I’ve seen a lot of posts in this forum talking about relevance. If our keyword isn’t relevant to our ad in Google’s eyes then we might pay a high price for that keyword. Google SEEMS TO LIKE relevancy. When someone does a search on Google they want the most relevant result to be the one that appears at the top of the list. Shouldn’t Adwords be the same?
To illustrate my point I’ll use a short example.
There are a lot of companies who sell widgets, but only a few sell blue widgets and out of that group I’m the only one that sells 1932 blue widgets. I create an ad to sell my 1932 blue widgets on Google Adwords.
I used the exact match keyword of [1932 Blue Widgets] with the thought of being able to advertise my product to the very few buyers whose taste in widgets is for the 1932 blue variety.
When I get my ad running and do a test search using the search string of 1932 blue widgets. I expect my ad to be the only ad displayed, but I’m terribly disappointed. My ad’s in the cold cold world of the third page.
I have 13 ads for a rainbow of different colored Widgets that come from various years that are ahead of me.
(Broad Match)
I have 7 ads for 1900-2005 Blue Widgets that are also ahead of me.
(Phrase Match)
2 ads for Gadgets that are ahead of me.
(? Match)
My ad for [1932 blue widgets]
(Exact Match)
What happened to the importance of RELEVANCE? If I’m the only advertiser who can sell 1932 blue widgets to a customer then why isn’t my ad the only one? I have seen relevance mentioned all over in this forum and in Google’s help site, but I guess that when it comes down to it relevance < dollars & cents. My ad is using the EXACT TERM that the searcher typed in. Some of the ads that come up DON’T EVEN SELL WIDGETS. I saw two ads for Gadgets. Gadgets and widgets are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
I know, I’m looking at this from a little bit of a biased perspective. It’s amazing how good the world looks from the eyes of someone who’s got thick rose colored glasses on who is full of more enthusiasm than experience. I had hoped that I could compete by writing highly targeted and very specific ads that are designed to be triggered by keywords that are also highly targeted and very specific, but it looks like dollars & cents is what it really takes. The widget market is too expensive for me right now. Maybe I should change my focus and find a wholesale outlet for Gadgets.
I’m just ranting. I thought someone might get a laugh out of it. I’m formulating a new plan around trying to find keywords that some of my competitors may have missed.
Blue 1932 widgets
Vintage widgets
Widgets that are blue from 1932
Sky colored widgets
I’m even trying to figure out a way that I can get my ad to customers who want widgets without using the word widget. This might be the best angle since then I could eliminate the zoo of other widget dealers who already dominate the market, but if I do that then Google will probably penalize me by charging more for my keyword because my ad for widgets is being triggered by the keyword “soap scum remover”. I use a 1932 blue widget to scrape the residue off of my shower door every time I clean it. It’s not its primary use, but it does the job.
I hope this post has been informative as well as entertaining. :) ;)
Their comments should make interesting reading.
Its first thing in a morning here, but I'll try to help.
The most important thing is the CTR, assuming you don't want to spend vast amounts of cash. Try out lots of different ad text at the same time, with tiny changes and soon as they get to 50 or 100 impressions or so delete them all but the best one, and write some more.
I think your competitors are paying a fortune for broadmatches. I think you can gradually climb up there with CTR.
There are other techniques too.
"Try out lots of different ad text at the same time".
Would that be 1 ad per ad-group?
Cause if I make say 10 ads in 1 ad-group I can't see what ad does better than the others.
Or am I wrong?
Put them all in the same Adgroup, and run them all at the same time. 3 to 5 at once. Let them accumulate a decent number of impressions and clicks, then kill the loosers and write some new ones.
Be careful not to kill off an ad too soon.
Good luck!
I have 6 ads running. One of them is running about 6 versions of the ad and most of them are running 2 versions. They are split between two campaigns. I managed to find a place that I could advertise something on the first page of search results without having too much trouble getting there. There are other ads that come up for my keywords, but I didn't have to go to too much trouble to manage to get to the first page.
I've also discovered another example of G's greed that is starting to be a source of frustration. Almost every time I log into my account there are inactive keywords. G was OK with $0.40 a while ago, but NOW it wants $0.50. What happened to $0.41? Or maybe $0.45? Is 10 cents the minimum jump?
I'm still hanging in there. I'm learning something new every day.
I might be asking a few questions here soon but like I said, right now I’m just learning and experimenting with things. I haven’t made any money yet but so far I’ve only spent about $20 in advertising. I’m OK with that. I expected to spend a little while I was learning about things.
Thanks for all of your comments and assistance. :)
Please Delete.
