-
Google charging me almost $4 CPC for my own business name! How can I fix this?
Posted by on July 1, 2021 at 3:26 amMy business name is a generic term + my business category, (ex. Lucky Workout). This is a new local business, but I can guarantee that everyone that is searching for Lucky Workout within the area that I’m advertising is looking for me. I have an ad that’s running for both my business name and keywords of interest.
Unfortunately, because the name of the business is a bit generic, the website has been slow to climb to the top of search results, even if you search exactly for my business name. So the majority of my ad spend is for customers that are already looking for exactly my business. I can see from google analytics that 431/506 clicks in the last month are for my business name exactly, and my overall click through rate is ~22%
In the last 4 days, my CPC has gone completely parabolic from $0.58 CPC to $3.85 CPC, even though CTR has remained at ~22%. I can see from google analytics that all 3 clicks today which I was charged $3.85 each for were for my exact business name, with two of those clicks converting to a purchase. My daily budget is ~$16 (which is the highest of the three options that google suggests), so the 3 clicks basically completely used up the daily budget and my traffic completely tanked today as my impressions tanked. This is in contrast to the typical 10-20 clicks out of ~100 impressions that I would get.
Another thing I’m wondering is whether it’s the google ad algorithm killing my impressions leading to no traffic to my site, or if no one is reaching my site because no one is searching for my business name today, which somehow also causes cpc to go up. My suspicion is that I’m not getting traffic because of Google’s algorithm, not because no one is searching for me, as CPC has steadily increased in the last 4 days.
What is google’s algorithm doing, and how can I fix this?
EDIT: one other thing to note is that the keywords around my business are quite competitive. I’m wondering if the CPC is so high because google is compensating for the fact that it was showing impressions for highly competitive keywords that I did not get clicks on. Maybe I should setup a separate ad campaign and budget just for my business name?
-
4 Replies
-
Look at auction insights for changes in competitor behavior.
> My daily budget is ~$16 (which is the highest of the three options that google suggests), so the 3 clicks basically completely used up the daily budget and my traffic completely tanked today as my impressions tanked.
I understand this is new but $16/day is nothing.
-
Hi
Why not split your business name keywords into their own campaign, with it’s own budget and use the Target Impression share bid strategy which lets you cap the CPC. That way you get as many impressions as you can for a reasonable CPC without having searches for your business name eat all the budget.
-
Couple things from reading your post.
* keep these keywords in 1 campaign. You have low search volume and budget which means your campaigns will be very spread thin. It can take google ads algorithm a few weeks to start catching up.
* make new ad groups with 3-5 keywords, utilize exact and phrase match. 1 ad group would look something like this lucky gym exact, gym lucky phrase, lucky gym phrase. Next ad group.
* As you suspect your brand name keywords should be lower but competitors are likely bidding it up. keep in mind that your competitors have insane budgets and are likely willing to spend upwards of 5-7$ cpc and probably $3-10k per day. I would set a manual CPC of whatever you’re comfortable with and give the algorithm time to catch up.
* if your site is new it can take upwards of 3+ months to gain traction.
* CPCs will fluctuate over time so try to reframe from micro managing it. Once a week is fine. If you need to adjust, do it in 10% increments and check back the following week
-
Damn what happened to the days of $0.05-$0.25 CPC. Google honestly has us all in an inescapable headlock.
Log in to reply.