Position Preference - Advanced Question

[attak]

Hey everyone,

Quick backdrop before I get to my question...

I manage a huge paid search account(hundreds of thousands of keywords and growing - per engine) and I have been asked to implement the position preference feature on a global scale. As you hopefully know, this has to be done at the keyword level. I have spent the last 10 hours searching for a way to somehow automate the process...api...bulk upload (maybe I missed it here?)...etc, but I can't find anything that doesn't result in a complete "reset" of other settings. Do any of you know of a tool, method, or ANYTHING else that can be used to accomplish what I need? If not...any tips on how I can improve the efficiency of doing this manually is GREATLY appreciated.

I'm pretty sure I know the unfortunate reality of the situation, but am holding out hope that I am wrong. :)


Cheers!

Attak

[chris1]

Well, I have had no luck (or desire at this point) to use position preference, so I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for.

In Google AdWords Editor:

- select the campaign(s) you wish to change
- navigate to the keywords tab
- highlight/select all keywords you want to set with position preference
- click on the link in the bottom section "advanced bid changes"
- under additional constraints, you have the option to either "set bids no higher than _" or "set bids no lower than _"

I hope this helps!

[attak]

Right on Chris1!

I'm going to test it out right now...will let you know if that does the trick.

I saw that option, but for some reason I thought it was to set a min/max CPC...

****Update****

Unfortunately that is meant to help keep your CPC in check based on the bid percentage increase option in the same box. Thanks for the effort!

Again - Any and all ideas are welcome and very appreciated!

****end update****

Cheers!

Attak

[chris1]

Thats too bad.

Good luck!

[Trace]

Attak,

If you are talking about having to manage position preference across multiple networks, multiple campaigns and hundreds of thousands of keywords you are going to have to implement a bid management platform.

Full Disclosure: I work for one of them (Clickable)as a consultant.

There are a lot of them out there but some of the most notable (and useful) are

Omniture's SearchCenter- Very Expensive and Rule Based (you put in the rules you want it to follow)

ClickSweeper- Not expensive, not very robust, but it does exactly what you are looking for.

Clickable-While it does not base keyword bids on position preference exclusively, it optimizes based on variables which you select. It will tell you to lower or raise bids based on conversion stats.

There are others, but this was a quick off the top of my head list. Let me know if you have questions about any of them.