Adwords Placement? Newbie here -

I'm new to Adwords - If I bid so that my placement is 2.3 - does that mean I'll always be between 2 and 3 or?

Does anyone know that percent of hits between #1, #2, #3 etc?

Thanks - I really appreciate this forum - I'm always learning - John

Place at #3 with a KILLER ad - you will get more clicks than #1.

I was told that a well constructed ad would be placed at #2 or #1 if it has a higher CTR even with a lower bid.
I have not experienced this. Is this true?

Google does boost ads with a high CTR. They are going for maximum yield. All the more reason to write killer copy.

I have found that you must be careful and realize when you are bidding on "surfer" terms (generic keywords) and when you are bidding on "buyer terms" (specific keywords that might include both manufacturer and model terms). When I bid on generic terms I write killer copy but put the price in the ad. This keeps the "surfers" from thinking that you run an info site and clicking through and costing money. For buyer terms I include a price if it is a killer and whatever else is my strongest offer that distinguishes me from others. It doesn't bother me to be #1 on these terms - but I let someone else have #1 on surfer terms and experiment with the bidding when I am showing the ad to surfers.

VERY IMPORTANT..... If you are not doing conversion tracking you are playing a fool's game. Bottom line is to do conversion tracking and bid an amount that gives you MAXIMUM PROFIT PER DAY. Experiment and calculate to find this sweet spot in your bidding. Lowest cost conversion rate is rarely a winner - they get very little action most of the time. High conversion costs can be the best thing around if they bring you LOTS of profitable actions.

This is multivariate statistics as you should be running multiple ad copies and tracking the conversions for each of them. Some keywords will be more profitable than others and some ad copies will be more productive than others. If you are spending major money consider going with a service that does all of these stats for you. See if they offer a profit per day metric.

I don't know if this is fact or fiction, but if I sit down and write ad copy for 15-20 new ad groups and launch them, they don't get displayed all that often or all that highly. But if after a couple days the CTR is decent, positioning seems to improve, as does display frequency. For the only site I use AdWords with, we're been running 5-6% CTR, with positions anywhere from 1-5.

Good ad copy seems to be able to overcome a position that's not in the top 3. We have an ad that for the last week has had 25% CTR, and has been in the 4-5 position.

Now I'm just getting my feet wet in tracking conversions, and want to find out more about the surfer terms and buyer terms EGOL mentions above.

Yea, good info. When we first began adsense we were advertising for general keywords. Before we knew it everyone was clicking on our ads but no sales were coming through!

I have learned targeting more key and specific keywords goes a long way with repeat visitors and with better CTR's . Ex i was target free magazines (still do) but then i put more emphasis on specifics like free car magazines free wedding magazines... and my CTR went up drastically and had more return visitors.

I like the idea of profit per day metric, but as a potential beginer with Go Ads, I want to be as cautious as you recommend or more when stepping out to the plate with adwords. How many different ads you recommend for one key term? How many key terms - tops, do you recommend per ad? What exact metrics should I be looking to meassure? What specific service could provide the best value related to service? and What should be the top cap budget invested per day in adwords during the first day, week, and month?

IMO, anything that is #1 - #4 placement has no different, as long as you have good descriptions and title that attract surfers.

When I started I ran lots of ads and found a few good ones. Now I occasionally try a new ad to see if it does better.

I run thousands of keywords for most of my ads and manage them with excel.

I am interested in cost per conversion and profit per day. I use cpc as a starting point, but in my opinion that relates more to your landing page effectiveness than anything else. That must be nailed down first or you will blow a lot of dough. After I have something running that I am happy with (but never completely satisfied - always tweaking) I then start looking at profit per day. I do this with excel and only track this for the keywords with really heavy traffic. I am not too scientific on this, I run a weekly check and use that to crank my bids up or down on the highest volume kws. Most of the thousands of kws that I use get very little traffic and have very little competition so adjusting the bidding is not needed.

lol.... think about it... if you are playing for "profit per day"... why would you want to put a cap on it? In the beginning you might want a budget for protection against ineffective landing pages or offers that don't move but after you have a winner you need to watch it, not throttle it.