How do you decide to Lower your bids in Adwords?

Which path should I take?

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testonej

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Nov 12, 2006
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So I have heard it said over and over again "Start out with high bids in AdWords for good CTR and then gradually lower your bids". I just don't know when or by how much to lower by so I am looking for some advice. Currently I have a campaign with about 20 keywords spread across 3 adgroups. I just setup it up yesterday and so far I have a good CTR (well good for me) of about 5% and an average position of 3. But I am loosing money on it because of the high initial bids I set of .50 cents. So here is what I am looking for advice on.

Should I:

A-Lower my bids a bit at a time now that I have good QS and good CTR and if so, when and by how much (on average).

B-Wait it out and hope that google lowers what I am paying per click because of my good CTR and position.

C-Try to just adjust my keywords and ads for better CTR and try some different landing mini-site layouts in hopes of making more money but leave everything else the same

D- Something else?

Thank you all for any help or advice you can give.
 


Really man it's all about testing, testing, testing. Try something, and if it doesn't work, go back to what was working better or try something else. You could also setup another ad group and lower the bids on that group to see what happens.
 
Let it run for at least 7 days before lowering anything.

When you do lower, go in small increments until your ad position drops. Then you'll know the min bid you need to keep your good ad position.
 
That is great advice but because I don' t really have any experience with running a campaign based off your advice, can you answer something a little more specific.

Currently I am running the bids at .50 cents, after 7 days of loosing money (because they are too expensive) How much would you recommend lowering them by and how often? I understand a lot of it depends on the offer, etc. but is there any rule of thumb you use like "don' t lower more than X percentage at a time"

Thanks again for the help!
 
Re:

AdWords is a funny animal. You can have a perfect campaign running... but once you lower bids, your position might drop and then could go your CTR. The best think to do is lower or raise them slowly. Only a few changes per day. See how it goes.
 
I lower them 10% per day, once per day until I hit a level where the ad position no longer drops. That 7 days is from campaign creation, not when the traffic starts flowing, (two different things). If $0.50 is draining your budget quickly, perhaps you should reduce the number of keywords you are bidding on or change your strategy. BUT if you're bidding $0.50 and breaking even or just barely losing money, you know you're onto a money maker once you lower your bids.
 
I normally start high, depending on the niche. Then see what I'm actually paying per click in comparison to what I'm bidding. I'll then set my bid $0.01 cent above what I'm actually paying & see if there's a drop in position.

That's how I start out bidding :)
 
There's no method to it, really. I tend to lower my bid once I see Google dropping my bid. There have even been instances where my ad's positioning improved when I did this, though I did pay a higher percentage of my bid (the lower bid) than I did before (when my bid was higher).
 
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