Adwords - Detailed analysis

Has anyone done a detailed analysis?

[Visit Thailand]

I am curious but it seems to me with all the stats that google supplies it would be time consuming but still interesting to do reports on certain search terms. (in fact you could probably make a lot of money by helping advertisers fine tune their campaigns)

For example I have only been in Adwords now for 24 hours or so but already I know that X term will bring in X number of impressions.

Has anyone done a detailed analysis of search terms using the stats they give?

I know Google gives you guidelines but still.

[hannamyluv]

For my company, I track each ad's click thru, number of sales resulting from each ad, how high I can go on a bid, how high I can go on a bid and still be profitable, Contribution per order after advertising costs and cost of goods and several other little percentages and factors that may or may not be entertaning. It is really a combination of google info and our own site info. We have a system set up that tracks the source of an order from begining to end but if you can't do that, you would still get a pretty good idea if you could guestimate somewhat acureatly.

Is this what you are talking about? It is all set up in a spread sheet so I only have to do is input a few numbers from google and our own site. If this is what you are talking about and you'd like to take a look at it, send me a sticky and I will send it to you.

[Mike_Mackin]

We using a similar system on one account:

adwords- clicks 3082- uniques 2828 - sales 72

findwhat- clicks 1180- uniques 1054 - sales 7

lycos- clicks 86- uniques 79 - sales - none yet

overture- clicks 1068- uniques 933 - sales 31
[note only half as many KWs were accepted]

[Visit Thailand]

Yes but it seems you are tracking ROI on your own search terms / adwords, what I would like to know is not ROI as such but whether anyone has done any research into this.

Say for example you are a company that sells X, of course Google will advise you to spend X+X on this what I am looking for is an independant analysis company that has gine out and spent time doing the math.

It really can;t be the difficult, but I for one would pay if the results said I should Do X instead of Y.

[Visit Thailand]

Do I take it then no one has done this, I think it could make money, I for one would pay if they could say X would work better than B, my results on Adwords at the moment are terrible.

[jackofalltrades]

Ive not used adwords, but...

theoretically, if they provide you with statistics on clickthru, etc you could compile statistics on which terms were more effective for a particular industry.

Is that the kind of thing you mean?

JOAT

[Visit Thailand]

Exactly joat in fact no I think of it I wonder why Google does not do this, I have money to spend on an ad campaign, I want to target X but am obviously not very good at getting clicks or those keywords perhaps do not generate a lot of clicks.

Because of this what would be great is if there was a company (or Google) that said right we can help you optimise the ad and you pay them a service fee.

The stats on adwords are mainly impressions (but obviously this can be calculated daily without any problem whatsoever) and CTR.

It is actually a tremendous resource for a webmaster, for example I now know that X search term gets X hits a day on Google. Very valuable information I think.

ADD IN

Plus I also now know that the singular expression of widget word which Overture suggestion tool says gets the most hits actually gets very few compared to the plural version widget words.

All this is immendsely valuable.

[jackofalltrades]

Indeed! Conversion rates are a very important stat in marketing in general.

Of course, looking at it objectively, from a business point of view it may mean less money for Google (unless they charged for this service) - less trail and error by webmasters.

Im sure they could figure out a pricing scheme that balanced this out though.

JOAT

[Visit Thailand]

I do not think they would lose any money, I have only spent something like US$ 1! That just shows how many hits I had. But if they gave me the option to help me target my campaign and for that I would have to pay US$ 200 or whatever I would grab it.

I am finding it very interesting though seeing how the different keywords perform.

It is also frustrating that Google has a minimum CTR, because I do not mind a 0.5 % click through rate at all! But they do.

[jackofalltrades]

I really need to get myself some money and start playing with Adwords! :)

I would be interested in seeing an analysis of how words performed per sector, but it would have to be updated daily at least.

As soon as any report would be issued, then tonnes of SEOs would jump on and get the decent deals - thereby increasing the price / competitiveness.

JOAT

[Visit Thailand]

There is not any analysis as such, all you get is the amount of impressions per keyword that you are targetting and the click through rate.

So for example if you are targetting "widget" with the quote marks you will find out exactly how many impressions (or times your ad is displayed).

For me this is very valuable as it helps you to determine search terms and how relative pages should be marketed.

The stats are updated in what seems like almost real time, so you choose a time like 5pm and go in there daily and calculate the last 24 hours to see the number of impressions.

That is why I am amazed nobody has done any research on it, that says on Google X term is searched this many times in one day.

[Learning Curve]

Visit Thailand, I believe I've seen threads here that mentioned that some people will manage an Adwords campaigns for a fee.

There are many things you can do to improve your clicks and lower your cost per click. Ad copy is one key. It's not like Overture where it takes an act of god to change an ad. You can treak the copy endlessly to improve CTR.

One tip. You can run more than one ad for the same ad group. That way you can then compare the CTR and adjust your copy.

For some people (like me) Adwords does much better than Overture. For others, Overture does better.

Whatever you do, do it soon. The bids are getting progressively higher at Adwords (at least in my areas) as Adwords gains popularity.

[Visit Thailand]

Thanks Learning Curve, will keep on playing around, like today I messed around and even upped the bid etc etc.

I am glad to know it does work for some, but so far I am skeptical, I myself had never ever clicked on an adword ad before, but I guess some people must.

Will also have a look at using more than one ad for a group.

[Mike_Mackin]

Visit Thailand:

As with all PPC or PPC as modified by Google, you must do your own research.
Spend your own $ to determine what works for you in your industry.

There are firms out there that have all the info you need.
They may or may not sell it to you.
Most will take that info and RUN with it.

DOG EAT DOG
Happy Holidays

[Visit Thailand]

MM I am not fully sure I know what you mean, but if you are suggesting that no one will help as it is best to keep a successful formula to oneself, then that yes I fully understand, however the one thing I enjoy about webmasterworld is the sharing principle by which we do share and each learn.

Look at the amount of useful tips on this entire site, it is mid staggering.

[webdiversity]

Google is by far and away the easiet PPC to set up an account with, but it is also the one that is the easiest at lulling advertisers into thinking the system doesn't work.

The fact that you'd accept less than 0.5% CTR is just crazy. It means that your ads are likely to be wrong for the keywords you have. It also means you won't be able to have your ads shown on Syndicated sites like AOL.

If you use phrase match then the number of impressions shown is for ALL keyword searches where the phrase was included. So if you were bidding for "widgets" then it will show all the impressions for "blue widgets" "buy widgets" basically anywhere where the word widget appears, so this is not very conclusive. Only when you use exact match will you get a true total on impressions.

Certainly the information you seek is available, or can be carried out by companies if you want more bespoke information.

There are so many factors that will affect CTR, like the title, descriptions, phrase match, exact match, negative keywords, competitors, bid price so your unlikely to get definitve stats.

[sem4u]

It's best to either use keywords/phrases in quotes and/or have terms like 'widget' and use the minus (-) function to allow Google to ignore searches for '-blue' & '-grey' etc.

Another good thing with Google is that you can leave it for a bit as it sort of manages itself. This makes it very different from Overture.

Also, Google includes click through rates as well as the bids to calculate the AdWords positions.

[whizkid]

I don't think that information compiled about certain terms would be useful. This information will become outdated almost instantly. However a more dynamical analysis is possible.

For a time, one could look at the number of times someone searched a term, in the old Adwords. I don't know the importance of this, but I have used this data to make extrapolations. However, based on data with the present Adwords Select, one can estimate the number of times a term is searched, (if that'ts even necssary).

I myself use advanced statistics in order to determine which ad is better than another. Since I did it, I presume other firms have done it too. The concpets involved are simple, and I am going to share them. You need to calculate with a given error, which ad is more effective. Based on that error, and the roi you know how many ads you need to run in order to make a statiscally significant comparison.

[Haris]

Comparing to Overture how would you rate the Google Adwords program if you would have a scale from 1-10?

Is Google providing you with the traffic you are requesting?

Is Overture providing a better ROI?

Thank you for your time and will appreciate your reply.

[hannamyluv]

Mine is a retail site. Our ROI is about the same per click on each site but I get about 30% - 40% more traffic from adwords. Not to say overture is that bad. I get about 10x more from them than any other PPC search engine we are on.

[Mikkel Svendsen]

Working a lot with non-english sites Overture is not an option - only Adwords is. Overture fired the personal that could handle the languages I often work with so now Adwords get all my clients money :)

[sem4u]

I think that proves which company is on the ball! :)

[Visit Thailand]

Haris - I have only just set up both, adwords was so easy and simple to set up but I have been disapointed with the results, although that could be my error.

I have been extremely impressed with the security of overture, they will not let your campaign go live until they have called you and verified your info etc.

Having said that my overture campaign has still not started as whenever she calls I am out and I am not about to start calling America.

ADD In - Plus the ability to call someone and ask questions was a great help, and this is available through overture.

I feel a little as if Google was a little like playing Bingo, you might get it right you may not, whereas Overture have staff that can answer your questions and try and help you to get it right. After all the more they help you the more you spend so it works in both ways.

[toddb]

The thing I like best about Overture, is you can really prequalify the person. Where as the same thing on Adwords has gotten me dropped off if my CTR is low for a spell.