Google Traffic Estimator More Information Overall Rating: Not Rated Pay Per Click Universe Recommends: AdWatcher - 100% Click Fraud Protection. Concerned about click fraud? Protect your online advertising dollars with the world's most trusted & accurate click fraud solution on the market today. AdWatcher will put a stop to competitors and fraudsters who are looking to drain your hard earned advertising budget. Test-Drive AdWatcher For FREE For 30 Days! If you are already running a Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising campaign, you may be familiar with the variety of tools Google offers to help you plan how best to set up and manage your campaigns. If not, one tool that both those with an AdWords campaign and those who advertise elsewhere or haven’t yet set up their account can use is the Traffic Estimator. The Traffic Estimator quickly and easily provides you with approximations of the amount of search traffic and its cost for keywords that you enter into the tool. All you need do is provide the keyword or phrase you are interested in, add some specifics about your budget, language for the ad, and the specifics of the geographic area you wish to advertise in, and the tool will provide useful information about the search volume of the keywords, the average cost per click, and the average ad position. If you leave your budget as unlimited, you will be provided with additional estimates of the number of clicks per day and the cost per day that you might expect for the keyword selected. The Traffic Estimator tool can be accessed within your AdWords account if you have one via the Edit Keywords function. Using the tool, you can adjust your maximum cost per click to see how changing that amount will impact estimates of traffic. If you do not have an AdWords campaign or an account, you can access the standalone version of the Traffic Estimator (at https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox?hl=en_US). Of course, all estimates provided by the Traffic Estimator are just that – estimates. Google clearly warns users that these are merely approximations, and makes it clear the figures are based on the Google and search partner sites only. If you plan to advertise on the content network or other search engines not included in that group, the traffic information should not be relied upon even as an estimate. In addition, keep in mind that Quality Score, which is vital to final keyword/ad position, is dependent upon a variety of factors that the tool cannot necessarily work into the equation, particularly if using the standalone version of the tool. If you are using the tool within your AdWords account, the estimates will be based on your keyword’s performance, so will likely be more accurate than the standalone tool will provide. As well, if you are using Google’s Budget Optimizer already, the Traffic Estimator will not be accessible as that plan already adjusts CPCs automatically. In addition, if your AdWords campaign is based on the content network only, the tool will not be available. As a means of estimating traffic for specific keywords, the Google Traffic Estimator is a fairly good indication of what you might expect for the average campaign. Obviously, if you are in a small niche market, there may not be enough data collected by Google to provide accurate figures, so keep that in mind. Usually the tool will return a “Not enough data to give estimates” message in such cases, but it is wise to be particularly cautious in relying on estimates if your product or service is specialized or you are targeting a small geographic region. |
