TrafficEstimatorService vs. bid landscapes with existing Campaigns/Ad Groups/Keywords

[Jon Oler]

I'm trying to use the AdWords API to determine what the expected clicks and cost would be if I change the max cpc bid for existing keywords in existing campaigns and ad groups.  In my TrafficEstimatorService API requests, I included existing campaign ids, existing ad group ids, and existing keyword ids.  My question is what does the TrafficEstimatorService do with these ids when it generates traffic estimates?  The docs (https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201502/TrafficEstimatorService.CampaignEstimateRequest) are very vague about this:

For existing campaigns, the campaign and optionally the ad group will be used as context to produce more accurate estimates.

and 

To make a keyword estimates request in which estimates do not consider existing account information (e.g. historical ad group performance), set campaignId to null.

This is about all of the documentation that I can find on this.  When I read that "the context" of the campaign/ad group/keyword would be used, then I assumed that the estimate would consider all of the keywords (including negative keywords) that were already in place in the given ad group.  However, this does not appear to be the case.  What seems to be happening is that the estimate is generated by considering only the keywords that are sent as part of the API request.  If the existing keywords aren't used when generating the estimate, then what "context" is used?  The docs seem to be too vague on this.

Does the TrafficEstimatorService use the keyword id at all?  I'm wondering about this because even when I pass an existing keyword id in my request, I am required to specify a keyword text, a keyword match type, and a keyword max cpc bid.  If I don't include these, I get an API error saying these are required.  I would have expected the TrafficEstimatorService to use my keyword id to retrieve the keyword text, match type, and max cpc bid, but it doesn't seem to work this way.

The TrafficEstimatorService documentation works is intended to provide estimates for existing campaigns/ad groups.  Is it intended to provide estimates for existing keywords as well, or is it mostly intended for use in generating estimates for new keywords?  I'm now wondering if the bid landscape functionality is really where I should be looking for estimates on existing keywords.

In summary, my questions are:

1.  Is the keyword id used at all when included in the KeywordEstimateRequest sent to the TrafficEstimatorService, or are only and campaign id and ad group id used by this service?

2.  If the answer to #1 is no, then this means that an existing keyword's quality score, ctr, etc. aren't factored into an estimate, right?

3.  Does the TrafficEstimatorService consider other existing keywords, in an existing ad group (when the ad group id is specified) besides those included in the API request?  If not, then it would seem that it would be necessary to send all of the keywords in an ad group in a single API call in order to get accurate estimates because some keywords in an ad group may "steal" traffic from other keywords.

4.  Similar to question #2, but does the TrafficEstimatorService consider existing negative keywords for an existing ad group id when generating estimates when the negative keywords aren't included in the request?

5.  Can you describe in a bit more detail what "context" is used by the TrafficEstimatorService when existing campaign ids/ad group ids (and maybe keyword ids) are included in the request?  How does sending these ids result in more accurate estimates?

6.  Do bid landscapes consider the existing keywords in an ad group (including negative keywords) when a bid landscape is requested for a given keyword id?

7.  Which is the better way to get estimates for cost and clicks for existing keywords for various max cpc bids (and thus set a new max cpc bid)--the TrafficEstimatorService or bid landscapes?  The TrafficEstimatorService is a forward looking service in that it makes estimates for the future, so that would seem to be an advantage for it.  Unfortunately, I have doubts about how much data about existing keywords is applied for estimates on existing keywords.  On the other hand, bid landscapes are backwards looking (but we would prefer estimates for the future), but since they only require a keyword id to be specified, perhaps bid landscapes are able to utilize all of the context information of the keyword (other keywords in the ad group, negative keywords in the ad group, ctr, quality score, etc.).  If the bid landscape is for recent traffic, then it is also likely a good predictor of future traffic (which is why this functionality was created in the first place).

8.  Bid landscapes only return a handful (I've seen 3 at the least and 9 at the most) of landscape points for various cpc bids.  Is the decision on the number of landscape points to return determined by big differences in cost/clicks/etc. at various bid points, so bidding in between these landscape points wouldn't result in much different results in terms of cost/clicks/etc.?  What if my ideal max cpc bid happens to be somewhere in between two landscape points?  The TrafficEstimatorService allows the max cpc bid to be specified in the request, so it has that working to its advantage since we can decide how many estimates we want to retrieve.

Thanks,

Jon

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jon,

Please see my answers below. You covered quite a bit of ground in your questions, so I will have to get back to you on some of the questions.

You may want to check out the accompanying Estimating Traffic Guide for the TrafficEstimatorService. One key point is that this service is meant to mirror the functionality of the Keyword Planner. In the Keyword Planner, you always specify a list of keywords for which you want to retrieve estimates, so it follows that you need to list specific keywords in your API request as well.

1.  Is the keyword id used at all when included in the KeywordEstimateRequest sent to the TrafficEstimatorService, or are only and campaign id and ad group id used by this service?

The keyword ID will influence estimates if specified. Please see the documentation on KeywordEstimateRequest.keyword for details.

2.  If the answer to #1 is no, then this means that an existing keyword's quality score, ctr, etc. aren't factored into an estimate, right?

Not applicable, since the answer to #1 is yes.

3.  Does the TrafficEstimatorService consider other existing keywords, in an existing ad group (when the ad group id is specified) besides those included in the API request?  If not, then it would seem that it would be necessary to send all of the keywords in an ad group in a single API call in order to get accurate estimates because some keywords in an ad group may "steal" traffic from other keywords.

I'm looking into this question and will post back once I have an answer.

4.  Similar to question #2, but does the TrafficEstimatorService consider existing negative keywords for an existing ad group id when generating estimates when the negative keywords aren't included in the request?

Please see my answer to question #5.

5.  Can you describe in a bit more detail what "context" is used by the TrafficEstimatorService when existing campaign ids/ad group ids (and maybe keyword ids) are included in the request?  How does sending these ids result in more accurate estimates?

The service generates forecasts by taking samples of past performance for the keywords and options you specified, so if you include an existing campaign or ad group, the service will use a sample of that campaign or ad group's performance to generate the estimates. Therefore, the additional context of the various campaign and ad group settings and targeting options will implicitly influence the sample.

6.  Do bid landscapes consider the existing keywords in an ad group (including negative keywords) when a bid landscape is requested for a given keyword id?

I'm looking into this question and will post back once I have an answer.

7.  Which is the better way to get estimates for cost and clicks for existing keywords for various max cpc bids (and thus set a new max cpc bid)--the TrafficEstimatorService or bid landscapes?  The TrafficEstimatorService is a forward looking service in that it makes estimates for the future, so that would seem to be an advantage for it.  Unfortunately, I have doubts about how much data about existing keywords is applied for estimates on existing keywords.  On the other hand, bid landscapes are backwards looking (but we would prefer estimates for the future), but since they only require a keyword id to be specified, perhaps bid landscapes are able to utilize all of the context information of the keyword (other keywords in the ad group, negative keywords in the ad group, ctr, quality score, etc.).  If the bid landscape is for recent traffic, then it is also likely a good predictor of future traffic (which is why this functionality was created in the first place).

I'm looking into this question and will post back once I have an answer, but you may want to post to the AdWords Community as well, since that community has lots of product experts who may have suggestions regarding your use case.

8.  Bid landscapes only return a handful (I've seen 3 at the least and 9 at the most) of landscape points for various cpc bids.  Is the decision on the number of landscape points to return determined by big differences in cost/clicks/etc. at various bid points, so bidding in between these landscape points wouldn't result in much different results in terms of cost/clicks/etc.?  What if my ideal max cpc bid happens to be somewhere in between two landscape points?  The TrafficEstimatorService allows the max cpc bid to be specified in the request, so it has that working to its advantage since we can decide how many estimates we want to retrieve.

I'm looking into this question and will post back once I have an answer.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Jon Oler]

I appreciate the response you've given so far.  In your initial response, you indicated that you didn't know the answer to several of our questions.  Have you been able to look into the questions you didn't know the answer to yet?

Thanks,

Jon

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Jon,

I checked with one of our experts on this topic, and here are the answers to your remaining questions.

3. Does the TrafficEstimatorService consider other existing keywords, in an existing ad group (when the ad group id is specified) besides those included in the API request?  If not, then it would seem that it would be necessary to send all of the keywords in an ad group in a single API call in order to get accurate estimates because some keywords in an ad group may "steal" traffic from other keywords.

Yes, if you're giving the TrafficEstimatorService an existing campaign/ad group structure, it will use all the keywords in that structure to help make its estimations.

6.  Do bid landscapes consider the existing keywords in an ad group (including negative keywords) when a bid landscape is requested for a given keyword id?

If you request bid landscapes for a specific keyword, then it won't take into account other keywords in the same ad group. If you want it to take all keywords into account, you can request bid landscapes for the entire ad group.

7.  Which is the better way to get estimates for cost and clicks for existing keywords for various max cpc bids (and thus set a new max cpc bid)--the TrafficEstimatorService or bid landscapes?

The answer to this depends on your use case. The experts on the AdWords Community should be able to help out with this question.

8.  Bid landscapes only return a handful (I've seen 3 at the least and 9 at the most) of landscape points for various cpc bids.  Is the decision on the number of landscape points to return determined by big differences in cost/clicks/etc. at various bid points, so bidding in between these landscape points wouldn't result in much different results in terms of cost/clicks/etc.?  What if my ideal max cpc bid happens to be somewhere in between two landscape points?  The TrafficEstimatorService allows the max cpc bid to be specified in the request, so it has that working to its advantage since we can decide how many estimates we want to retrieve.

TrafficEstimatorService is a better choice if you need this type of fine-grained control over bid estimates. Unfortunately, I cannot share the logic that determines the number of landscape points retrieved.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Anas Mbasso]

Hello Jon,

We are asking the same questions as you do today. Could you have an answer to your question number 7 ? Are you satisfied with the predictions of the TrafficEstimatorService ?

Thank you.