Almost dead

click cycles

[glenv]

I typically have been spending about $250 a day on google adwords. I do indeed play with bidding all the time, experimenting with [] "" etc. The other day I upped my bids and had a pretty good day but I noticed one very generic term I used only broke even so I cut back bidding so high. I also deleted keywords that were not profitable and decided to only bid on keywords that were turning a profit. Although not as many conversions, the ROI was much better. No sense in just exchanging dollars.

In any evert, yesterday things slowed way down and today I have no activity, maybe 3 or 4 clicks when typically I would have had several hundred. This happened once before to me also. Is anyone experiencing or have you experienced almost dead activity after having high activity?

[ikbenhet1]

I don't know if i exactly understand your question, but i think its the following. (Just a wild guess.)

When you lowerd your bid, your ctr was still 'high' from the clicks that day/week. So your ad still comes up high even with a lower bid.
But the next day it starts with 0% ctr each day and corrects itself to a lower ctr. You get a lower position/ctr for your ad and pay 'the same' money for that lower position.

So, what's your ctr for yesterday/today?

[glenv]

Yep and after I talked to Google they explained that since I made the changes Friday and after I ran my maximum exposures they allow without review, they all died until Monday. Called them, took half an hour and all was well.

Lesson: Do not make major changes to your account Fridays

:-)

[USMerch]

Although not as many conversions, the ROI was much better. No sense in just exchanging dollars.

Not to stray off topic, but what you are really saying is that unless you make money on customer acquisition, you aren't interested. Breaking even on gaining a new customer is far from a bad thing. As long as you have in place tools to continue the relationship with your new customer, you are gaining a incredibly valuable asset.

Remember, it costs a lot less to sell to an existing customer than a new one. The experience they have with you, and your attitude towards retention can mean the all the difference between failing, just getting by, making it, making it big, or buying Bill Gates.

AOL, on it's climb to the top, spent over $120 to sign up each customer, and while they have scaled back the 'customer acquisition' spending on occasion, it seems they always come back to the big flashy ads, and mass mailing cds by the truck load. While I am sure they could coast on 'break-even' or even 'negative-cost' acquisitions for the next 5 years if they had to stop their massive spending, I am sure they would not want to.

Good analysis of what your average customer will spend with you over the life of their relationship with you will give you a much more open outlook on your advertising. This is if you have a consumable product or more than one offering, and have worked as hard on delivery, retention and after-sale marketing as you apparently are on acquisition.

Even if you are a one-shot, one-product house, do you really want to spend all the hard upfront money again once that one has fallen from popularity and you have to pick up another to keep going?