Wierd explosion of impressions for a phrase that is not popular

For the last few days we have seen this explosion of impressions for a couple phrases. It is out of whack.
We have tracked our traffic and run ppc on a lot of phrases that aren't all that popular.

This is specifically for adwords

We have a couple of geo oriented phrases on PPC where we have 3 specific competitors. All of a sudden we are seeing an enormous number of impressions for a couple of wierd phrases. We aren't getting any hits on them. That is wierd if only because our service is directly related to the phrase and there are only 3 alternatives...and we are dramatically more convenient for potential customers than the choices.

So something is wierd.

Anybody see anything like this?

dave

I'm going to bump this up to see if anybody has experience with this.

For the last 2 days impressions for some obscure phrases are running 4-6 times the volume we have seen over the last month. The phrases are obcure. They are geo(state) versions of popular phrases in my industry: ie red widgets Ohio.

Typically in overture keyword research this phrase would turn up about 2% of the #1 industry phrase month after month.

We aren't getting clicks.

Could competitors be doing this to drive us down on adwords rankings? Could some nut be doing this? Could it be something else? I wrote google to try and get an answer.

Dave

Something does seem odd about that. Could it be some sort of broad match thing? Maybe Google's adwords algo changed somehow so that users aren't really searching for that phrase, but the algo is putting two and two together and coming up with 5 and displaying the ads for that phrase? I don't know, just throwing out a wierd thought. But yeah, I'd sure ask Google about it.

Are you located geographically close to the business you represent for this? If not, you might consider checking the online versions of the local papers, radio and TV stations - there might be a local news item driving the traffic.

Robert, we are in the region. We monitor marketing/ advertising. good idea. Wrote to google. Waiting to hear.

Donna I'll wait to hear what google says.

Still curious if anyone else has seen something like that.

Dave

Very specifically, I started a campaign in late May for these geo targeted industry phrases...all w/exact phrase matches. Starting on June 29-today (half the day)...I've seen a jump on impressions...27% of the total in 2 1/2 days. Through June 28 our click through rate was over 11%. Last 2.5 days our CTR is 2.4%.

Frankly as holidays approach these types of searches drop dramatically. There is something wierd going on. Think I'll bug Google again. Any other ideas on this?

Dave

Big G got back to us quickly with the following response:

Thank you for your emails.

We understand that you are concerned that your {Campaign/Ad/Keyword} recently received an increase in impressions resulting in a lower clickthrough rate (CTR) or a disabled keyword.

HOW GOOGLE HANDLES INVALID IMPRESSIONS

We take the issue of invalid impressions very seriously. Google's proprietary technology analyzes impressions to identify a detectable signature that shows a deliberate intent to artificially lower an
advertiser's CTR. Our system automatically distinguishes between impressions generated through normal use by users, and those generated by unethical users or via automated means. Our system therefore enables us to filter out most invalid impressions. In the case of invalid impressions, advertisers are never charged because the AdWords program charges per click on an ad, not per impression.

VERIFYING INVALID IMPRESSIONS

An increase in your impressions could be due to the use of contextual advertising in your campaign. It is normal to see an increase in impressions when your ads have been approved to run on our search and
content network sites and products, or if you have just recently chosen to distribute your ads on our ad network. This increase in impressions could also be due to the popularity of certain terms due to current events or seasonal changes. For example, keywords popular at particular times of the year will experience higher traffic whether or not you have made proactive seasonal changes to your account content.

SUBMIT AN INVESTIGATION REQUEST

If you have reviewed your website activity and you believe that your website data reflects an inordinate amount of impressions for your ad campaigns, please respond to this email with the following information:

- The keywords within your account that you believe received invalid impressions.
- The dates (or specific date range, i.e., Jan 1-5, 2005) your keywords experienced an increase in impressions.

After you've supplied this information, we'll forward your request to our invalid impression investigation team.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support, where you'll find answers to many frequently asked questions.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,


The Google AdWords Team

We responded with specific examples of the overage volume of impressions for each phrase.

We will see what happens.

Dave

Good luck Dave and keep us updated. It's certainly interesting and sounds like it could be from a dirty source...