Sometimes people get confused about where Google is spending the money. The usual problem is that either Content Network or Search impressions and clicks have been deselected at some point.
Above the table of numbers is a discreet little drop down selection box. It is astonishingly easy to miss, unless you know you should be looking for it.
For example if your Content Network Total is less than the Total, and you can’t see any other source of clicks and impressions, you may have inadvertently selected the content network only:
To see the most possible detail in the table, select the following from the drop down list:
Peter O'Toole wrote,
I can not understand why I am being charged for more clicks than are indicated on my key words. The total clicks, for example, is 66, while only 4 clicks are indicated on my key word statistics.
On your post published on November 23rd, 2008 by Jeremy Chatfield, I tried to follow those instructions for the “discreet little drop down” but I can not figure out how to analyze my clicks not knowing which key words were “clicked”.
Please help
Link | November 16th, 2010 at 5:05 am
Jeremy Chatfield wrote,
Hi Peter – the user interface has been changed substantially since this article was written. I suspect that no keywords were involved in the other 18 clicks – I suspect that they are for what was called the Content Network and is now the Display Network. Display adverts are not triggered by specific keywords, but by a gestalt of all the keywords and the advert copy. That means that display advertising accumulates clicks to an AdGroup, but not to a keyword.
For many years Google itself has recommended that performance of Display Advertising is improved by running a separate campaign. So, disable the Display Network (under “Networks and Devices” in the Campaign Settings tab). Given that you have this problem, I’d focus on making sure that a basic Search-only targeted Campaign was working, When you have that well understood, then move on to the Display Network in a new Campaign.
You should probably also look at and use the AdWords Learning Center – it is intended for professional search marketeers, but if you’re spending your own money, you probably should still have the level of a basic search marketeer.
Link | November 16th, 2010 at 9:37 am