Position Preference in Adwords

[doc816]

Hi,

I am wondering if there are any real benefit to using position preference? Has anyone benefited from it, and if so, how?

I am considering positioning my ads at position 2 or lower (anywhere but position 1) for obvious reasons that position 1 and 2 and sometimes 3 receive virtually the same visibility and yet different CPC.

Hope I'm making sense here. Thanks

[caugas]

Hi,

I am wondering if there are any real benefit to using position preference? Has anyone benefited from it, and if so, how?

I am considering positioning my ads at position 2 or lower (anywhere but position 1) for obvious reasons that position 1 and 2 and sometimes 3 receive virtually the same visibility and yet different CPC.

Hope I'm making sense here. Thanks

I have found that postion 1 is harmful, it usually draws the first click of researching something..... Postion two drives alot of clicks and brings in some some sales, but not enought to justify, unless your margains are good.

Postion 3, (highlighted) works best for me.... especailly if my ad-copy is very strong....

Postion 4-6 are good, the lower cost helps my Campaign ROI...

anything after 6 just outright is an underpreformer...

I don't use postion placement, because I want all the exposer I can get.

[KeithO]

I usually shoot for 3rd position down to 6th as well 13th through 16th for that second page of results. 1st position is not ideal on PPC.

[SonicAM19]

I have not used the position preference tool in Adwords, but from what people have been writing it seriously lowers your total impressions. Which makes sense, considering adwords will try not to show your ads when out of your target position range. I suggest just bidding to position manually, unless your campaigns are too massive, in which case you would want to get a 3rd party tool or develop your own.

[tonerman]

I suggest just bidding to position manually, unless your campaigns are too massive..........

How do you do that? With the performance tool while bidding?

[jaked]

WARNING***
Make 100% sure youre max bid is high enough to get you into your preferred position! I know it sounds like a no brainer. Not that I have ever done anything that stupid. I have this....friend, you see, who once..... well it was the other day actually, didnt make 100% sure and got absolutely no traffic for 3 days..... what an idiot!

[SonicAM19]

Tonerman-
What I meant is use your own position preferences when bidding. I like positions 3-6, so I lower the bids on terms with avg position 1 and 2, and raise the bids on terms over avg position 6. I did this manually, until the account got too big, then our tech team built a bidder through the adwords API according to my bidding philosophy. I hope that answered your question. I am not using any position tools that they offer.

[jiff]

I tested positioning for a few of my terms and all I found was my CPC increasing by about 300%, I've never used it since.

[tonerman]

Tonerman-
What I meant is use your own position preferences when bidding. I like positions 3-6, so I lower the bids on terms with avg position 1 and 2, and raise the bids on terms over avg position 6. I did this manually, until the account got too big, then our tech team built a bidder through the adwords API according to my bidding philosophy. I hope that answered your question. I am not using any position tools that they offer.

Thanks, I'll look into setting this up thru the API asap! Did you buy an off-the-shelf bidding tool like Bidrank for Google and get it hooked to the API or did you have one created from scratch?