Adwords: Brand ads appear bottom of SERPs

[Unity]

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

[ParagonDigital]

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

[Unity]

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

[ParagonDigital]

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.

[Unity]

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!

[ParagonDigital]

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.

[Unity]

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.

[ParagonDigital]

I just realized checking from here probably won't work unless you're targeting the U.S.

[DonB]

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.

[Unity]

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

[katemorris]

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?

[firstconversion]

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

[KeriMorgret]

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.

[Unity]

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.

[Unity]

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

[DonB]

That's my question, too: how did this Twitter person determine the "purgatory" status - from their dashboard somehow, or by grilling AdWords rep?

[KeriMorgret]

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.

[Unity]

Great, thanks for that!