September 22, 2009 by Matt Thomas
When you have just set an adwords campaign live, the first thing you want to do is type your keywords into Google and check your positions. Nothing wrong with that, right? Surely it’s the best way to track the progress of your campaign?
Well, not really…
If I had a pound for every time a client has called me outraged that they are not appearing in the top three when they search for their keywords when I’ve told them that they are I’d be a rich man. Whenever I get these phone calls I always tell them two things…
1. Google takes account of your history: If you search for something regularly but never click on ads, Google will assume that you are not interested in the ads it has displayed for you and stop showing you them, or shuffle the ads around slightly in the hope of catching your attention. So, search results from a computer that often searches for a particular product group are unlikely to be representative of what most people see.
2. It’s counter-productive: Client searches distort the data a manager has to play with therefore hampering our ability to make decisions. This is particularly damaging in niche markets where there are very few impressions to be had.
Basically, if you want to check your positions use the Google Ad Preview tool, otherwise, you cannot accurately judge where you are.
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