Comments on: Google Boost Bid Pricing Will Baffle the SMB

By: Alert: Boost Ad Buries A-Business Listing | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:33:42 +0000

[...] recently named Boost Adwords Express has more than a few oddities that might not make it the ideal SMB advertising tool. But this one is a show stopper: If business [...]

By: Google Boost Now Becoming Adwords Express | Understanding Google Maps & Local Search

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:20:02 +0000

[...] perspective to leverage Google’s existing brand although I doubt that it will make the bidding basis of the pricing more obvious. Share and [...]

By: Yaro

Yaro — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 23:30:28 +0000

@Mike,

I do not have anything other than English chosen. The only thing that I can think of – there used to be a duplicate listing I had about a year ago. I had deleted it back than but it is still in “suspended” status as of now. Not sure if this could be causing it?

By: Pamela Egan

Pamela Egan — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:21:19 +0000

I don’t do much advertising online, but I did make an attempt at setting up a Google Boost ad campaign for my business. Well, the cost was nearly identical to what an AdWords campaign would have cost, and if anything was slightly higher on a per-click basis than the standard ads. Go figure…

By: Mishi

Mishi — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:17:27 +0000

I have been working with this feature for a while now and it seems to me that G was/is trying to earn money for long tail/not popular KW’s on the back of SMB.
Creating the platform without giving the SMB any control over the KW’s choice for which their business will show…?!?!?! But now it is even worse as the prices went up and still no control!

I think that in the future G will probably want to separate the Adwords and Boost each for it’s platform – organic results (web results) and Places… That is of course if places will have enough traffic coming in…

If it stays like it is now I also guess all our clients will want to stop using Boost.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:58:48 +0000

@Jeff

You are right, I didn’t bring it up… it is an artifact of the jump in bid price. When the ad price jumps, for whatever reason they keep showing the ad as if it were still at the old price until your budget is exhausted and then some… to balance it out they then stop showing your ad until you are even…

They don’t actually end up charging you $250 as they just don’t show the ad so that by the end of the billing period you are within your spend.

Its screwy regardless of the reason.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:44:39 +0000

I’ve been testing this for a client and so far I am unimpressed…

One issue you didn’t bring up, which I have also experienced, is that you are 25% OVER BUDGET. Your screenshot clearly states “Maximum monthly budget = $200.00 & Cost over this time period = $250.84″

When I first noticed it, I chalked it up to yet another Google Places bug, but it looks like Google is overcharging everyone on this plan.

Our test with a “$50 Maximum monthly budget” came to $84.38. A 68.7% overcharge!

Is that a feature or a bug?

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:34:15 +0000

Ryan

I suspect you are right or close to right but since google offers no transparency or guidance we may never know

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:03:22 +0000

First off, I think the google boost pricing is crazy.

But I would guess that the pricing is affect by the adwords bidding. So maybe someone bid a high amount on adwords to be at the top and boost changed its pricing to be competitive with adwords?

By: Abby

Abby — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:28:51 +0000

@MiriamEllis

Trust me I’m talking to anyone I can- starting with the sales representative (who is adorable, by the way & really tried to help but she can’t) & with the customer service support, not to mention reporting a problem by e-mail & doing a tight follow up with them. I mentioned canceling the campaign obviously however the only thing they all say for their defense is that we are paying only when the ad is alive & by clicks…
Well, considering all the issues going on with CPC (that is an issue for itself!), & the fact that our ad is not online right now (god knows why- we should have available budget left), there is only 1 solution….

I must say though that I do feel for the first time that there IS a real support team that are trying to do their best. Unfortunately, it looks like more of an ‘algo’ problem with the local listing & that’s why I’m convinced that the Boost team are not the right address but another department…(?)

I’m interested to know if anyone is experiencing an ‘Active’ status with no statistics/ dashboard to their listings in Sacramento, CA?