The position preference in AdWords allowed you to target a specific range of ad positions for your keywords. This means you could set a bid price and target positions 3 to 5 for instance for a particular keyword. I have found this feature to be somewhat useful because experimenting with ad position is a fundamental part of optimizing your search campaign. Also, targeting a range allowed me to categorize words and better understand performance based on position. And being able to position preference helped set a particular goal and optimize accordingly.
However, Google economists (who study this stuff for a living) feel that this feature is not that very helpful in optimizing a campaign. So, this feature is getting a boot. Here is the announcement:
More specifically, you can expect to see the following changes in your account:
As of today, April 5th, position preference can no longer be enabled for campaigns through either the AdWords web interface or the API. Campaigns already using position preference will still have it enabled, but if you turn position preference off in one of your campaigns, you won’t be able to turn it back on.
Starting in early May, we’ll begin disabling position preference for any campaigns still using it.
After you disable position preference (either manually or when the feature is retired starting in early May), the manual maximum CPC bids for those campaigns will be the bids position preference used most recently. Position preference tries to raise or lower your bids to target the positions you specify. So using the most recent position preference bid as your manual maximum CPC should minimize disruption to your traffic.
So, bye bye position preference. You were nice but apparently did not deliver the goods!
Related articles
- Google Shuts Down Position Preference For AdWords Bidding (searchengineland.com)
- Google AdWords Position Preference Going Away (seroundtable.com)
- Bid by Position Preference – Post AdWords Feature Removal (portentinteractive.com)
