Strange behavior (maybe?) in v201101 TrafficEstimatorService

[Ian Knox]

I'm not 100% sure if this is the expected behavior or not but I figured someone here would know:

 When sending request for a group of keywordEstimates within one adgroupEstimate that has no adGroupID the data returned seems to vary based upon the keywords included as if they're being grouped into some sort of ad-hoc adgroup before the estimates are being returned.  This is also true if each keyword is placed in it's own adgroup before being submitted-- the only apparent way to change this behavior is put each keyword in it's own campaignEstimate _and_ adgroupEstimate.  

This behavior is reflected in the external Traffic Estimator tool found in the adwords portal, as an example if you use the tool with the terms' chicago bike shop' and 'auto insurance' with a max CPC of $2 the estimated ad position returned for 'chicago bike shop' will be 1.57, but when you use the same max CPC for the term 'chicago bike shop' alone it returns a value of 1.47.

As you can imagine this provides a bit of a problem for getting individual keyword values since the maximum number of campaignEstimates per SOAP request (we're using the PHP client Lib) seems to be 5.

Any thoughts?

Ian Knox

[Ian Knox]

Anyone have any idea about this?  

I've attached a the xml log from two example transactions that exhibit this behavior... notice the difference in the values returned for 'Chicago Bike Shop'

[Eric Koleda]

Hi Ian,

This is the expected behavior of the service.  The CampaignEstimateRequests and AdGroupEstimateRequests indicate that the keywords aren't being estimated in a vacuum, but instead are being considered as part of a campaign and ad group.  Additionally, you can specify the IDs of real campaigns and ad groups to get more accurate estimates as to how the keywords would perform in that context.  More information about how to use the service is available here:

http://adwordsapi.blogspot.com/2010/09/discover-v201008-trafficestimatorservic.html

Best,

- Eric Koleda, AdWords API Team

[Ian Knox]

Hi Eric, thanks for getting back to me about this but I still think there's something gone wrong here.

I understand that the estimates aren't being generated in a vacuum but it seems that under some circumstances they should be and they aren't.  For instance if you had a traffic estimate request generated like so (pardon the pseudo XML)

<campaign>

  <adgroup>

    <keyword1>

  </adgroup>

  <adgroup>

    <keyword2>

  </adgroup>

</campaign>

You would expect the results to be generated on the content of each adgroup individually, but instead that request returns the exact same values as:

 <campaign>

  <adgroup>

    <keyword1>

    <keyword2>

  </adgroup>

</campaign>

This seems pretty counter-intuitive since the end user (me) has specifically designated that each keyword should be estimated in an adgroup by itself.

I can provide some XML logs if you need confirmation of this behavior.

Ian

[David S]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the response.  But I'm still left questioning this.  I understand the keywords are not in a vacuum, and the results will vary to some degree and be relative to the group they are a part of.  But in the case I posted about specifically, they simply come back with all ZEROS for the estimates.  

In one of my test cases, I can pass in 19 keywords, and the keyword I'm looking at comes back with CPC around $5.25.  If I send in 20 keywords (the same 19, plus one more), my test keyword comes back with CPC of $0.00.

It certainly looks like a problem.  I've attached my write up, which I attached to my original post, showing exactly how to reproduce the issue I'm seeing step-by-step using the online Traffic Estimator Sandbox tool (i get identical results from my code using the API as well).  I encourage you to follow the steps.  It will take just a minute, and you'll see what I mean.  To go from $5.25 to $0.00 because there are 20 keywords rather than any number of keywords less than 20 just doesn't make any sense to me and leads me to conclude something else is going on.

Thank you for taking the time to look into this!  It is always great to receive support :)

[Eric Koleda]

Hi All,

First let me say that this doesn't appear to be an issue with the API itself, as the Traffic Estimator UI is behaving the same way.  That said, I'll try my best to explain the behavior, but you might want to start a conversation on the general AdWords forum if you want more information about how the product works.

Ian,

Could it just be coincidence that the estimates are the same for those keywords whether or not their in the same ad group estimate request?  I think in some cases you'll find that the estimates won't change, but for other sets of keywords there will be an effect.  If you have a case where you think the behavior is wrong please provide the sanitized SOAP XML request and response.

David,

The reason you are seeing different estimates depending on the surrounding keywords is because some of the keywords are "stealing" impressions and clicks from other keywords.  There may be many keywords in an ad group that match a given search query, but the most relevant keyword will be awarded the impression.  In your sample list of keywords, if you remove "movers", a broad keyword that would match most moving related queries, you'll see that some clicks are now attributed to "boise moving company" again.

Best,

- Eric

[Ian Knox]

Eric,

I don't think it's a coincidence-- my results in testing have been consistent: estimating single keywords in a series of different adgroups yields the same result as estimating them in one adgroup _unless_ you place the individual adgroups in separate campaigns.

I've attached SOAP XML logs of two transactions, both contain two keywords.  One has one keyword per adgroup, and the other has multiple keywords per adgroup.  

The results are the same-- they both exhibit the "stealing" behavior you describe whether or not they are in an adgroup together.

[Eric Koleda]

Hi Ian,

I did some tests and I am seeing the behavior you are describing.  However, this behavior is the same in the traffic estimator UI, so I don't think it is a bug per se.  It may be that the "stealing" behavior I described takes place across ad groups.  For more information about this behavior you should reach out to general AdWords forum.

Best,

- Eric

[Ian Knox]

Thanks for confirming it Eric-- I'll follow up with the general AdWords forum and see where that takes me.

[Ian Knox]

So I just thought I'd follow up here  to see if there might be any new thinking regarding this issue.  I attempted to get some information about this in the AdWords forum but no-one seemed to have any idea why the Estimator behaves this way.

Eric (or whomever), is there another resource I can use to either get this fixed?  The problem is wasting resources both for my client and for Google as we have to send these keywords in batches of 5 at a time.

Ian