My CTR is still pretty crappy on Overture (.3%) but this yields about 50-60 clicks per day, at a low cost (average $.13). And that is excellent for my line of business (database consulting services).
But Google Adwords is another story. It is next to impossible to get action on my terms - unless I bid $1 or more. And Google constantly slows my ads, so the admin headache is substantial. And I get very few impressions, even when my ads aren't slowed.
I have tried multiple ad groups, multiple keyword matching strategies, use negative terms, setup test and production campaigns, varied the bids, varied the copy, etc. All for not so far.
I treally appears that the only way to get action with Google is to bid very high for terms. And I am not going to do that when I can get good traffic from Overture and FindWhat for $.13 a term or less.
I regulary get 18,000 impressions per day on Overture. But on Google, for the same terms, I get a fraction of that (last 7 days = 4,000 total impression).
I have read that Google is so popular and has great traffic. What am I doing wrong that would cause these problems? I know Google is more selective with ad relevancy, but it appears that the traffic if far lower than Overture.
I would really appreciate the help. I am seriously considering dumping AdWords and re-allocating the marketing budget to Overture.
Thanks and happy New Year.
Come up with an estimate of what a consulting gig is worth to you, factor out your variable costs (presumably what you have to pay people), determine your margin and figure out what you can spend on marketing to make whatever profit it is you want.
If your money if better spent on Overture, then spend it on Overture. Spend it on Overture because it makes you more money not because it is cheaper.
Might also consider hiring someone to evaluate your campaign and suggest/make changes to it. A fresh perspective can sometimes work wonders.
Anything from landing page selection to keyword choice to creative may adversely affect your campaigns so its tough to give specific advice.
Actually $1 per click would be a big waste of money imo, when I can get traffic for $.10 to $.13 per click. If it was as simple as getting a sale for $1 it would be a no brainer. But it isn't. It takes a lot of clicks to generate a call, and a lot of calls to generate a sale. Google is pushing advertisers to spend outrageous amounts per click for the top spots. If they don't, their ads get slowed (they are punished).
I don't really care if someone clicked my listing from the 1st, 2nd or 10th page. As long as I get a sale. My goal is to generate the greatest sales volume at the lowest acquisition cost. Being the top listing is not my goal.
I just don't see the business case for paying $1 or more per click when I can get plenty of clicks - without the admin hassle, for $.10 on Overture.
I am going to increase my bids on Google to use up my remaining budget, but unless I can see the value in Google AdWords, this will be my last experiment with them.
For the past year or so I've been seeing bid prices on popular b2b terms on Adwords go to uneconomically high levels. You can't blame Adwords for your competitors' being willing to pay so much.
You may wish to consider substantially reducing the size of your Adwords campaign and focusing on niche terms.
If your ads aren't showing all the time - have you discovered why?
Have you looked at other ways to get lower cost clicks on AdWords?
Are you relying on broad matching on AdWords and haven't fully explored the possible keyword universe?
There are some industries that are much less expensive on Overture or AdWords, for which there isn't a logical explanation.
You might want to check out this thread and see if you've gone through this checklist:
[webmasterworld.com...]
If you need more information on specifics, G has a nice set of tutorials at: [google.com...]
eWhisper: The thread you provided was excellent. But I think I have tried most of the suggestions. The fact is, I noticed my CTR improve dramatically by just increasing my bid price. My low bid terms never do well, and they always get slowed.
I'm going to give it one more try, with a handful of keywords. If I can get that working, I'll consider branching out.
Thanks for the advice everyone.
I've just this week closed down my Overture account for exactly the same reasons you're having difficulty with Adwords. I can get Adwords to work, but couldn't do a thing in the 12 months that I used Overture - useless, in my book.
When I started using Adwords, however, I had quite a bit of difficulty at first - my approach was to target generically the sectors we are in. It didn't take me long to realise that using 'engineering widgets' and 'scientific widgets' was just not going to work... Key words were constantly being disable, ads were being slowed, ctr's were at 0.3% - 0.06% if I was lucky. Regardless of the kw combinations & matching options used, this was as good as it got - or so I thought.
After a while I came to realise (courtesy of this forum actually) that I wasn't using the right kw's at all, and my ad copy was crap. I wasn't targeting my markets at all - the only person I was targeting was me.
Finding out how to change to the right market-centric perspective was difficult, and I didn't know where to start at first. Then it struck me that in order to find the right words used within the sectors we targeted the best place to start initially would be the literature produced by our own company (these are designed to target your specific markets and contain lots of wonderful, sector specific jargon & buzzwords after all). I looked at other companies literature too, to find out what phrases were they using.
Soon I had extensive lists of 'specialised industry niche specific widget' kw's and phrases and the deeper into the sectors I went the more I found.
Soon I realised that they were everywhere and we were using them all the time in work - the industrys were abuzz with them (this is particularly true of business & technical sectors, I find) - our language was the language of our customers, we were just using different dialects. One was in the dialect of 'sell' and the other was in the dialect of 'buy'....
Once I realised that, and with experimentation, tweaks and ongoing improvements, adwords took off and we've never looked back.
Of course, I know that this can just as readily apply to Overture, or any other model, however, the approach I learnt on G wouldn't work on Overture at all, no matter how hard I tried...
Likewise, I know it's easy to say that 'you must speak the same language as your customer', and you obviously do or you wouldn't be seeing success on the likes of Overture. However, I do just wonder as to whether a bit more immersion in the culture and language of 'buy' might help, specifically in regards to the unique dialect found on the continent of Google.
Likely I am completely off on the wrong track here, whilst proverbially teaching granny to suck eggs (wow, mixed metaphors...), but, if I'm not...
Syzygy
Many of us get use to what online tools we can use for keyword research, when often, the research has already been started by other company departments.
The point you made about looking at company literature is a very good one. Many companies spend a lot more money offline than online, and their offline departments have had years to perfect marketing copy.
Taking a step back from the internet to look at how potential customers are trying to find your products, instead of how you sell your products, can have some great results.
Great post, Syzygy.
Agreed! One of the best I've seen. Very thoughtful, thought provoking, and useful.
Yet another example of why I love this Forum - folks sharing their hard-won knowledge and insight.
AWA
Thanks for the thoughtful post. Let me define what I have already done and see if I am missing something.
1. Keyword search: I used Google Suggest, WordTracker and the tools in Adwords and Overture. I compiled a list of 300 terms. While I am sure I missed some, I am confident I got the bulk of them.
2. Targeting: I have tried to target ads by location, specifying campaigns for both the US and Los Angeles.
3. Ad copy: I have studied the competition and used similar text (and completely different text). The search term was always used in the title. I created several different ads and compared them to see which worked. None did.
4. Ad groups: I created a tailored ad group for each category (i.e. MS Access had a group, SQL Server had a group, etc.).
5. If the visitor did click on the ad, they came to a unique landing page tailored to that term.
All this has yielded nothing. Lately I am receiving 0 clicks on my ads. But in the "good old days" I was averaging .1 to .3% on Google.
The difference I see with Overture is that they will allow a .1% ad to run. And since I have 300 terms, I can get decent traffic from all terms combined. Google slows the ads long before I can generate the traffic. So as far as success goes, both campaigns are lousy. It is just that Overture looks the other way while my crap CTR ads clog the network. Google doesn't. :-)
What am I missing?
[webmasterworld.com...]
Your obviously a smart guy or you wouldn't be doing what you are doing. I do not understand the quote above though... if your making your entire judgement on what you pay "per click" then I would encourage you to take this a step further as someone else suggested.
Example. If you are buying a solo email blast from a company then they are going to charge you a CPM rate. These can range from basically nothing to 400 dollars. If each time you spend 3,000 dollars with 'low CPM company' you make 3,500 dollars back off of 100 leads vs when you spend 3,000 with 'expensive cpm company' and get only 4 leads but make 7,000 - 8,000 dollars it is obvious who is the better choice, even if the CPM is higher. If you judge them just by what you 'pay' and not the profit you make then your judgement is false (if your purpose is to make money). You may or may not have determined your ROI from the two different advertising expenditures, if you have not I would encourage you to do so.
The only reason I posted this was is that some people do not look far enough into their advertising expenditures when making judgements based on a campaign.
Best of luck getting everything running well and I hope it turns out positively for you.
1. Keyword search: I used Google Suggest, WordTracker and the tools in Adwords and Overture. I compiled a list of 300 terms. While I am sure I missed some, I am confident I got the bulk of them.
I too went to the kw suggestion tools when I found my campaigns weren't working and came away with hundreds of new terms. In the main they didn't work; they seemed logical at the time, but just weren't specific enough for the markets, I found. I don't use these tools anymore.
Instead, as mentioned, I looked within my own industries and, rather than finding generalised and 'selling' kw's and phrases, came up with what you might call 'understanding' kw's and phrases.
Rather than take the approach of 'We have the best technical widgets' (how do punters know that?), I identified the vertical markets within the sectors and then found the specific jargon & buzzwords that only applied to this. Try your technical manuals if you have such things - every page is loaded with unique kw's and phrases... they only make sense to those with the expertise; 'understanding'.
From (no specifics) 'engineering' generically, I went to 'chemical engineering', to terms used within this specialism. From the specialisms I found the super-specialisms within. This is three to four levels deep into the target market and is the place to start.
I know you're using terms around software relative to your products/services, but what are the terms relative to what people want to do with the specific application, what do they want to do with it and how do they apply it? What is the purpose of that which you are offering and why do they want to buy it/use it, or whatever?
From here, go to the next level in depth - there is now a new language of jargon/buzzwords/kw's used that is probably pretty unique to this segment. Like a fractal, go to the next level down, and keep going. Find the kw's at all these deep levels of the markets you're in. People specialise - if you specialise with them you are at their level; they will identify with you.
In many sectors I'm in there are usually very few ads and if there are many, I'm usually in the top three or four. Occasionally I'm in the Priemum slot for what are 4th level kw's that are unique to global, multi-billion, or trillion $ sectors. However, very few companies are attacking at this level in the main (not yet anyway.... at the moment, I can sit in a Premium slot whilst paying the minimum bid price).
2. Targeting: I have tried to target ads by location, specifying campaigns for both the US and Los Angeles.
I can't really comment on this. However if the kw's and adcopy are right...
3. Ad copy: I have studied the competition and used similar text (and completely different text). The search term was always used in the title. I created several different ads and compared them to see which worked. None did.
Sod the competition! (A wholly personal perspective..;-)) People want your products or services because it uniquely fulfills their needs. So, be unique. I'm guessing people who come to you are looking for a solution to a problem - address both. The kw's will bring up your ads whether people are looking for you or not. Now is your chance to make them interested and click through your ad rather than the natural listings. If the kw's are really, really, really specific you've already started to qualify the impressions; the quality of the copy will qualify them even more, so make sure the copy ties in ever-so specifically to the phrases you're using.
4. Ad groups: I created a tailored ad group for each category (i.e. MS Access had a group, SQL Server had a group, etc.).
Spot on, of course. I also did the same and it really helped focus the aims of the adgroups. Nonetheless, and obviously, if the kw's and your ad copy aren't working... However, once you do get things moving, this will stand you in great stead.
5. If the visitor did click on the ad, they came to a unique landing page tailored to that term.
Great, but what's your conversion rate, and how are you measuring it? Use G's own click tracker if you're not already.
Once you've got your super-specific, fractal depth kw's and phrases sorted out - because you've identified the specific markets, you should have been able to identify the clients' need, problem or solution. When you have that, the landing pages will have to be tailored around this.
A bit of a ramble, I'm afraid. As stated, this is all purely subjective, based on my own experiences, so whether there is any real value in it, I don't know. Bottom line though, dig real deep for your keywords - approach it as if it was a data mining project. This really is the key.
Most people here have a far greater understanding than I do of how Adwords works, and how you can best maximise your returns. Hopefully this may prompt others to provide better advice to you than I can give.
Regardless, good luck.
Syzygy
It was more of a comparison. For example, let's say I have $20 to spend every day on PPC advertising. If I am paying $1 per click, that means I have 20 leads to work with, at most, per day. The reality is that of those 20, maybe I'll receive 1 or 2 inquiries. If I can receive 200 leads per day for the same money, wouldn't it be money better spent? It's a numbers game.
The key is a have a finite advertising budget. Right now with Overture I get 50 clicks per day for about $6. That yields 3-5 leads per day. For the same money I might get 1 lead every other day.
The other issue is finite time/capacity. I can only do so many jobs per month. Shouldn't my strategy be to reach my capacity each month with the most profitable jobs, acquired at the lowest cost?
How can I justify Google? Wouldn't I be better off increasing my terms or by bids to get a better CTR with Overture? The cost difference is dramatic.
And management hassle is another big factor. Google is always slowing or disabling my ads. So I have to keep on top of it every second. That is development time wasted. Not an issue with Overture.
The wildcard is whether the leads would be better with Google or not. At this point I am not sure why they would.
Bottom line: I want to make Google Adwords work. And I know it can if done properly. I just don't seem to be able to find the right formula to make it happen, unless I want to spend $1 per click.
Can anyone point me in the direction of a good, inexpensive PPC guru to get the programs on track? My budget is slim but I have a lot of clients that would need this service, and I would be happy to provide referrals if it works out.
I appreciate all the feedback and suggestions.
Do you do PPC consulting?
Thanks for all the help.
There are thousands better qualified and more experienced than I in these matters.
I do hope that some little part of what I've said does help in pointing you in the direction of success with Adwords. Oh, and I've sent you a 'sticky' if you haven't seen it already.
Again, good luck & keep posting - it's one of the best ways to learn.
Syzygy
Thanks for all the help too!
Overture Position = Bid
Google Position = Bid x CTR
If you can get Overture to work well, but not Google - you need to focus on CTR for sure.
~~~~
Do ad copy differently than your competitors, but always convey value and/or a unique opportunity (not enough room to do both usually).
Use the dynamic insertion tool in ways you never thought of and on lines you haven't tried (lines 2 & 3 allow 35 characters).
Create MORE ads and auto-optimize them for a while - then delete ALL of the bad ones no matter how much you like them or think they should work.
Work on the displayed URL in the ad - you'll have to modify your site, but it's well worth it for your CTR.
Premium listings at Google are on blue background across the top - they still use bid x ctr to determine position, but ALSO meet a higher standard for CTR. Where ever, when ever, what ever you're searching for - when you see blue, slip on your marketing hat and try to figure out why - it'll train you to become blue-minded.
For you, I'd also suggest you skip the books about Google and PPC and instead, focus on marketing core issues - like what makes people act - the heart of CTR. My favorite is a book by Robert Cialdini called "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion". I've read it cover to cover many times and have given away more copies than I can remember. It's a cheap paperback to buy and although the author is a PhD, this is about real world practices (not college classroom theories). This PhD guy left academia, took a series of sales jobs and sales training courses and studied succesful sales people for a few years. Then slipped back into his role as a college academic and wrote this book. As a consumer, it'll teach you a lot about tactics people use on you. As a marketer, you'll become more able to influence people to act.
I'll be thinking blue too!
Premium listings at Google are on blue background across the top - they still use bid x ctr to determine position, but ALSO meet a higher standard for CTR.
For premium listings, there are more requirements than bid x CTR, refer to:
I still maintain that "they still use bid x ctr to determine position, but ALSO meet a higher standard for CTR." to be blue.
Can you clarify what other requirements you know of or have read about?
The best information I have says that the algo which sends ads up top looks at actual CPC and CTR, with CTR carrying more than 50% of the weight. There is also an additional 'performance bar' which ads must meet in order to Go North. This is the reason why there are searches for which no ads are sent to the former Premium spots: no ads have met the performance bar.
in the following thread, post # 20, my bold letters
and,
the algorithm now evaluates an ad's CTR and the actual CPC paid (rather than the Max. CPC) when determining which AdWords ads to promote to the top spots.
from AWA with his hightlight.
