Which other industry gives you this much Freedom?

Dominate Adwords

15. Jul 2007 | 15 Comments

This technique works well with the technique described in my previous post (Bidding on Brand Terms).

One of the main problems you’ll run into is when someone else is also bidding on the same brand term with the same display URL. You’ll need to outrank them to snag the spot & get your ad to show. The best way to do this, is to naturally up your Max CPC until your ad shows, but, when the other affiliate notices their ad isn’t showing then they’ll up their maximum bid. The last thing you want is a game of Adwords Tennis with someone who already probably has a pretty good keyword history (since they’ve been bidding on the keyword much longer than you have).

In an ideal situation we just want to blow this other affiliate out of the water, so that no matter what he bids he’ll NEVER beat us.

So how do we do this? Easy. Just bid $100 on the keyword.

Contrary to popular belief, bidding $100 on a particular keyword does not mean you’ll pay $100 per click. It simply means you’re willing to pay up to that amount. And on brand terms chances are you’ll very rarely pay more than $0.50 or so (unless the brand term has a high value keyword in it like mortgage or loan).

Bidding $100 on Keywords

Still with me? Good. Look at the screenshot above, I’m bidding $100 on a particular keyword with a CTR of 57%. Even if a new affiliate comes into this space & tries to bid on this keyword with the same display URL he won’t be able to outrank me even if he bids $100. Why? Well in order to get a Quality Score he needs to show, he can’t show because he can’t outrank me & therefore my keyword is 100% safe from competition.

This is also a good method to use if you’re trying to protect your brand from Affiliates, I highly recommend doing this otherwise you could lose your brand keyword to someone like me ;)

One extra thing to note, please make sure you have the content bids turned off if you’re using this technique.

 

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15 Comments on "Dominate Adwords"

Chee Kui 15. Jul 2007, 10:55 pm

That sounds like a good idea. I’ll try this out ;)

bubbles 16. Jul 2007, 12:15 am

Does this work on Yahoo/MSN as well?

Mark 16. Jul 2007, 2:27 am

Sorry, I may be a bit dim here… How is this “100% safe”? If your competitor takes your advise, he’ll bid $100 on the keyword too and you’ll both be paying stupid amounts per click.

Vijay Teach Me 17. Jul 2007, 6:09 am

Totally awesome, I feel good at first about this tip and then, others have also read it.
Move fast is the key and the quote I like…

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that something is too competitive. Once you subtract the people who don’t work hard, or the people who aren’t as good as you, your competetion shrinks dramatically.”

Vijay

TextAdSearch 20. Jul 2007, 10:16 pm

I never thought of using this, it’s a bit like setting a large maximum bid on eBay.

Josh Mullineaux 22. Jul 2007, 11:21 am

Interesting article. I have been reading Harry Marshals Difinitive Guide to Adwords and he talks about some of the same things. Only not as direct. This is good to know as I am developing a business where adwords is going to play a key role in getting traffic. In the case of high value keywords like loan or mortgage, how would you approach out pacing the competition?

Money Sexy Traffic 23. Jul 2007, 12:35 pm

Maybe you can tell me why adwords are so expensive. For the keywords that I want the competition is like 1 or 2 and in some cases none at all but i still have to pay 60 plus cents per click. Whats up with that?

Shouldn’t low competitive markets allow me to take advantage of cheaper clicks? If not with adwords then where else?

Stuart 23. Jul 2007, 4:45 pm

Sounds like you have a low Quality Score. Try improving the relevancy of the Ad to include the keywords you’re targeting.

Are you sending it to the merchant or your own page?

sarel 25. Jul 2007, 7:22 am

Hi what would you suggest is the best place to learn google adwords and tricks and so on.I am brand new to adwords

Thanks

Randal 26. Jul 2007, 12:48 am

I just discovered your blog. Really interesting. I am planning on using an image ad with keywords on a campaign for a company for which I’m an affiliate. I’m assuming I can use the banner(s) they have supplied. This sound ok to you? The banners send the click to my affiliate site for the company.

Scott 26. Jul 2007, 8:39 am

Randal, unless you’re affiliated with a super anal network, that’d be a great approach to experiment with.

Stewart, can a brotha get an update? I stop by every couple of days hoping for a new post, and I get nothin. Still love your blog though.

Jay 08. Aug 2007, 3:00 pm

Great tip.

One thing though. What if you’re paying like $0.30 per click and then Google slaps you and ups your cpc to like $10 per click?

John 11. Aug 2007, 7:49 pm

Hi,
Great Blog.
I have a question about this technique.
If another affiliate comes and tries to
bid $50 on the keyword, although I know you
won’t have to $50.01 to outbid him because
of your superior quality, isn’t it possible
that you could have to pay $10 or $20 per
click to keep the spot?

guide 2 get rich 26. Aug 2007, 2:47 pm

Thank you very much, i lost 100 bucks in one click.

dm 28. Dec 2007, 2:14 am

I’m giving this a shot, but certainly not at 100 bucks. At $5 I was able to out rank someone. I suppose at some point I’ll be able to lower my bid back down and still rank well. We’ll see.

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