Google Advertising Tools, 2nd Edition

Estimating Traffic

In the real world, the cost of running a campaign is an important part of the Zen of deciding to run the campaign and which keywords to target.

The Traffic Estimator is best used to get a quick idea of how keywords will perform and how that performance will affect the cost of running an ad group, without actually adding the new keyword.

To open the Traffic Estimator, go to the Opportunities tab and click the “More tools…” link to find the complete list of tools, as shown in Figure 12-2. The Traffic Estimator is found at the bottom of the Optimize Your Ads column.

Figure 12-2. The Traffic Estimator can be found toward the bottom of the list of ad optimization tools

In the Traffic Estimator window, shown in Figure 12-3, enter the keywords you want to investigate, a maximum CPC, language, location targeting method, and the countries you want to target.

Figure 12-3. Enter keywords and a maximum CPC to get an idea of how well keywords will perform without having to add them to an “actual” campaign

Note

If you don’t estimate a maximum CPC in the Traffic Estimator, Google will suggest one for you that will deliver ads in the top (1.0) position 85 percent of the time. As you can appreciate, this is an expensive CPC choice, so to make the best use of the Traffic Estimator, you might ...