It was helpful when Google replaced “Minimum Bid” with “First Page Bid Estimate”, but I’ve found that a human eye still helps.
When I first started working with first page bid estimates I reviewed an entire account and raised bids for any keywords that were below the indicated first page bid.
In at least 95% of cases it at least had a positive impact on campaign impression share. I still check periodically by downloading the entire account from Adwords Editor and adding a column that reveals any negative gaps between actual bid and first page bid estimate.
Part of the reason for doing this is that first page bid estimate is dynamic just like everything else in AdWords. Without realizing it some keywords will fall off the first page.
I’ve also realized that it’s worth it to stop and think about the cause before I blindly go and adjust the bid. In some cases I’ve looked a little closer at the relevance match between the keyword and tried editing the ad copy first. In quite a few instances, immediately after making the edit, the Quality Score increased and the first page bid decreased. Quite a revelation at the time!
There are some other flukes that I find a little frustrating at times. Sometimes you can raise a bid just enough to show your ads on page one, and the next day you’re at an average position at 1.0, not good if your optimal position range is lower.
And sometimes the first page bid estimate is totally out of sync with a keyword’s actual average position. I’m staring at one right now that suggests that I double the bid to get on page one, but the current average position is 5.3!
Bear in mind that I’m still talking about exceptions. Mostly it works as advertised. If anything maybe just being aware of these things can help make better decisions that prevent some of these little anomalies from even occurring. Besides, if the machine were perfect I guess we’d need to find a new line of work!
