Two questions about Google AdWords

[owen5819@comcast.net]

For most of the keywords I've been looking at, there is a big price jump between getting listed in positions 4-6 and getting into 1-3. Does anyone have data on how much difference having the ad in one of the first three positions makes in clickthroughs?

Also, when testing keywords at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2, I'm not sure what the "Estimated Avg. CPC" means. If I bid $0.20 for a keyword, why does the cost per click come out less?

Oh, and an afterthought. It looks like this message will list my e-mail address as my user name. How do I switch that to a suitable "handle." I scoured the edit pages for the profile, options, etc., and couldn't find instructions.

Thanks.

[Marcie]

Hi Owen,

I've noticed that too - I don't have any data, but I am going to try going with the 4-6 ad positions because of the price difference. It still shows up on page one that way...

I'm not sure how to answer #2, do you mean you were limiting the CPC to .20???

I couldn't find a way to change your "handle" either, my guess is that is your account name they use to store all your info and you may have to start over and open a new "account" in order to change that.

HTH!

[Drewkerr]

I know Tims is very Found of Google, and mentions it in his book quite a bit.
I even plan to do some marketing on google myself. But a huge portion of my marketing budget will be spent on Yahoo!

Yahoo is quite a lot cheaper. Where on google I might get 4 - 6, I can get 1 - 3 on yahoo.

Something to keep in mind. Also check out Google's new PPA (pay per action)
i have another thread started on PPA.

Drew

[agolden]

I've had some great success with Google's AdWords.

For every $1 invested in AdWords, I made $10. Not bad. Then our CTR (Click Through Rates) softened a bit and that declined. In addition costs increased because Google rewards you for writing good ads and generating click throughs. That's neither here nor there... the point of my post is that with ever wanna be guru under the sun selling AdWords products, I went over to Borders and grabed a copy of Perry Marshall's 'Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords'. It's a super primer in getting started and will absolutely help you understand the functionality of Google's PPC system not to mention a number of practical tricks to improve performance.

I think you can google/amazon the book and read a bit about it 1st. I'm not suggesting it's the 'end-all' just a good place to begin developing a foundation to start.