5 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Here's a funny for you, something I've never seen before.

I started a little Adwords campaign earlier today to test a few new phrases and get a better feel for how many people are using those to find what we offer on a particular site.

Happened to be back on Adwords today tweaking some older campaigns a smidgen and glanced at this new one to see if anything was showing up at all yet.

One of the five showed these stats:

Clicks = 3
Impressions = 2
CTR = 150%

Now I admit that I'm spoiled by the CTR's we get on most of our Adwords listings, but that's the first time I've ever gotten more clicks than people who have seen the ad ! I wonder if that ghost CTR will convert? Do ya think ghosts have credit cards too?

Sorry...it's been a good day and everything I see seems to hold a bit of humor today.

[Cygnus]

Don't fret, the results are not real-time, so likely you'll see a jump in impressions to justify the CTR.

Cygnus

[Jill]

I've seen the same thing before. Always wondered how that could be. Since I only pay a nickle a click, I didn't worry too much about it.

Jill

[Randy]

Sorry, I should have been more clear in my original post. I knew it would clear itself up since not all things are real time. Just found it funny since I'd never seen it before.

On the other hand, you would think that the Clicks and Impressions figures would be updated simultaneously. That's how I would code it anyway.

I'm almost disappointed this morning. My 150% CTR has dropped to only 75%. Darn the bad luck.

[Hippo]

I have seen this more than once as well. In fact, I have seen in it Overture too.

It could be because of the stats not being realtime.

But here is another theory...

If a person pulls up a SERP and clicks on you, that is one impression and one clickthrough. What if they back up and click it again? I know that counts as two clicks. But does it count as two impressions?

What if a person pulls up a SERP and opens the results in another window? Could they click on three ads with only one impression?

These are the things I wonder - but not enough to test it. If anyone does test it, please let me know what you find out.

Curious.

[cline]

I had this happen and contacted Adwords. They said it was caused by a person who clicked on the ad, then used the back button to get to the search results, then clicked on the ad again.