Google Adwords Position Preferences Retired

Writing about web page http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/understanding-average-position-metric.html

I was on holiday in Turkey when I first heard that Google Adwords were to ‘retire’ position preferences with 1 month’s notice. This was bad news as I have been successfully using position preferences to optimize the conversions, the advertising return on investment, for many clients.

Google recommended that we can used their Automated Rules to do much the same thing and I had the opportunity to test this with a new client when I got back. Position preferences could not be set on new campaigns . This designer laptop bag site had set off well but sales had slowed down at the start of their third month. In this comparison market the best conversions rates are often not found at position 1. Their average positions had in fact climbed from 2.3 to 1.4 as sales fell.

For big ticket items we look at more Ads. when we see the right offer for the second time do we go back to the first? Well we will if we trust the first brand or have a login on their site, like Amazon. The PayPal option can give the same benefit for smaller e-commerce sites who use their shopping basket.

Some minority keywords will always appear at position 1 or 2 and here the automated rules could keep cutting bids till these were turned off. The old position preferences handled this perfectly, hands off. Today we are back to manually tweaking.

Not all markets operate the same way. Google Adwords reports that conversion rates are similar at all positions. So some will do better at No 1 such as Apple or exclusive products.

If you bid your own brand then you are best bidding for position 1 unless it is a generic product term with strong competition.

Robert McGonigle : 07 Jul 2011 18:57 |  Tags: Average Ad Positions Google Adwords Position Preferences |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem