Well it took a while. But we have now been running for two weeks or so with the optimidsed campaign produced by Adwords Support.
Three major points:
They raised my bid per click, but I am actually spending less money
My conversion rate has risen substantially (And yes this is gut feel, because we only just implemented conversion tracking
I had to turn OFF the content network because that ripped through my budget in about 23 seconds, and its conversion rate was awful
My conversion rate has risen substantially (And yes this is gut feel, because we only just implemented conversion tracking
Now, that's great news - and I hope that your conversion stats bear out your gut feel, as they get established.
AWA
Without getting into specifics can you tell us:
Would you consider your budget to be low, average or big spend?
What sort of keyword volume do you have? Just a few, tons?
Are you running a single campaign, or multiple?
Are you advertising to a broad group of consumers or to a narrow niche?
I guess what I'm trying to determine is level of assistance provided to low budget advertisers (like myself) with a few campaigns as compared to the Big Boys. I've only called AdWords one time, and I was really looking for another department.. it was the only number I could locate for the Plex.
Would you consider your budget to be low, average or big spend?
My current budget is low. I can afford £4.00 (gbp) per day. I expect this to rise hugely as the site becomes self supporting. I devote a percentage of my revenues to advertising, but am currently 7 weeks in to a startup business.
What sort of keyword volume do you have? Just a few, tons?
That is hard to determine. I have specific ad groups running highly targeted adverts tothose groups. The only thing I can say is that the adword "load" is "correct" for the advert.
Are you running a single campaign, or multiple?
A single campaign currently. running in English to selected nations in the English Speaking world
Are you advertising to a broad group of consumers or to a narrow niche?
If you look my site up in google (a good word to use is my user id here, and i am pretty sure it is in my profile, too) you will see that it is a dating site. I am in a highly competitive marketplace and am B2C in a niche that is "as broad as anyone wishing to find a partner"
Actually this is part of the reason for turning the content network off. We fond that content adverts are uncontrollable and we ended up full of Nigerin Scam spammers (whom we now redirect to an internet fraud reporting site) who targeted our membership with their imbecilic stuff. We have had to block Nigerian and the Ivory Coast IPs and are considering blocking Ghana and Kenya too, with Indonesia under watch!
Thanks for reporting back partnermine,and I'm glad it seems to have worked out for you!
What I can say conclusively is that threads that bash Adwords are counter productive. Threads here that ask for help produce help. I arrived here via a thread that was busy bashing a "mess" to do with "on hold". I soon noticed that this threa went nowhere, though I hoped it would and contributed my subjective experience to it.
Starting to get this right took time. I did resent the difficulty of getting it right and time it took because I was spending money and I am funded by my own bankroll.
And here I do have a criticism of support, because they promised a delivery date of a week that they missed by 2 weeks. So they over promised and under delivered. If they had said "be patient for 3 weeks" I would not have this odd aftertaste. AWA, please feed that back to the crew?
weeks. So they over promised and under delivered. If they had said "be patient for 3 weeks" I would not have this odd aftertaste. AWA, please feed that back to the crew?
Point well taken, partnermine. I'll certainly pass it on to the right folks - consider it done.
My apology for the delay, and for the overly optimistic delivery date.
AWA
But, partner, things are only at the beginning. You will see some other AdWords features.
Now, logically, not all people complaining there would be crazy, no? Maybe they had a point! At least, some of them!
Now, logically, not all people complaining there would be crazy, no? Maybe they had a point! At least, some of them!
I have never disputed that people who complain have a point. It also is unimportant if they complain about perception or reality, for each is real to them. But what matters is the mechanism of complaint.
I have the following business maxim: "Tell me clearly what you feel is wrong and I will learn what you mean. Once I understand I can handle your issues. You may or may not like the solution, but I can provide the answer properly if you tell me your issue properly."
Simply beating the bejasus out of someone may be satisfying, but it never provides a decent solution, because any solution provided is provided out of resentment.
They raised my bid per click, but I am actually spending less money
Can you explain this a little more? Is this because your keywords are much more targeted?
Also are you on the first page of results for your keywords?
Can you explain this a little more? Is this because your keywords are much more targeted?
The keywords are better targeted and repeat words from the adverts. They are protected by a better list of words to exclude
Also are you on the first page of results for your keywords?
Achieved position is towards the middle of the first page. This is usual but not guaranteed
Several adword groups suddenly had keywords go to in trial or on hold. Now many adowrds in a group are disabled. These adowrds are the precise results of Adwords Support's Campaign Optimisation.
Logic says "These guys know what they're doing", so I used the help form to ask what was going on. I have not TOUCHED these campaigns since they were "expert created". IN my message I made the point that these ad groups were the optimised capaign.
A different support agent took up the thread and ignored that element totally, giving me the standard paragraphs answer. This type of support is inappropriate, and the team needs to be educated to read what comes in.
And yes, I know that tickets are written by users and the support crew are busy. I answer my own incoming user tickets on my dating site, and am surprised by the variable levels of brainpower used in some of them. But the pont is it was a Google Optimised Campaign, the adwordss perform badly in an optimised secteion and Google support failed to respoind correctly. And yes I have brought this to the peronsal attention (politely) of the agent who responded poorly
If THESE boys are not able to handle it, who can?
Sorry to say it, but this is also another example (we have seen a lot of complains about this at this forum) that the first level support don't read the e-mails, but only sends copy&paste answers based (maybe) on some keyword in the subject of an e-mail.
Or are you beginning to see the "dark side"? Have you altered your impression? We would like to hear your experience!
It seems incongruous that a Google Adwords Specialist in Google Support can create an optimised campign whcih runs for a while and then keywords get "downgraded".
Since the site is a dating site, and since it is gay, lesbian and heterosexual I suppose there is an inevitability that I will hit the "unwholesome words list", but I never knew it existed, and there is nothing (AWA please feed this back) to suggest that an ad group is subject to review for content.
