[Adwords Bidding] Should I Always Be in the #1 Position?

Let’s talk bidding strategies..

There are PPC Pundits out there that will tell you that first position is everything. That is THE goal. Forget it if you aren’t first page, at the top, in Google’s results.

That’s fine in some cases, but look, it’s not quite that simple. How you approach Adwords Bidding depends greatly on ‘what’ you are doing and how much ‘control’ you have over your campaign and landing pages.

Here are two instances you’ll run into problems:

Adwords Bidding for Direct to Merchant Campaigns

Yes, some people still do have ‘Direct to Merchant’ campaigns running. Sometimes it’s the best option for a given keyword phrase. There’s no reason to make buying traffic go through another step to buy; and Google will reflect that in the Quality Score. I have campaigns that are direct where my Quality Score is 10 and no matter what I do my landing pages are always 7 or below.

But if you are going Direct, you have less control. You still can control click through rates, write better ads, choose better keywords, target better, exclude, use negatives etc.. but beyond that, you won’t (in most cases) have any control over what happens on the landing page.

LANDING PAGES are sometimes where it needs to happen and where you can separate yourself from the pack. You can capture e-mails, follow up or use other techniques to increase your conversions. But if you have no control, you will find it hard to compete with other affiliates that do or the actual merchant’s campaigns.

Competition is Embedded… And Very, Very Good.

Yes, it would seem some individuals talk like they can kick anyone’s butt. But I guarantee for every person that says that, there are advertisers that are better than them in some market somewhere. Some of the best players in some markets don’t sell info products or run blogs related to PPC.

You’re simply going to find yourself in situations where a person can out bid you all day long because they have the budget too. They may defend a space even if they aren’t profitable. Or they are very, very well established and have such an incredible sales funnel where it’d take you years replicating it. If you can ever.

Face it.. you can’t be the best in every market. You can find markets you can be; but it’s not always possible. Be realistic.

Bidding Strategies are Diverse Depending…

See, yes, in one person’s world, their market, they can say things matter-a-factly. But the reality is, that’s maybe true in their market, but not in every market and situation. So don’t let them pull your leg.

Some people that teach Adwords aren’t doing Affiliate Marketing, have narrow experience or have flawed advice if they don’t know what YOU are doing specifically. Not knocking a lot of the coaches and teachers out there, just driving home the fact that it’s not always cut and dried.

I explain this in the Blast Guide. I highlight the fact that if they seek advice from others online and with Blasting that they get that advice in the Context of Blasting or run it by us who are Blasting. Because what we are doing is different than most.

Blasting is a great method.. but it is different than anything else out there in many respects. And although someone’s advice may seem logical (and they have an authority status), it’s only logical with the methods they themselves are using. Not necessarily in what ‘We’ or ‘You’ are doing.

The better strategy is to do the best you can with your given campaign and using the tools you have at your disposal and following the advice and guidance of those you learned the methods from primarily.

Test different positions etc, and use tactics like capturing e-mails if you can, but don’t be in “I suck at this” mode just because you can’t rank #1.. Sometimes, it’s ok to just be #2, 3 or 4.. if you are making a profit, who cares right? Just do that best *you* can, keep learning and improving.

-Matt Levenhagen

25 Comments on “[Adwords Bidding] Should I Always Be in the #1 Position?”

1 Sark said at 7:54 am on July 6th, 2009:
Some times is better to be on position 3.One of my sites had more traffic when was on position 3 then when was number 1
2 Matt Levenhagen said at 4:03 pm on July 6th, 2009:
Or 2, or 5.. you are right, it’s case by case. And our goal is simple.. whatever ‘we’ can do, using the tools and abilities at our disposal, to make the most money.

-Matt
3 Stevie Black said at 2:04 pm on July 7th, 2009:
It’s all about what you do with the traffic that comes in – still, in certain spaces, low traffic still equals low returns. I’m starting to feel like the gap-spend between positions can and often should be spent pushing PPC to dedicated pages that engage users, define the next task for them, and then guide them down the path.
4 Ryan James said at 12:24 am on July 16th, 2009:
Thanks for your advice, Matt; the clarity of your writing is a breath of fresh air!
5 Betty said at 3:44 pm on July 22nd, 2009:
Some times is better to be on position 3.One of my sites had more traffic when was on position 3 then when was number 1
6 Edmond Plumber said at 4:28 am on July 25th, 2009:
I’ve thought about this a lot. I noticed that even when I search for stuff online, I don’t always naturally go for the ones that are supposed to be #1 or #2. Great post!
7 Names Bob said at 1:32 pm on August 4th, 2009:
Thank you for this awesome information! Great post! Regards
8 Macky99 said at 6:07 pm on August 7th, 2009:
Thanks a lot for sharing these useful information as people are ready to pay anything to get the top spot.
9 Dog Meds said at 2:46 pm on August 11th, 2009:
Really great and helpful article! Thank you very much! Regards
10 kristine said at 4:57 pm on August 11th, 2009:
Some times is better to be on position 3.One of my sites had more traffic when was on position 3 then when was number 1
11 freebies said at 8:51 pm on August 26th, 2009:
I find if i am the bottom of the page i still can get a decent amount of traffic
12 Uzay said at 10:35 am on August 27th, 2009:
Greaat article..Thank you for shairng.
13 Aaron Phillips said at 2:36 am on September 8th, 2009:
Thanks for the great post! I’ve been thinking about using adwords, now I’m doing the research on how exactly to use it. Thanks!

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14 Bill said at 10:49 am on September 8th, 2009:
in short no, there is no way of knowing all the keywords an advertiser is bidding on without having access to their account. Companies like hitwise can show you the keywords driving visitors to a certain site within your sector but they are expensive and in my view, not worth the money unless you are a very large organisation in a competitive market. the only other way is by searching manually on all related terms and see if they appear.
15 Kris said at 8:06 pm on September 12th, 2009:
Adwords is a tough nut to crack. I’ve try a couple times without much luck. Seems like once you get a system is a money printing machine. But until then its a money loser!
16 Home Lighting said at 6:05 am on September 17th, 2009:
Thank you for this great information. I agree that the best strategy is to do the best with your campaign and using the best tools that you have at your disposal.
17 get white teeth said at 10:04 pm on September 26th, 2009:
Thanks for the great info i think that google care about keyword relevancy and ctr better ctr the cheaper the clicks become
18 English to Italian translation said at 4:19 pm on September 29th, 2009:
For PPC, many clients have told us that the reason they called us was because we were in the number one position. Also, the relavancy of the title and the description play an key role

As for organic listings it is very important to be in the top 3 and I have experienced that if you are outside the top 5 you are more susceptible to Google’s dance!
19 funfuntour said at 9:25 am on September 30th, 2009:
thanks for the owner this blog, after I read your artical.
I fell prefer it so much and I think it’s useful for deloping
to another blog&website too.
20 Kris said at 1:07 am on October 8th, 2009:
Thanks for the information. I have now my site on first page of Google. The first keyword is on the 3rd place and the 2nd keyword is in the 9th place and i am competing 90m+ sites for the 2 keywords. It’s tough to do it but i am happy the progress of it.
21 Matt Levenhagen said at 4:30 pm on October 10th, 2009:
@Kris ..I don’t pay too much attention to how many ‘results’ there are; that’s a skewed number.. just the strength of the top couple of pages. 99+% of those millions of pages could be old and/or poorly optimized; it’s those that are working hard at the top of the SERPs you’ll concern yourself with and looking for keyword opportunities that will provide targeted traffic, volume and you can compete based on how strong ‘you’ are..
22 alphainventions said at 7:44 pm on October 10th, 2009:
I wish I could make an adwords program that was 100% Free and valuable. I would spend my own money to do it. I’m gonna do it.
23 Cartier Tank said at 3:49 pm on October 21st, 2009:
Adwords is a tough nut to crack. I’ve try a couple times without much luck.
24 P. Veazey said at 6:23 am on November 16th, 2009:
Thank you for this. This is very informative and helpful. Keep up the good work.
25 Jennifer said at 5:58 pm on December 6th, 2009:
It was nice to find this and be able to know what I should know first before I finally take the next steps in my campaign plan.