigns ran in the same period of time with the same budget.

Test results (July 18th 2010)

Notes:
CPM bidding campaign started first. CPC bidding campaign started two hours later (the number of impressions at least started to be displayed in the account 2 hours later than at the CPM bidding campaign).

Image ads have been not approved in time for the test (they are still in Pending Review ), so both campaigns ran only with text ads. I did not optimize the costs, as it was a test campaign and I wanted to see how system works. I set up max CPC of 4RON for CPC bidding campaign and max CPM of 8RON for CPM bidding campaign.

Campaign budget was 60RON/day for each of them. Period of the test: 2 days, enough to see how system works.

The test results were surprising:

As you can notice, CPM bidding campaign had better performance indicators than CPC bidding campaign. The equivalent CPC was with 12% smaller than the CPC paid in the CPC bidding campaign. CTR was 2 times greater. In the same time, the number of impressions was much smaller (aprox 2 times).

At the first sight, it seems that a CPM bidding campaign on placements will bring the wanted traffic with a smaller budget and better performance indicators than a CPC bidding campaign (important for account history who influences the real CPC/CPM paid).

A possible explanation would be the text ads expanding on slots.

Please don’t take the result of this test as absolute truth. The period of the campaign was short, the vertical will not be the same all the time. It’s just a question I raise regarding of how system works.

And, I really think that if you are interested in advertising on content network, you should not neglect CPM bidding campaigns.

PS. Content network is created especially for awareness. Is it possible that CPM campaigns have priority vs CPC campaigns??? The way how campaigns started and their performance suggest this. This would be an interesting question for Google .

Original version of the post – Test explanation

Let’s start with a question .

I want to advertise on the Google content network. What type of bidding shall I choose? CPC or CPM?

At the first sight the answer is easy: depending on the campaign’s objective. If the objective is awareness, visibility, we should choose the CPM bidding, as we will pay for impressions. If the objective is traffic, with CPC bidding we will pay for clicks. In the essence, it should be the same, as the content network is used especially for branding and awareness (in Romania still does not bring very good results for conversions).

Theoretical, the system should optimize the budget in such a way, so we will get what we want: impressions for CPM bidding and clicks for CPC bidding.

I would like to see what bidding is more efficient from budget and performance indicators point of view. So, let’s run a test. Two campaigns with the same landing page, same ads – as message and formats, targeted on the same placements (to be sure that the ads placements on pages are almost similar). The campaigns will run in the same period of time with the same budget. Haven’t decided how many days (2-3 until I run out of money ).

Targeting for both campaigns: content network only on selected placements; country: Romania; languages: Romanian and English, all devices; ads scheduling: 24 hours/day, any day of the week

Max CPC bid for CPC campaign: 4RON
Max CPM bid for CPM campaign: 8RON

Values are huge, as I want to be sure that we get as many impressions/clicks we want and to be sure that the ads have visibility (initially). I will not optimize the values of CPC/CPM as I want to see how system works.

Ads used: text and image built with Display Ad Builder (336×280, 728×90, 120×600, 300×250, 160×600). You can see the messages below. I hope that the image ads will be approved before test ending . The landing page of the campaign: the Romanian version of this post AdWords – Licitare CPC sau CPM? (test)

The placements have been chosen with Placement Tool. Of course, if there is no traffic I will add more placements.

Test results will be published as update at this post.

Results expected: low CTR as the ad is for experts mainly. CPM campaign will have better CTR due to text ads expanding on slots.

Even before we start to build the keyword list, to ask “what keywords search users to find the product/service I promote” we should be careful at duplicates.

Did you know that…

… caps have no importance? If we write a keywords with capital letters and one with small letters, these two keywords are identical so, they will canibalize???

… there are symbols unrecognized by system? You will get error if you will try to add ! @ % ^ * () = {} ; ~ ` <> ? \ | in keywords.

… there are symbols ignored by system? – . are ignored.
So e-commerce is identical with e commerce, and Str. is identical with Str
Both versions will compete if appear in the same search campaign.

… there are recognized symbols by system? & and accents are recognized. So Romania is different than România. Depending on the match type, we can target search queries with accents or not. If we choose Romania in broad match, most probably the ads will be displayed for România as well. But if Romania is in phrase or exact phrase, this thing will not happen.

Coming next: Keywords in AdWords – part 2 – strategy for building keyword list.

R: There are more than reasons for these values:

1. One user could click on an ad more than once in the same browser’s session. This could be a normal user behavior, if he opens the site in a new tab and comes back to the search results page and clicks the ad again. I can’t say it’s normal, but it could happen.

If we are worried that these clicks are invalid, we could run an Invalid Clicks Report for the account or for the campaign.
How can we do this? In Reporting section choose Reports –> Create new report –> Account or Campaign
In Performance Statistics area choose invalid clicks.

After you run the report you could see something like:

2. Data we see in the account are not updated in real time. Clics update at every hours, impression at every few hours, that’s why it’s possible that the data you see in a given moment it’s incorrect. To avoid this errors, I recommend you to not take into consideration the current day for reporting. .

In AdWords, this happens when there are more keywords who target the same search query. Only one keyword is allowed to trigger an ad once.

AdWords is developed in such a way, so if two different keywords (as match type or words) trigger the same search query, the ad will be displayed for the most relevant one. More details about how system “decides” you can find on Google AdWords help site.

But what happens if we have two identical keywords in the account? In this case, we will force the system to decide which ad is more relevant for the search query made by user, so unfortunately we will compete ourselves.

So, it is wise to have two identical keywords in the account?

No, no way. Certainly not in the same search campaign. . Could appear two identical keywords in the same content campaign, in two different ad groups.

Yes, if they do not compete each other:
- if the identical keywords are in campaigns targeted on different geographical areas, or on different devices (computers/mobile), or in different periods on time (ads scheduling)…
- if they are in different campaigns: search/content

Trying to find out a name related to online and to me, I discovered
seogan = seo+g(abriela)+an(drei) = to see (to understand) in old saxon

From here until the biblical question “Do you understand what you read” was only one step.

Of course, seogan does not have the absolute truth, as Gabi does not have it in any life aspect . Seogan claims to be a blog of sharing of what I understood, what I experimented from online with the hope that it will make the road easier for many.

Any question, post suggestion and feedback are welcome.