Thanks.
We just launched adwords this week and are waiting to see the response. I think we'll get less click through's because our listings are on the right hand column.
However, maybe I'm too new to this and missed something - but I simply changed the bid amount on all our keywords to $.05 (even though google sometimes recommended a different amount).
I'm getting a little confused by comments like:
but whats the point when you add a good keyword only to find the minimum is around $0.90c. At least you can get onto the playing field with overture.. unlike Google Adwords who have minimum bids for certain keywords VERY high.
Am I missing something?
What I don't care for is some of the "off topic" ads that appear. For example - let's say a really common keyword is "business". However, we are bidding on something more complex and MUCH more specific "business financial consulting" (these are simply example). The generic "business" ad is appearing and has very little to do with the ad. Other than that, I liked the process of getting started - now we just need some sales!
Chris
The reason behind it is due to old Adwords advertisers who have campaigns running on a CPM basis and because of the historical CPM figures they are balancing the playing field for advertisers using the CPM method.
I think many of these deals have now been put to bed, but there is still the barrier there. It only applies to the US, so if you did a Global campaign the other countries would be fine.
Now that Espotting is going the same route is anyone going to abandon those too?
Google Ad Words is the hardest to understand PPC program out there. It costs a lot, compared to others. Sometimes outrageously so for certain keywords. It is difficult to manage for most of us, and hard for most of us to understand and to figure the benefit for the $$ spent but --- got to be said: Google sells.
Trust the logic: Google is the number one search engine in the world, and the most relevant of all the search engines. Relevancy is the key to Google's success. If you examine all they do, their # one "thing" is relevancy.
If you get a click on an ADWord keyword, you can probably figure it is a relevant click and will convert more often than a similar click from OV or FW, given how particular Google is in the search just to get to that ADWord. I can't prove that, but that is my take.
FOR GOOGLE GUY: any chance you Google guys/gals will offer an Ad Analyzer tool like FindWhat's? That would be nice.
If you get a click on an ADWord keyword, you can probably figure it is a relevant click and will convert more often than a similar click from OV or FW, given how particular Google is in the search just to get to that ADWord. I can't prove that, but that is my take.
I have to disagree there, the only time you can figure it's relevant is if the advertiser has used exact match. Whenever we take over the handling of an existing account the first thing we do is to add tracking URL's so we can show the client exactly what they have been paying for. To say they are horrified is an understatement.
I know that we normally talk widgets, but to illustrate that point we know of someone that was bidding on the keyword orange in respect of cellular network provider. Now there was no issue with the ad that went with it showing that it was relevant to cellular network only, but they had clicks for recipes, paint charts, Jason Orange from Take That and countless others, the relevancy was about 1 in every 5 clicks.
When doing some comparisons, Google does sell, but then so do the others. Google is good for critical mass, but clicks to sales it's in 3rd place for most of our clients and 3rd place for ROI, but because the volume issue is important most clients are happy to forego the reduced ROI for more sales.
It will be interesting to see in a few months time the impact the increase in price will have. Since Overture announced the increase we have seen a lot less competition so the average CPC has come down and ROI has increased, the same will probably happen with Espotting and Google will be the losers in the equation because there will be more competition which will drive the price up in the short term.
we've had similar situations with keyword phrases we use... where searchers append all manner of words and qualifiers we never would have dreamed of. after a week or so of careful monitoring, we can usually eliminate virtually all of them by checking our logs and setting up negative keywords. (one of the things we sell is put out by one of america's most wholesome corporations, an instantly recognizable brand name synonomous with children and mom and apple pie. yet we're always amazed to see the number of people who search for special versions of this product by adding "sex," "porn," "naked," "nude," etc. we've been able to screen these out with negative keyowrds.)
with regard to google vs. overture, we use google - and SEO techniques - exclusively. we tried overture, but never got past the set-up and laborious approval process. we found their customer service decidely lackluster and unfocused. they refunded our intiial deposit and we agreed to part ways.
ads on google and froogle convert for us, better than SERPs.
conversion for ads on google content partners have disappointed us and we have discontinued them for most campaigns. (but we'd love to see a way to designate content partners for a specific keyword group, not just an entire campaign.) they are not proving all that relevant ... some ads on which we have a 3 -5% or greater CTR have apparently been shown 30 - 40,000 times on content partners without a single click.
couldn't most of the clicks for jason orange, take that, paint charts and such be screened out by diligent use of negative keywords?
Absolutely right, but to the average advertiser in the street these techniques are not used, and although Google's FAQ and tutorial covers the use of phrase, exact match and negative keywords the normal advertisers just don't use them. The elation of just getting a campaign up and running is normally good enough, and I think that a lot of them get a placebo effect.
The point I was making is that to the normal advertiser they'd think that the campaign was working. We screened the logs to prove the point that although the ad was written to attract one type of visitor that 80% of the clicks were actually looking for something else when they clicked, totally unrelated to their search term. We find that because of the human editorial review carried out by Espotting and Overture that relevancy is actually better than against Google.
