Position Preference - New Feature For Google AdWords

[OptimizeOnline]

Google have just added a new feature to AdWords called Position Perference. You'll find the new feature under 'Edit Settings'. Here's what they say:

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We have a new option within Adwords. See below. Ultimately, you can try and determine the position of specific keywords within an account. If you go into Edit Settings you can activate this for each or all the campaigns and then decide at KW level.

Position preference lets you tell Google where you would prefer your ad to show among all the AdWords ads on a given page.

Whenever you run a keyword-targeted ad, your ad is assigned a position (or rank) based on your cost-per-click (CPC) bid, your keyword's Quality Score, and other relevant factors. There may be dozens of positions available for a given keyword, spread over several pages of search results.

If you find that your ad gets the best results when it is ranked (for
example) third or fourth among all AdWords ads, you can set a position preference for those spots. AdWords will then try to show your ad whenever it is ranked third or fourth, and avoid showing it when it is ranked higher or lower. If your ad is ranked higher than third for a given keyword, the system will automatically try to lower your bid to place your ad in your preferred position.

You can request that your ad be shown only when it is:

* Higher than a given position (such as above 7)
* Lower than a given position (such as below 4)
* Within a range of positions (such as from 2-8).
* In a single exact position (such as position 2).

You can choose any positions between 1 and 10+ (that is, 10 or any larger number). Separate position preferences can be set for any or all of the keywords in your campaign.

Please note that position preference does not mean that your ad will always appear in the position you specify. The usual AdWords ranking and relevance rules apply. If your ad doesn't qualify for position #1, setting a position preference of 1 will not move it there. Position preference simply means AdWords will try to show your ad whenever it is ranked in your preferred position, and to avoid showing it when it is not.

Position preference also does not affect the overall placement of AdWords ad units on the left, right, top or bottom of a given page. It only affects your ranking relative to other ads across those units.

Position preferences are not guaranteed. Your ad may still appear in other positions, though we will make every effort to display your ad where you prefer. Once you set new position preferences, it may take a few days for the AdWords system to begin delivering your ad according to those preferences.

Finally, let us note that setting a position preference can sharply reduce the number of impressions and clicks you receive for that keyword. Targeting just one or two positions means your ad will not show at times when it otherwise might have. We encourage you to choose as broad a range of positions are you are comfortable with.

[shorebreak]

Wow. And here I thought it was Yahoo that was going to be moving to become more AdWords-like.

Anyone care to venture what this change, if fully deployed by Google, will have on the bid landscape? I could imagine that the net effect would be advertisers bidding more to get desired positions, right?

-Shorebreak

[cline]

It will help small advertisers who lack the sophistication to optimize bids or the budget to outsource search marketing.

PPC shares some characteristics with stock markets in that they generate a sort of consensus valuation. If intelligently targeted, an advertiser who picks a middle-of-the-pack position is essentially using a market consensus valuation of traffic which limits the advertiser's likelihood of out-of-pocket bidding error.

So many small advertisers are afraid of Adwords because they feel (quite rightly) that spending will get out of control and they will get burned. This will help reduce the fear and it will help level the playing field between the big, sophisticated advertisers and the small, unsophisticated advertisers.

Bottom line for Google is more advertisers, which means greater monetization of unused impression inventory and greater bid pressure, especially in the middle and lower portion of the PPC listings.

[Evroccck]

I think this is going to act more as a filter. You wont simply be able to just bid to a position and be done with it. If your quality remains high enough to be in the #3 position at your given maxCPC then it will be shown in the #3 position, but if someone else has high qualifications for that same position you'd be bumped to #4 and may not show.

Targeting just one or two positions means your ad will not show at times when it otherwise might have. We encourage you to choose as broad a range of positions are you are comfortable with.

Just thought this should be emphaized so people don't think it will automatically show your ad at a given position based on your MaxCPC.

-Ev

None of my accounts seem to show this feature. Nevertheless, I think this is a pretty cool feature atleast for a site targeting campaign. I think when you pay per impression - a (site+bid+position) combination results in a much more control on spend and ROI than just a (site+bid) combination. I am excited at the optimisation I can get down to

[fulton savage]

This is disappointing because it's a step in the direction of transparent bids while still not being transparent bids. Looks like I shouldn't hold my breath for them, either.

And I suppose when I say transparent "bids" while talking about G it should be read "score."

[fulton savage]

Originally Posted by scourgeofgods

None of my accounts seem to show this feature.

^^^^^^^^^^^

[jiff]

Yesterday I enabled the position preference tool, but when I tried to view the options within the "Edit keywords tool" there was no drop down menu to select the position as described in support page.

And today when I go to the "edit campaign" section the option is no longer there.

[AussieWebmaster]

I am just starting to play with this. Good info and other links here:
https://adwords.google.com/support/b...y?answer=31789

[shilly]

https://adwords.google.com/support/b...82&ctx=sibling

I think their wording is a little strange?

I may be wrong, but it looks like as long as your cpc and quality index score qualify you for the positions you want, it is a type of bid to position tool.

Your cpc and quality score are high enough for you to be in #1 position. You can set your position for anywhere: position 3, position 2 to 5, etc...

Your cpc and quality score are high enough for you to be in position 3. You can set your position for position 3 or lower. You may not bid to position 1 because the first rule is that you must qualify for that position.

Anyone else see it this way?

[AussieWebmaster]

It is not ready to go live yet so they are working out the bugs... I agree the wording is a bit off

[samrichards]

Why not just try out OparlaUpdate, part of the Oparla suite of Google Adwords optimisation tools?

It can be scheduled to run daily and will adjust your maximum CPC bid on a keyword by keyword basis based on their current average positions.

It's also the first software that we know of which allows you to time your Google campaigns by activating and pausing them according to a schedule that you set.

Sam.

[eWhisper]

This is going to be very useful for brand bidders who want to protect their brand by being in certain positions, and for sophisticated eCommerce sites that have calculated time of day, positions, keyword level ROI.

Will be fun to see how some of these new auctions play out.

FYI - some screen shots here.

[RiYo]

Originally Posted by shilly

https://adwords.google.com/support/b...82&ctx=sibling

I think their wording is a little strange?

I may be wrong, but it looks like as long as your cpc and quality index score qualify you for the positions you want, it is a type of bid to position tool.

Your cpc and quality score are high enough for you to be in #1 position. You can set your position for anywhere: position 3, position 2 to 5, etc...

Your cpc and quality score are high enough for you to be in position 3. You can set your position for position 3 or lower. You may not bid to position 1 because the first rule is that you must qualify for that position.

Anyone else see it this way?

It does perfectly make sense ... there are a lot of people that although qualifying for number 1, do NOT want to be on number 1! Just because the conversion rate it terrible!

Richard

Originally Posted by RiYo

It does perfectly make sense ... there are a lot of people that although qualifying for number 1, do NOT want to be on number 1! Just because the conversion rate it terrible!

Richard

Is there any research on this? On positioning in Adwords?

What if there was a business, like a therapist or a photographer were each click could mean a few hundred dollars? Would it be worth it to be number one then? Or is there no significant difference between being in position one and position two?

[RiYo]

Originally Posted by cuziamthecaptain

Is there any research on this? On positioning in Adwords?

What if there was a business, like a therapist or a photographer were each click could mean a few hundred dollars? Would it be worth it to be number one then? Or is there no significant difference between being in position one and position two?

There is quite a lot of literature out there that will go into this issue of whether or not to be on the number one spot, I like Perry Marshall a lot. One of the things he also says is that the number one is triggering a lot of 'happy clickers' people that click on an ad without really searching for it. This results in low conversion rates on the backend of your system ... you do not sell to these people. Depending on your type of business you'd better try to get to place 3,4,5 or even lower. It is proven that ther further down you are the better your conversion rates tend to be. This does make sense when you consider that if people click on your ad while it is displaying as number 7 or 8, it does mean that normally these people are REALLY looking for something. The research does even go so far that in certain instances you even be better out on page 2 with your ad. It all comes back on testing, testing and testing.

Richard

[shilly]

Originally Posted by RiYo

It does perfectly make sense ... there are a lot of people that although qualifying for number 1, do NOT want to be on number 1! Just because the conversion rate it terrible!

Richard

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree a positioning type tool is fantastic. I was only making comment to Googles help pages being a little confusing.

[RiYo]

Originally Posted by shilly

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree a positioning type tool is fantastic. I was only making comment to Googles help pages being a little confusing.

No worries I did not get your wrong ... it IS a fantastic tool! Now we only have to wait until it will be wide spread available to see what the exact impact will be for all of us.

cheers from a dark Africa

Richard

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by cuziamthecaptain

Is there any research on this? On positioning in Adwords?

What if there was a business, like a therapist or a photographer were each click could mean a few hundred dollars? Would it be worth it to be number one then? Or is there no significant difference between being in position one and position two?

As was mentioned the top listing is more expensive - but it also brings with it the top traffic.... research shows in some cases the top position gets as much traffic as all other PPC spots combined.... so you need to know if the click is still profitable to you and if the volume gives you a higher profit - if second position makes you $25 a sale but only gets 4 sales for the same impressions number 1 gets you 10 sales at $15 the math tells you what to do.

[RiYo]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

As was mentioned the top listing is more expensive - but it also brings with it the top traffic.... research shows in some cases the top position gets as much traffic as all other PPC spots combined.... so you need to know if the click is still profitable to you and if the volume gives you a higher profit - if second position makes you $25 a sale but only gets 4 sales for the same impressions number 1 gets you 10 sales at $15 the math tells you what to do.

I agree, it all comes back to math and testing testing and testing! Because there also is a chance that number 1 gets 10 clicks and zero sales and number 3 gets 2 clicks with $10 sales ... so again: test test and test.

Adwords = testing!

Richard