Adwords: Brand ads appear bottom of SERPs
-
Hello,
I'm running a sale promotion on a brand only Adwords campaign (I have the only account with trademark authorization) and have noticed that my ads are appearing at the bottom of the first page on Google.
This happened last week so I split the campaign into three Adgroups and that fixed the problem but today I'm running brand only and there is no way to separate them.
CPC has also increased dramatically. Normally it's less than 10 cents and now it's sitting at between $2-$4.
Has anyone else seen this? Any ideas/advice on how to stop this happening? It's playing havoc with my CTR and conversions.
Much thanks,
Davinia -
Great, thanks for that!
-
The person from Twitter is @LisaSanner. She says:
"My rep noticed AD status was Eligible, not Approved & won't run at top, even if pos=1 (Unlike kw status which is Eligible)."
So, take a look at the ad status, not just the keyword status.
-
That's my question, too: how did this Twitter person determine the "purgatory" status - from their dashboard somehow, or by grilling AdWords rep?
-
Hi Keri,
Status of ads is 'eligible' with quality scores of 10/10 for brand terms (trademarked) and related brand terms (not trademarked).
Any idea how the twitter person established "stuck in eligible status purgatory"?
Thanks,Davinia
-
Hi Stephen,
Have tested using the Adwords 'ad preview and diagnosis' tool as well as logged in and out, removing cache and on different computers - no change, always at the bottom.
-
Someone on Twitter had this same issue, and discovered (after much investigating and initial overlooking by the AdWords staff) that their ads were "stuck in eligible status purgatory" and wouldn't run on top unless fully approved. You might look to see the status of your ads and make sure that's OK.
-
Just a thought - have you tried as both logged in and out? Clearing cache etc?
Maybe querying your own brand causes the ads to display differently - like when you do the same query over and over, Google will hide or change the ads you see
Stephen
-
Wish I had something more to add here, but this is the best answer I've seen. To me it sounds like Google is testing something and it is probably just with a handful of brands. I would be interested if this continues through to next week. But it really does sound like a test to see if people searching for branded terms really don't want to see ads and how hard they will work to get to the ads.
At least no one is beating you?
-
Hi Don,
I don't know what to say.... I can't stop giggling. There is NO WAY you get a better CTR with ads appearing at the bottom of the page. Like you I also have plenty of data to back that up.
This issue continues to occur for one of my clients.
Perhaps consider testing on smartphones only - I'd imagine more people would see the whole first page of results on a smartphone than they would on a desktop. I'd also recommend getting your SEO up to scratch so you are placing top of page for organic listings and Google Places.
Will let you know if I find anything new......but am still scratching my head as well.
Davinia
-
Davinia,
I just finished an AdWords chat session regarding the same thing: ads with no competition appearing at the page bottom, below all organic SERPs. To my utter amazement, the AdWords rep claimed that Google researched and found that - get this - ads placed at the bottom will have a "higher" response due to the "flow" of viewers' browsing. So, my no-competition ads are appearing at the bottom. Not surprisingly, they've received zero clicks in over 150 impressions.
A nearly identical campaign for this client, run exactly one year ago, garnered a 4.4% CTR with the no-competition ads appearing ABOVE the organic SERPs. I tried to get the rep to agree with me that his description of this algo change was counter-intuitive and - based on my results so far - will yield abysmal clickthroughs and profit for Google. He was unmoved.
I also asked him why - if the results of bottom-scraping ads are so good - don't they charge advertisers MORE for the bottom position, rather than the #1 position? He didn't really respond to that.
I finally asked him to ask his supervisor to override the algo and let my ads run at the top of SERPs, as an experiment in performance/profitability. He said that's impossible - "out of our control."
If anyone has any insights regarding this unbelievably bizarre claim that bottom-scraping ads will perform better than those at the top of the page, I'd like to hear them.
-
I just realized checking from here probably won't work unless you're targeting the U.S.
-
I appreciate your time, thanks.
Ads only display in New Zealand so you won't be able to see them, but thanks for the offer of PM anyways.
-
If you haven't upgraded I don't think it would make a difference. If you want to PM me the search query I can check from here and see if I get the same thing. I'm not sure what else to tell you though. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
-
Am using legacy but didn't think this would cause any problems as enhanced is geared towards mobile. But it could very well be the cause?
Keywords are position 1 for all and have viewed placement by 'ad preview and diagnosis' and it still appears at the bottom.
So, I'm stumped!
-
The only major change going on right now that I'm aware of is the move to enhanced campaigns. Did you upgrade your campaigns from legacy to enhanced by any chance? Are you still in position 1 and just appearing at the bottom? Another thing to consider is that it may not be appearing at the bottom for everyone.
-
Hi Zach,
Thanks for your reply.
Quality scores on all keywords are 10/10.
I've been running these campaigns for a year and only seen this twice (both in last 7 days). So am wondering if maybe something has changed with Adwords?
Thanks,
Davinia -
Hi Davinia,
Maybe check the Quality Scores for your keywords and see if you can improve them. I think the quality score column is hidden by default so you might have to go to the keywords tab click on Columns->Customize Columns and it's under Attributes. That's quite a jump so I'm not sure this is the issue but quality scores do affect ad position and how much you pay per click. Better performing ads are more likely to appear at the top but there's no real way to absolutely control whether the ad appears at the top/side/bottom but generally better performing ads get better positioning.
Hope this helps!
Zach
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How would you respond to this doctor who demands to see his ads?
I work work for a health care system in the Midwest. We have a doctor in our transplant division who whenever we're in a meeting pulls out his phone and types in "kidney transplant" and ridicules me when our hospital is not on the page. I've long since given up trying to explain search intent to him (all the SERP results are showing information about kidney transplants, not information on where to get a transplant) along with trying to explain all the reasons why our ads don't necessarily show up on his phone despite us having a daily budget for that keyword. Without trying to explain how SEO or advertising online works, what would you do? I've toyed with eliminating advertising from the hospital zipcode so that I can just say we don't advertise in this zipcode at all, so of course our ads wouldn't pop up. I've also toyed with creating more informational content just so perhaps we can show up on the page, even though it's largely irrelevant (but I doubt we'd ever outrank the national brands that have written extensively on this). If someone types in "kidney hospital" or "transplant center" or anything relevant, we're instantly at the top of SERPs. But none of that matters to him. He only cares about showing up for "kidney transplant."
Paid Search Marketing | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine1 -
Setting a total monthly spend limit for the Adwords account
Hi, I manage a number of campaigns and even though I keep an eye on daily budget based on our monthly budget, I freak out thinking we would waste a lot more money accidentally. Is there a way how I can set a cap for the whole Adwords account so I will not go over, even if I leave daily campaign budgets on crazy amounts? Thanks. Regards, Katarina
Paid Search Marketing | | Katarina-Borovska0 -
Adding AdWords Remarketing Pixel to "Partner" Domains?
I have read through the AdWords advertising policies, but there isn't an extremely clear answer to my question: does it break AdWords policy to include a remarketing pixel on a partner website? Example - I own and run 123boats.com, my acquaintance who owns abchotels.com has agreed to put my remarketing pixel on his website, and I plan to show remarketing ads to his website visitors advertising my services at 123boats.com. Is anyone aware of any documentation that explicitly allows or disallows this type of "partner" remarketing tracking?
Paid Search Marketing | | marymerritt0 -
AdWords/Analytics Paid Search conversions not matching up - any idea why?
Hi all, Any ideas as to why AdWords and Analytics are showing different Paid Search conversion numbers for me when I check on a daily basis? Both accounts are linked, they share the same destination URLs to trigger a conversion, some days each reflects the same amount of conversions, then some days it's anything from 1-5 conversions different (Analytics is always the one to show more). Thanks M
Paid Search Marketing | | Martin_S0 -
Adwords "seller reviews" not showing
We have been building up our reviews (with trustpilot) over the last few months, which has been picked up by google's reviews, and on the 2 July we passed the 30 reviews mark, (takes about a week or two before it shows the reviews on google reviews). So we have had + 30 reviews for over 6 weeks now, our score is 4.8/5 but are "Seller Reviews" is still not showing on our adwords. Is there any other reason our seller reviews would not be showing yet?
Paid Search Marketing | | PaddyDisplays0 -
Adwords keyword vs exact match kw
Hi guys, I have been using an excellent script that showed me the keywords I was bidding on and the keywords they were matched on by Adwords. I was using the following script: http://www.getelastic.com/exact-keywords-google-analytics/ But I'm under the impression Google changed the way these data can be matched. I now have multiple questions: Does anyone have another script that gives me the same results? Has anyone seen an announcement on why Google has changed this? Might this js solution still be working? http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2008/02/exact_keyword_tracking_with_gajs.php Cheers and thanks for all the suggestions! Arnout
Paid Search Marketing | | hellemans0 -
Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion for Location keywords
Hi Guys, I'm managing a campaign targeting multiple cities across the country. The campaign is using DKI to display locations in ad titles. Is the following example the best way to handle it (example data only): Ad headline: {KeyWord: Local Chocolate Delivery} Keywords: chocolate delivery chocolate delivery Dallas chocolate delivery Austin Etc etc?
Paid Search Marketing | | David_ODonnell1 -
Linking Adwords to Analytics for Multiple Clients
what is the best practice for this? Right now everything is under many different passwords and logins, yet conforming them all to one comes with a bunch of loopholes and bumps along the way. Does anyone know how to get a few clients under the same username and password (linking the AdWords and Analytics for each of them)?
Paid Search Marketing | | imageworks-2612900