Google AdWords Forum

Since when has 10k a month been a waste of time....

Without mentioning specifics its difficult to get my point across I suppose....so dumb answers like yours are expected....smiley...

Lets say, I dont sell widgets, I sell a service in a particular location....and I know that I have taken 30% of the business from the majors in this location - and can potentially double this with more effort (and they know it).....I have only 1 location, whereas they have hundreds... this is where the numbers come in.....

But it is only practical for me to have the one location - and they are certainly trying to squeeze me out of Adwords....or at least from the first half dozen Ads.....

They have literally hundreds of locations....so thereforehundreds of 33Ks.....and more(coz some of their locations are worth much more than 33k)...

PLEASE TRUST ME....

They would operate in MY LOCATION for break even...just for presence sake......

is this one co. running multiple sites or multiple companies?

are you still profitable?

nevermind, re-read the first post, you have other competitors in a bidding war, maybe they are competing against each other and you are collateral damage.

but, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. :)

Seriously, as long as you have decent ROI, hang in there but you can't lose money on every sale and hope to make it up in volume unless there is a repeat/relationship revenue opportunity after the initial sale as this is where you might be able to win with the biggies, better, more personalized service.

- Increase your CTR by writing better ads, using dynamic keyword insertion, increasing the 'quality score' of your landing pages, overbidding for a while and using lots of negative keywords.
- Re-evaluate your keyword research. Generate hundreds of new keyword combinations - go for longtail phrases.
- Set up different bids for search / content network.
- CPM target scraper sites in your niche. ;)
- Use Overture.
- Shift some of your advertising budget to buying advertising space on related sites.
- Spend more time on SEO for organic results.
- With your current ROI, I would think about replicating your success. Build a similar site, get another adwords account and go for it...

Typical
........

Sure, there will be a small element of them outbidding each other....but! Without being paranoid...there are clear indications that they do resent me being there....for instance....

They have , lets say 800 locations (and I only have 1)...they are not aggresive in the other 799....in addition to this....they are using their(1 in particular)organic search power, ie: massive websites , high PR (and good content too - like mine).....etc to outdo me there also...They are optimising their pages in my location...which backs this up....

There is not any repeat business opportunity(at least for 1 year......usually much longer , if at all) - however, very strong business in reccomends....

Aran
.....
Thanks - some great ideas there for me, which I will think on and attempt to implement...

I know I can out do and better their Ad copy.....because I am already doing that.....but it worries me , regarding the spiralling bid (currently manageable)...I already do Overture....and get around 2000 USD per month for a budget of 100 USD...

Replication is possible - but I dont want to take my eye of this ball for the moment.....lol....besides , they wouldnt be so profitable.....

I am sure the competitors donot have unlimited budget for a day.. Avoid advertising during the first half of the day and then use the accelerated ad delivery in the second half..

Who knows , you might find better 'pricing'..

Some good tips for me there....thank you.....

Ironic really....I gave up a very high paying career/job....to take it easy.....set-up an internet business, as an interest, as it were.....

Try competing with Google itself.

On most of my KWs, they're advertising their own FREE software.

And guess which position their ads are in?

Can you say "top left"?

You claim to be out of the top dozen ads - that means that there must be at least a dozen competitors (to fill the spaces above you) and all of them must be involved in bid-price escalation. If you find that in fact some are the same competitor multiple times you can report that to Google and they will cut them down to only one ad per impression.

i think the best single piece of advice given has been improve ad copy.

You mention that oyu have a single location. I interprete this to mean that geografical location is important in your niche. If this is so, act even more locally than your competicion. Think local associaitions (chambers of commerce or whatever you niche actually is :) ).

Optimize you content for that geo targetting.

So, you operate a coffee house? ;)

That adsense thing is a cute idea – I was considering an information site, but hadn’t considered the adwords component…

Also, I have already reported one of them to Google adwords, because they had multiple ads……..with url redirects……..however, what their doing now….is breathing new life into old domains…….it is hard to prove they are the same organization though…….but I know that they are … They have made some errors with their code…for instance , the payment section redirects to the main domain…..and site search, suggests you look for your search term in the main domain……

Sorry…rushing at the mo….hope I am making sense……

OddDog
Sure – Am on this…case