Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've tried other keywords and phrases, but they don't give me the return on investment.
How about everyone else? What is an "acceptable" amount to spend on AdWords to bring in an AdSense income?
I'd love to find more keywords that I can spend a nickel on, but so far I haven't come up with any. I average $45 a day in AS income... with more "magic" nickel keywords I could dramatically increase that!
I'd love to hear from others.
LOL, just kidding....
"widget"
Actually, the keyword is only "magic" for me because of the relation to my site and the nature of the customers coming in. It isn't necessarily a high-paying keyword... it is just that my customers search Google for it and my AdWords ad is enticing enough with a 'free' offer of it. When they get to my site the folks searching for this keyword don't exactly find what they want.. OR... they are drawn away by a more targetted AdSense ad that more directly fills the need.
In my "hot spot" entry page I get between 13% and 40% CTR on any given day... thus the great return. The ads being shown are for more specific variations of my "magic" keyword, but they obviously do pay more than the nickel I'm spending per visitor. They pay between 10 and 40 cents on average.
I've tried other keywords/combinations, but those customers DO tend to find what they are looking for at my site or I they just don't want what is offered in the ad block.
I've found some keywords that give me a 2:1 ratio, but I just can't justify outlaying half my AdSense income for those keywords... the math just doesn't work considering taxes and other expenses.
The 4:1 ratio just "feels" right... and I was wondering if others had come to a similar conclusion. :-)
The 4:1 ratio just "feels" right
For advertising, I think the common standard is 5:1, 20%. But, if it feels good, go for it.
I should go read some articles on that theory I suppose.
This is really the information I'm looking for, but is that for "conventional" internet advertising with overhead, etc.? Like a "real" company with inventory and other costs?
I am not selling anything at this site... and the hosting costs me less than $3.00 a month. In my mind I keep this totally separated from my business site, which has an entirely different focus. I use AdWords to get traffic to my business site, but I don't use AdSense there.
Since AdSensers with strictly informational sites typically have much lower expenses (if you don't count our personal time spent!), I'm wondering if I could push it to 3:1, provided I find a keyword or phrase that gives me that kind of return?
Is anyone else pushing the ratio and justifying the extra outlay of cash for the purpose of earning return visitors who bookmark the site... or even just site popularity?
is that for "conventional" internet advertising with overhead, etc.? Like a "real" company with inventory and other costs?
Yes. I have some private advertisers, and I've studied affiliate programs, this is the number they provided, 20%.
If you have little or no overhead, I see no problem with pushing it to the limit.
and yes, it should also be searched for, thousands of times a day so that you can receive some percentage of hits everyday. Yep!
If you found a bank that paid 5% interest on any balance and you invested one dollar, after a year you would have $1.05
If you find a keyword that is returning 400% and invest one dollar into adwords,in less than 60 days you have $4.00
Where would you invest your dollar?
Here's another thread with a similar situation. This person is spending $9 to make $15.
It's not quite the same return, but it's still better than the bank.
edit: fix url
I need to keep an eye on the smart pricing cause somedays it is so low it doesn't pay to advertise at all for specific channels... other days it is fine - you never now from on minute to the next.
Next decision is whether to turn on content ads - I get a lot more visitors from content but not as good click throughs.
It takes a lot of work to beat back the scraper sites each day - when I see 5 clicks from the same IP in 2 minutes then site gets blocked - you'd think these would be invalid clicks right - maybe they are but I'm not chancin it.
Seems like my site is coming back from G hell so hopefully I won't have to rely on adwords so much.
The answer is I have ZERO (0) percent AdWords expense in my budget at this time.
I hate to quibble semantics but if I spent my income on AdWords wouldn't it then be an expense instead of income?
The answer is I have ZERO (0) percent AdWords expense in my budget at this time.
Not sure what you mean, Bill.
I'll give you an example for the justification of spending money on AdWords strictly to bring someone to a site that only generates revenue from AdSense.
When I *don't* spend a penny on AdWords, my CTR plummets and I make about 25% of what I'd normally make.
Here is a fictional example:
1 day spending ZERO on AdWords to send traffic...
1% CTR - $10.00 revenue for day
The same day spending $10 on AdWords to send traffic...
4% CTR - $40.00 revenue for day
When I spend money on AdWords (at the minimum 5 cents per click max) I have a large enough ROI to justify the spending. Of course, I also try to take any other expenses into account; taxes being the greatest concern for me.
If I were only making $20 a day after spending $10, it would theoretically be a "break even" deal. Even then I would consider the benefits of more site exposure, people bookmarking and returning, etc.
I have one site at "break even" only for this reason since it is a new site that I want to raise awareness on.
My goal is to find more keywords that give me this 'magic' formula of 4:1... or get comfortable with the idea of a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio. ;-)
So... how can you justify NOT spending $$ on AdWords when you might have the potential to double or triple your earnings?
I hate to quibble semantics but if I spent my income on AdWords wouldn't it then be an expense instead of income?
According to me it certainly would be under UK accounting rules and I wouldn't have a problem with justifying it as such.
I'm a big fat ZERO the same as Bill however I am considering trying a few hundred Dollars advertising to see IF it has any effect.
I'm a big fat ZERO the same as Bill however I am considering trying a few hundred Dollars advertising to see IF it has any effect.
Rex --
The trick is to find a keyword or keyword phrase that WORKS. Start with a low budget. You don't need to spend even hundreds to see the effect. I set my max spending at only $12.00. You can see results in one day. :-)
Try to find something that perfectly matches the ads being shown on your site... and bid only 5 cents. The "right" combination will actually have your ad being shown often enough to bring in the traffic. It is a challenge to find it! I use tons of negative match keywords along with that 'magic' keyword.
Then I make a very enticing ad that truly reflects my site, brings in the visitors for that keyword, but gives them even more enticing offerings from my AdSense ads than what they can find at my site easily without searching. Frankly, I think they probably bookmark my site for searching later and get pulled away by the well-placed Google ads just out of further curiosity.
I don't know any other way to explain it.
But I do think they must be bookmarking and returning later since my traffic keeps rising over time. I've gone from a PR6 to a PR7 page and I've risen up the ranks in Alexa (for what it is worth) JUST because of AdWords advertising. There can't be any other factor!
Incidentally, this largest site of mine is in the top 150,000 on Alexa... so I was really surprised to see a huge jump of 20,000 recently. But it was all AdWords.
When you say $12, was that per day to start with?
OK, must go to create that Adwords account:-)
We'll do the math one more time for a new audience:
I average about $0.16-$0.20 CPC with about 3% CTR and this is pretty stable, based on the function of my site it doesn't change much, that's the highest CTR ads ever get for the history of my site. So with the minimum $0.05 CPC on AdWords, it would cost $50 to get 1,000 clicks with 3% (30) of them possibliy clicking AdSense to make from $4.80 to $6.00. Yup, I'm sold.
I did try AdWords direct to an affiliate program for a while and I spent $50 to make $170 and then suspiciously it stopped converting for weeks, clicks still coming, CJ affiliate just stopped showing any sales so I pulled the plug. Then even more suspiciously about 5 sales showed up on the same day a week after I stopped the ads.
So I'm back to the 400K organic visitors with AdSense, Direct Ads and Lead Referrals sending me money for nothing at this time. If I could see a clear path to spend the money and earn the money like the affiliate was doing I'd do that but at the moment I'm content with letting it earn naturally.
It's too darned hot and humid to think about anything else here at the moment other than...cooooooooooool beer:-))
For my money, I'm looking into fixed priced ads for a week/month on sites via AdBrite.
But you are leaving out one component in your analysis!
My CTR quadruples for AdWords visitors.
Those who are inclined to click to come to my site are much more inclined to click to leave my site.
So you can't really find out if the CTR will change till you try it. Granted, I only get about 3,000 to 5,000 page views per day... so your "natural" traffic far overshadows my numbers.
AdWords for YOU would be icing on the cake (if you found the right keyword). It would be above and beyond your current income.
Let's pretend you make $200/day currently. ;-)
Adding AdWords would not negatively impact the current AdSense income at all. Spending $10 per day on top of this (with AdWords) could potentially give you an additional $30 income ($40 in new AdSense earnings less the $10 expense).
This is only if you find the 4:1 keyword that I found.
Your mileage may vary! :-)
I know you are well on your way to the UPS club without this extra idea, but you might want to experiment with it just for fun.
If the funds are not used up I'll increase that slowly however it will be interesting to see what, if any, reaction occurs.
My instinct is that I'll be spending a couple of hundred Dollars for a predictable experience however I shall obviously be more than happy if it more than breaks even.
It actually serves another purpose for me in seeing if it drives any extra trade enquiries in my direction.
If it does that successfully too then I'll definitely have to reconsider other promotional methods we have.
I'll let you know what has happened next Saturday unless, of course, I get YesMom's increase in CTR overnight:-)
Hey Bill, remember we told you to try Adlinks? You never know...!
Do you know how much of my favourite beer I can buy for $200? Now to sit back, relax, chill out and wait for all that profit to come in...
Someone tell me how that makes sense, I'm willing to learn.
Your mileage may vary
You stole my line!
... I average about $0.16-$0.20 CPC with about 3% CTR ...
I'm back to the 400K organic visitors ...
These stats are not made for AdWords.
Now, I have a site which produces only 100 visitors a day but $10 from AdSense and $15 from CJ. If I use the AdWords effectively for this site to get 1000 visitors a day, the earnings can be at least twice of your eranings from 400K-organic-visitors-a-month(?) site.
Show me the money.
I've found one keyword that I can spend 25% of my AdSense income on to get that perfect balance. For every .25 cents I spend (bringing in customers with a low bid of .05) I get $1.00 in AdSense income returned to me daily.
Why limit your bid to .05 if you are making a profit? You should be able to increase your bid by a few cents and bring in more traffic. Your ROI in percentage terms wont be as high but in absolute terms it should be higher.
I know I'd rather make a $10 profit on a $10 spend than a $7 profit on a $5 spend. Percentage-wise it's not as good but still a $10 profit is better than a $7 profit. Experiment with increasing your bid price until you find the optimum level. You might be surprised how high you can bid while still increasing your profit. And think... at the same time as increasing your profits you could be making other adsense publishers happy with your increased adwords spend...
