Are you of the impression that if you can't make a profit with adwords (providing that you have wide range of specific keywords and a good CTR) then there must be something missing from your sites' offering to the visitor, or are some industries simply impossible to have a profitable adwords program in?
I would appreciate your thoughts. I realise of course that profit may not be easy to measure if not direct sales, but I'm interested in your answers.
>Are you of the impression that if you can't make a profit
>with adwords then there must be something missing
>from your sites' offering to the visitor
Yep. It's most often the lack of products for sale. ;)
Na, kidding aside, it depends on a lot of factors.
- Probably the industry just isn't profitable on the web.
Don't know - you should know this. Is there any serious competition? If there is, the industry is profitable.
- Probably you target the wrong keywords / phrases.
Your keywords should be as specific as possible. It's pretty well explained at the AdWords Optimizing Tips [adwords.google.com]. The phrase cheap widgets will likely bring a better conversion that the keyword widgets and free widgets will likely convert worse than widgets shopping ... etc, etc ...
- Probably your site (the landing page) is not inviting enough.
You should carefully analyze your landing page. This is the place where people land after clicking the ad.
Landing Page Relevancy: if they click on an ad that says Cheap Widgets -10$ and free shipping - Order now! you should provide them with a form that explains everything and let them easily purchase widgets with one single click.
Landing Page User friendlyness: the landing page should be as easy to navigate as possible. Are the terms available within one click without leaving the order form? Do you provide transparent shipping and additional fees? What about secure payment (SSL)? etc. etc. ...
Landing Page Appealing design: the landing page shouldn't look ugly but inviting. Simple as that. Avoid any browser brakes like Java, Plugins (Flash, QT, etc.) and make it fast loading.
A quick and dirty way to detect possible issues with your landing page is to check the conversion from clicks that come from non-adwords traffic. If the conversion is overall bad, it's likely a problem with your ordering process.
I know, there are tons of other aspects. The threads you'll find at this board will answer most of your questions.
I wasn't actually asking for advice: we have a well-performing adwords program, just asking a general question in a hope to stimulate some debate about normal conversion rate and how it relates to adwords.
If our program was performing less well, but our CTR was high, the chances would be that the landing page was not good enough (or keyword not targetted enough), rather than the choice of adwords innapropriate. I assume that is the general opinion.
I guess I was trying to explore reasons why adwords might not be a good idea.
I wouldn't be giving much away by explaining it was in the art market- though that should help explain the problem. The art was very edgy, rarely what people were looking for when they searched our keywords.
A visual product, so we are looking at art sites that will do CPC/CPA with our products, using actual images so that people that click are pre-qualified, aesthetically speaking :)
One thing we learned from all this: it's much easier to sell standardized widgets, the kind where people look for a serial number you can bid on!
