In AdWords™, controlling your position and your bids is more important than being first-listed.

Why is that? Because you need to find the position (and the bidding price) that brings you more advantages. You need to remember that you work in a dynamic environment, where the competitors and the bids are often changing.

The AdWords™ system decides your ad's position through your bid and CTR. This article is a guide on how to tweak these two factors in order to maintain a convenient position.

It's All in the Strategy

Here are the bidding strategies you can easily apply in your campaigns:

Avoid the First Position. When?

Many advertisers that use AdWords™ report that the first position usually loses money. “Usually” is not a fair word, we think. If your site doesn't convert well and your ads gain a lot of clicks being first, you'll waste some money, of course. If the competition on a keyword is tight, the first position is the most expensive, too. Finally, it is true that the first position is more exposed to... accidental clicks. However, if you feel uncomfortable with the first position, you can simply avoid that, by lowering your bids. A good strategy is maintaining places 2 through 4 in order to always appear on syndicated sites. If you don't want to "syndicate" your ads, compete for lower positions - 5 through 8.

Evaluate Premium Listing

If your ad has a high CTR, AdWords™ rewards you by placing your ad in one of the two premium positions above the SERP, in blue background. This may be good and bad at the same time. If your CTR grows at the same pace with your conversion rate, that is good. If your CTR grows faster than your conversion rate it means the extra traffic you get by occupying a premium position is low targeted.

Get the First Position on the Second Page

This can help when you have a lot of competitor ads that span on several pages. In this case, rising your bid in order to get to a top five position could get you into an expensive bidding war. And we suppose you don't want that. In this specific situation, the first position on the second and even third results page has proved to be more productive.

Maintain the Minimum Bid, no Matter What it Takes

This strategy is helpful when it is possible to find good keywords that have less competition, and you can enter the top four or three positions with the minimum bid. If you have the time, start hunting for such keywords and your effort will be rewarded.

Stay Ahead of Your Direct Competitors

This strategy works when the bidding prices are low. If you risk entering a bidding war, you should switch to new, undiscovered keywords.

Bid Less and Target Better

AdWords™ rewards advertisers that write performant ads and find good keywords ahead of the ones that bid more and don't care too much for targeting.

Use Bidding Cycles

Sometimes it's worth raising your bids only in certain week-days, or at certain hours, when you know that your keyword gets more targeted traffic. This is possible when you know about your target customers' behaviour and about the probability of them buying at a certain moment (day, hour and so on).

Where to Learn More

There are tons to speak about positioning in AdWords™. Andrew Goodman's 21 Ways to Maximise ROI is the most comprehensive guide to bidding strategies and when to use what.

Now let's talk about how you can write better ads.