Google has just introduced a new beta Bid Simulator feature on selected Adwords accounts.
Using data from the past seven days, the bid simulator calculates where AdWords would have placed an ad at a different maximum CPC, how many clicks an ad would have received at those simulated positions and how much those clicks would have cost.
Bid Simulator can help answer questions such as “How many clicks could I get if I used a different maximum CPC bid?” or “What would my ad position be with a different bid?”
Basically the bid simulator allows you to explore what could have happened if you had set different keyword-level bids.
This is the greatest feature ever! Oh, wait a second, there used to be full transparency in the bidding process before Google came along… =/
I think this is a very small step in the right direction. I wish they were way more transparency in bid pricing like a true auction where you know exactly what the competing bids are. Also, does anyone else find the AdWords platform complex and opaque? Since going out on my own, I am relatively new to using the AdWords platform but it was describe as easy to use and manage. I think it is a pain to use but I guess so are Microsoft’s Adcenter and Yahoo’s Overture.