Forum Moderators: buckworks
[internetretailer.com...]
What are you doing to control costs?
But not really reducing advertising, just looking for effective key words, ads, and searching deeper for niche keywords.
One could ask on every call I guess, but not every keyword. Sam with print advertising, only worse.
I've noticed that there seem to be more instances of retailers opening different named sites selling the same things. They figure two slots in the results is a huge advantage percentage wise. Can find they by checking WhoIs data.
More retailers, or the same players with more storefronts?
I wonder how many advertisers, even in these tough times, take advantage of G's newer features that allow fine tuning of expenditures: Geo targeting, day-parting, or even something as basic as negative key words. Doing this tuning demands a fair chunk of knowledge and time. And Google Analytics can be formidable to install, tune and decipher.
We also have lopped off dozens of dead-end keywords. Our negative keyword list is growing. We only sell in the USA, so we only advertise here. We've played with day-parting. We haven't tried selecting specific sites to target. I'm now checking my Adwords expenditures daily. I'm also monitoring our non-G PPC expenditures more closely.
Anyone know how many smaller sites utilize Adword's full arsenal of features? My guess is that percentage is tiny... but growing.
work hard on the quality score......
Anyway, the short answer to your real question is that I have been looking at my ROI intensively. Essentially, I've had to raise the bar on what I consider to be an acceptable ROI and eliminate the non-performing words and campaigns from my account. I intend to redouble my efforts on email newsletters to offset the drop in traffic. The truly unfortunate side about the increased competition is that I cannot raise my prices and remain competitive but it appears this is only way to cover the rising costs...a true Catch-22.
What are you doing to control costs?
Nothing, just paying a whole lot more.
Its really frustrating. There is a group of keywords that I used to be able to get for under $.50. Now its over $2.00 for those words. This is just 3 years later.
Our ppc budget has exploded in the last 2 years, 4 fold increase in cost. Luckily we are making out ok and the increase in costs have also cooresponded with an increase in traffic and sales.
But it really is getting out of hand. These giant companies that are not even selling the exact product are coming in with huge bids. That is the real frustrating part. Having deep pocket competition buying keywords for stuff that they don't even sell because one of the words is so general that they crank up the bidding.
I am not an expert (or even a beginner) in Adwords, yet it seems to me that you have to bid very high to get any clicks.
People must realise that you need to get a good ROI otherwise there is no point in using Adwords.
Eg my small Facebook campaign has been running for 6 weeks, I have set a budget of $1.00 a day. I get six clicks every day and have had two paid orders with a sales value of $30.00.
So this campaign has cost me $42 and sales have been $30 so I have lost $12 !
People must realise that you need to get a good ROI otherwise there is no point in using Adwords.
So this campaign has cost me $42 and sales have been $30 so I have lost $12 !
My point is, without advertising, your sales would still be 0 and $0.
Optimize your ads, make your website user-friendly. Ads generate 'buzz' as well as sales, esp. for a brand-new product. ;)
Well said, yes its the long term we must look at. I have noticed in the last week or so quite a few return visits (via my Statcounter) I hope this means that people bookmarked my site and have come back for another look. Hopefully one day they will buy !
Yes I am working on my site all the time trying to make it look good and be user friendly.
