Are you as happy with Adwords as you were last year?
This should not be blamed on Adwords.
If the system WORKED as well as it did 1 year ago, regardless how much the cpc had increased, I'd be happy, Or at least I couldnt complain. Thats not the case.
A large portion of the no's are based on the performance of their campaigns. The world has woken up to the fact that search engine advertising works. In many sectors there are a lot more advertisers than there were last year. Since the number of ad slots is fixed, bids have gone up, and advertisers' ROI and volume down.This should not be blamed on Adwords.
i wonder if a large portion of the few yes's are based on the performance of their campaigns. perhaps those advertisers have learned how to more effectively use the adwords system. adwords is complex and it takes time to learn how to maximize results.
these improvements should not be credited to adwords.
ronmcd has it exactly right. Anyone who suffered the April minimum bid hike, which was under the guise of a higher "relevancy" weighting, needs to take a look at who remains in the keywords that were affected. The April change was a blow to relevance...at least in my industry. Most of the niche players are gone. The only ads left are very loosely related to the search terms, and are run by companies very generalized marketing and very deep pockets (surprise!).
The change may make perfect sense from the standpoint of Google's profit, but that wasn't the question... The question was whether we are happy with Google, and my answer is a definite NO.
The only ads left are very loosely related to the search terms, and are run by companies very generalized marketing and very deep pockets
Pdivi,
You have it exactly right too. I noticed the same situation today in my areas.
Now I have nothing against dynamic insertion but when I use such it culminates in a relevant search. I wouldn't use a word that doesn't go straight to a particular product - only very specific terms that won't throw you on a page of nonsense.
Out of about 20 ads for one search, all but 2 were dynamic. Many weren't appropriate for the search query by a mile. That most certainly cheapens Adwords (not in cost, just in usefullness to the user).
If that's all users see eventually they will learn to ignore those Adword things at the top and right side of the page.
I'm hoping that in time, users will see through this and appreciate the handcrafted creative designed specifically for their search that assures them they won't need to follow with another search.
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On a more positive note, with no action on my part, my inactives went from 9000 to 3000 in the last day or so. Anyone else?
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More votes please!
It's heartening but still sad that many of the old-timers have voted "No". At least I don't feel alone in my dissatisfaction of late. I wish Google would reload a backup tape from a year ago ;)
Can the little guy/gal ever catch a break?
Sorry to ramble!
Israel
Costs per click are up about 30% from last year for April. Still worth it, and still good business from our perspective.
As a Google user, I feel there are more off-topic ads on each page. Those dynamic, big box mass ad purchases clutter the screen.
And that is the case even though my conversions & profits are about the same as last year.
I've managed to adapt to maintain the effectiveness of the ads. BUT, the pricing seems to be random and arbitrary. Too confusing for me to figure out anyway (and I dont consider myself to be a dummy).
Completely agree with a few previous posts, G is definitely aiming to please the big boys. oh well, such is life, big fish eat little fish...unless little fish evolves.
It wouldn't even surprise me if Google themselves are making these MFA sites and driving up the costs of adwords. I mean after all if they click on your ad and then click on the ad's that surround yours that are MFA sites who wins?!
It would be nice if you could think you were using Adwords to compliment your natural listing but thats not the case. It blows my mind how some websites can have 3000 products about one particular type of item and they are sandboxed for years and are forced to use adwords.
...but only marginally.
We implemented our own fraud detection and conversion system and we now know which clicks are fraudulent and the exact conversion rate.
Suprisingly, there we are not that big of a fraud target, however, we don't advertise on adsense ads, just google search results.
Last year we had about 20 keywords. Last month we had 2, and now, having seen the ROI on 1 keyword, we only have one.
Also, the wording of the ad makes a big difference. Making simple changes made our CTR 2-3 more than it was previously, which increased our position and reduced cost, something that yahoo doesn't offer (only fixed bids with yahoo).
Sure, our CPC increased about 30-40% over the last 12 months, but it just means we need to be more careful and diligent with our adwords spending.
Not a chance - in our industry we are seeing lots of new competition. That's fine but I supect now we have more quality issues with fraud and bad quality clicks from content. We have been going 3 years now and seen lots of changes, they all seem to equal less clicks, less quality & more money going to google. Organic traffic rules! That's why G is busting a gut to make that harder to get....
This has been an interesting poll so far, and possibly more mixed then many of us were expecting. Totally unscientific, etc, but interesting nonetheless.
At least this seems to demonstrate that we're not all paid-up members of the Google-cheerleaders or Google-bashers club.
Rgds
Damon
Advertisers have spoken, and so far it's:
44 Google Advertises NOT as happy
13 Google Advertises AS happy
Am I saying this heavy percentage of NOT as happy advertisers is representative of ALL Adwords advertisers? Of course not. Like you mentioned, it is unscientific,,,however amongst this community there is a clear majority of advertisers not as happy.
Most of the replies have come from people who have used Adwords since the start, and because of that, I feel these numbers are even more reflective than if you asked every current Adwords advertiser.
My intention here was not to make Google 'look bad' - I was just inquiring what everyone else thought.
Thanks to all for participating.
44 Google Advertises NOT as happy
Yet, they all are still advertising with Adwords and/or spending their time posting in an Adwords forum?
Yeah no need to get defensive. Again the intention of the
thread was to see what others' thought. I still advertise with Adwords, I'm just not as happy with certain aspects of the program as I was last year or 2 years ago, etc.
Yet, they all are still advertising with Adwords and/or spending their time posting in an Adwords forum?
Just because we're not as happy with it doesn't mean we have to abandon it. I'm still making a profit with it, after making some changes to adapt, but I'm not making as much profit. I'm on target to spend about 20% less with AdWords this year than last as I move money into other advertising channels. Some of those new channels are providing a better ROI, so I may move even more money out of AdWords.
I think your post was a little too terse, so people didn't take to it well.
You've got to realize we're not looking for a divorce from Adwords, just some improvements. There is reason to believe, according to AWA, that many of our comments make it into weekly reports given to Google management. Perhaps together we might affect a change, that's all.
Israel
Although, I would describe the multiple responses to my question as defensive. I wonder why?
But Im really not sure what it is you are trying to say. Are you suggesting some here have a vested interest in answering "No"?
What ever the reason - new players, fraud, rule changes - it only seems to go one way. And of late it seems to get worse. Adwords should be simple to use and maintain not a time and resource consuming monster that it has become. We still use it but like most webmasters we can see the dark at the end of the tunnel, we are always looking at alternatives. Investing the same money in site and content development will take you a long way as far as we can see.
