As far as I can tell, click throughs are still happening from google. They just aren't filling out the form at the site.
I haven't changed anything drastic on these sites, in fact most of them I didn't touch at all. I'm seeing the same thing across multiple campaigns in multiple countries (US and Canada).
Of course, my customers are getting nervous. Two weeks with no leads. In the same breath, they are telling me that Oct & Nov are huge months in the industry. I've been assuming a seasonality issue, but they are claiming the opposite.
Is anyone else seeing this? Any ideas on what external factors might have caused an immediate drop off in conversions? (again, this is on everything from brand new campaigns to mature campaigns. And it's not google AFAIK, I'm still getting charged for traffic).
TIA
always worth checking...
Shak
I added some nice content to a site that accidently drew visitors away from the contact form, maybe you are having the same problem?
[webmasterworld.com...]
When I tried some dummy purchasese a few days ago, the google logo did not show up on the payments page on a few occasions. It seems to back to normal now and the convesion rate has increased again
Much more clicks and no results.
There is much more noise out there now. Broad match has created so many more ads than there were before. For a keyword of mine that had 6 - 8 advertisers before broad match, it now has six pages of ads before the first one repeats again. It's almost like SPAM out there.
The question is when does the herd start to thin out? And whether it is thinned out naturally or by Google or if at all.
Google and the partner sites are getting to look a little like an unattended classified ad bulletin board at the grocery store. Somebody please have a stockboy clean the thing up!
seasalt
Maybe the stockboy makes money for all of it and don't really care....just maybe....(IPO?)
I emailed Google support, explaining that I had over a year of consistent CTR data, and that something seemed to be wrong. I received a form email, basically saying there isn't anything wrong on their end.
Google Adwords will soon get a lame name.
1) The advertisers are not getting a return on investment.
2) The consumers will begin to ignore the ads completely as they have little relevance.
Then Google will begin to loose money as better products become available..
Product Darwinism. Either stay on top of it and be the best or become extinct.:o
We spend a very large amount of money on Adwords, and it’s coming down dangerously close to the breakeven point of our Adwords investment. We do not think it is seasonal, as every other engine and traffic source is performing for us like before with no significant changes
If this does not improve, we'll likely ditch google until things go back to the way they were (that's if they ever do). The affiliate program, and the other traffic will help us weather the storm.
Boy, am I glad we diversified our traffic right before this expanded broad match thing!
ianama
ianama, who are you using for your affiliate program? befree or CJ or inhouse? if you care to share. We just started ours but it take some time to get results i guess..how long before you saw results?
We built our own affiliate program, and we do not use either of those at this time. But maybe, as an added source of affilaites in the future, we'll sign up with CJ, because in conversations with BeFree, I was told they require exclusivity for most clients (even though ebay seems to appear on both), which we're not willing to agree to at this time.
+ CJ is more for forming strategic relationships, and we've been doing that pretty well on our own so far.
Best Regards,
ianama
Curious. What type of contract is Google asking you to sign? It seems to me we have all the priveleges of the Google Rep relationship and all that other stuff that comes with premium Adwords, and we never signed anything. We were just told we spend enough to fit right in, and our Rep has been awesome.
DO NOT sign a new adwords contract! If '000s make their opinion known, then we might back to the service we had before the changes last month.
Neil
Got ride of the broad match and results are coming back today for the first time. No broad match for me. Thanks Google but no thanks and defiantly NO Content match
We spend way north of 10 Gs a month.
I just wanted to know what is it that you have to sign? We never signed anything.
I don't remember exactly, I think they just gave us a rep when we started spending like 20 or so, and the rep's been terrific. But, do they require a signed contract with you? If so, would you kindly provide exactly what they ask you to commit to, and for how long? And also, what do they (on paper) promise in return?
Many thanks,
ianama
