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 to know competitors keywords for adwords
I want to run google campaign for adwords and I want to target keywords that my competitor is ranking for. How can I know what are the keywords that are helping my competitors the most. Is there some way so that I can know what my competitor is bidding for those keywords. I heard it also depends on the landing page quality. Please suggest the best strategy to run adwords at lower cost and yet perform well. I am willing to run campaign for this website . It is basically meant to connect manufacturers representatives and independent sales reps to businesses. Any suggestions are welcome.
Paid Search Marketing | | HelloWorld20200 -
Adwords Broad Match Quality Score
** This question is about QS of Broad Match and how it pertains to THE AUCTION ONLY. Not looking for opinions on campaign/ad group structure/strategies. For an Adwords account where all the ad groups are using modified broad match keywords I see that some keywords are assigned quality score. Obviously a broad match keyword can be triggered by a very wide variety of actual keyword searches. So I assume/guess that Adwords assigns a quality score for every single keyword entered that matches with that broad match and then makes the quality score for the broad match an average of the actual search term used quality score weighted by the volume of searches for that search term? Or am I wrong and the quality score for a broad match is the exact match quality score for that term (I doubt that since broad match the words can be in any order.) So for example, let's same I have this broad match score: +auto +insurance This is going to match with: auto insurance companies, auto insurance prices, luxury auto insurance, auto insurance brokers, and on and on and on. Let's say my landing page happens to have a lot of content about ratings for auto insurance brokers. If the CTR for that terms is high, when it's matching my modified broad match, does that mean Adwords assigns a higher quality score, internally, to the search term "auto insurance broker" so if that term is entered, for the purpose of the auction, Adwords doesn't use the quality score of the broad match but the quality score it has calculated for that specific search term -- I just can't see what it is because I don't have that term as an exact match term on my account. Or, does it use the broad match quality score no matter what search term is used that matched the broad match? I would be highly surprised if that was true. If this were true, then you would want to break out the important terms into their own exact match keywords. In many cases, the more efficient strategy for an account is to have fairly narrow modified broad match terms coupled with a very large negative keyword list. The question is mainly, is there any advantage from the perspective of competing in the auction to have the term be an exact match versus matching a modified broad match keyword? If QS is stored for the actual search term, then I would assume the answer is NO. I know it would provide more granular reporting and the ability to more fine tune landing pages etc etc etc but I'm just talking purely from the perspective of the auction.
Paid Search Marketing | | Searchout0 -
Have you had success using adwords to promote blog content?
From time to time I see an ad pop up in search results for blog content and have often wondered how much success these ads have had in promoting the specific post. Does anyone have experience with this? What results did you see?
Paid Search Marketing | | unikey0 -
Downtrodden Adwords Quality Scores -- Really?
Wow! 93% of our Adword keywords in our new campaign received a Quality Score of 4 or less. That means most of the keywords aren't showing. I received the quick answer from our Adwords advisor that, "Quality score is created from a variety of factors ... etc." Yes, I know that by reading Google's documentation. I dug deeper into the data. When I looked at keywords dashboard for this campaign, what vexes me is that it's all about "Keyword relevance: poor". That is repeated time and again in the keywords hover, bubble pop-up in Adwords. "Landing page quality: no problems". "Landing page load time: no problems". 63% of keywords have quality score = 3 29% of keywords have quality score = 4 We have thousands of keywords that are electronic part numbers. All keywords use phrase matching. We use dynamic keyword matching in the ads. I dug deeper. I chose random keywords (and corresponding landing pages) from lower quality scores (1,2,3,4) and higher scores (5,6,7,8,9,10). What is the difference? Examples: Quality score 1 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/LM2901 2 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/BZX84-A20 3 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/MAX4796 4 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/TMP302A 5 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/LTC4267-3 6 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/CAT1161LI-28-G 7 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/DS1216C 8 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/R10S-E1Y1-J5.0K 9 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/208M822-19B11 145785-000 10 = http://www.usbid.com/parts/TP3-PNEU-0.250 243362-000 Notice URLs with score 9 and 10 have url-encoded space (%20) -- just pointing it out. What is the difference between these pages that have such different quality score? And, interestingly enough, the majority of example keywords in the Urls above (LM2901, BZX84-A20, etc) have zero impressions and zero clicks thus far. Yes, the keywords have low traffic because this is exactly what people search for an purchase when making a B2B component buy. It's all about the exact part number. **I'd love specific suggestions of how to improve quality score of pages with a 3 or lower! ** Thanks kindly, Loren
Paid Search Marketing | | groovykarma0 -
Adwords search term report processing help
So I've downloaded my 6000 row adwords search term report, and want to analyses brand keywords and variants only....I could do this by brute force, but I'll want to do it again in a month or two. I have a nice regex string which will do the job but can't find a way to implement a solution. Is there a good way to do this? Or is there a better way? Adwords won't let me filter using regex, Excel needs vb setup to use regex and I've tried the regex in Libre Calc (doesn't return the correct results).
Paid Search Marketing | | k3nn3dy30 -
Any body hear anything about this new feature in adwords?
Any body hear anything about this new feature in adwords? (see image) srqN9.png
Paid Search Marketing | | DavidKonigsberg0 -
Where are the URLs in Google top ads coming from?
I'm not sure if this new but I noticed it today: Some of the ads that are displayed on top of the SERPs have a title, and then their web address, separated by a vertical bar. For example (see image): Coffee Beans Online | CoffeeBeansDirect.com The same ad, when displayed in the side bar (see 2nd image) doesn't contain the web address. I expected that because if you count the letters in the ad, including the 'coffeebeansdirect.com' it exceeds the amount allowed for a google ad. My question is: How did it get there? There's no room to distinguish between top ads and side ads when you write a new a new ad in adwords so where did it come from? Plus, notice that both CoffeeBeanDirect.com and ROASTe.com use caps that are not used in the green link at the bottom. How did Google know to present the url that way? 549sR 4tAnb
Paid Search Marketing | | 5225Marketing0 -
Questions about Adwords Display network.
I am starting up an Adwords campaign that is set to run in the Display (content) network only. In the past I have meshed search and content together, but after reading Brad Geddes book I see that I need to separate them. I can't see my quality score for my keywords - it just has a dash in place of QS. Is this normal? Additionally, I can't see how much I am paying per keyword. I only have one text ad and it is still pending approval. I have several image ads that have so far had a good CTR. I'm assuming that I can't see QS because my text ad is not running yet. But, if this is the case, then how do you optimize your campaign for image ads? I'm currently paying about 45 cents per click. (Previously when I had a poorly optimized quickly thrown together campaign I was paying twice that), but I believe that I could get this down significantly. Any help is greatly appreciated! You guys rock!
Paid Search Marketing | | MarieHaynes0