Message To Google Shareholders

Do Adwords Advertisers Spend More Or Less Than 2 Months Ago?

[humblebeginnings]

Just as a service to Google shareholders, I thought I'd start a thread giving these folks an insight of the future value of their investment.

I spend thousands upon thousands less on Google Adwords.

How about the rest of you?

[aha7]

I can assure you that others are spending thousands upon thousands more on Google Adwords. ;)

[La_Valette]

Shareholders can see the aggregate picture in Google's quarterly and annual filings anyway. Whether advertiser spend goes up or down, it's public information already.

[humblebeginnings]

Whether advertiser spend goes up or down, it's public information already.

Wow, you mean it is public information if Adwords advertisers are spending more or less money right now? Please sticky me the link!

I can assure you that others are spending thousands upon thousands more on Google Adwords.

That's exactly the kind of message I would like to hear.
It could mean the mess I am in now might not be permanent.

Please give me some more news, are your Adwords spendings up or down?

[briggidere]

adwords spend increased 300% in the past 2 years

yahoo spend decreased 75% in the same time.

[rj87uk]

sticky me the link!

Did you get it? Post it?

I spend more to get the same amount of visitors.

I started to spend more on MSN I want to get to a point where i am 50/50 spend between them.

[humblebeginnings]

adwords spend increased 300% in the past 2 years

I am spending 1000% more than 2 years ago, but the question was, do you spend more or less than 2 months ago.
Hmmpf, sorry, I am a bit grumpy today...

[briggidere]

we would be spending more than 2 months ago. by quite a bit, not seeing as good an roi, but grabbing more market share and making more ££ from it, so it is working.

[holyearth]

My cost doubled in the last 2 months!

[woop01]

humblebeginnings, just wait a few weeks. It should be reported in the quarterly reports. I might even dare to say it will be slightly more accurate than this thread.

[netmeg]

I'm spending about the same, plus I've taken on 4 new clients in the past two months (3 just this month) so overall I'm spending more, and I'm getting calls from people who want to get in on it.

(There's been a lot of press about AdWords in the papers here because of the new facility here - a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have thought of it have become intrigued and want to give it a whirl)

[nathanso]

We went from $600/mo to zero, i.e. we discontinued after 4-years due to declining ROI, increased campaign management load, and general unpredictibility of AdWords' behavior.

[Pengi]

I've only been running my site on Adwords for 3 months.
My September Spend is 5.5 times my July Spend. My ROI is has reduced by 24% but the increased traffic has more than made up for it.

Happy at the moment. :-)

[sailorjwd]

Cut by 50%
Moved/moving most to MSN+Y

[DamonHD]

Hi,

My daily spend is very variable, but up, on average, I guess.

Rgds

Damon

[EvilDan]

i am spending more and earning less

its G's business model so I am not griping

but I did call Y within days of the new quality score stuff, and am planning on cutting my budget with G very soon unless things improve

[pdivi]

Currently spending only 10% of a six-fig. previous annual spend. Almost all of the drop was voluntary -- not forced by a high min. bid, but "encouraged" by intermittent small minimum bid increases on some KWs. Time finding new high margin ad venues has been a better investment than hovering over Google to eek out a narrow margin or blindly changing pages with some obscure promise of higher 'quality'.

[sailorjwd]

Now that I stopped much of my adwords advertising I get a post card in the mailing asking me to signup for their transaction processing! Teehee. Process $10 for every dollar you spend in adwords.

Now they are being cruel.

They don't like how I advertise to sell my products & services but they want some of the action anyway - dirty hastards.

[beren]

This thread demonstrates the skewed picture of the advertising market you would get if you relied on webmasterworld. Google's revenues continue to increase (unless their accountants are wrong). Any changes to the program in recent months have not reversed that trend. Most advertisers appear unaffected by new policies. Overall, advertisers are spending more than ever. User experience is better because there are fewer ads on the screen.

Yet if you listen to people around here, Google has cut off advertisers and turned business away in a senseless act of self harm. In addition to denying advertisers their moral right to pay only $0.0001 per click (if they are willing to accept a low position), Google is sabotaging its own long-term prospects.

[pdivi]

Funny how according to the Yay Google crowd if you are not happy with Google's recent moves you are...
- an affiliate site or MFA
- demanding a moral right to pay .0001 a click
- scammer, dirtball, or similar deviant

What if you're just someone who isn't comfortable putting the bulk of your traffic in the hands of a company that is prone to flipping switches and making changes without warning? What if you've just determined that -- strictly for your own business -- your time/money are better spent on other avenues?

Google might manage to increase profits for a long time to come, and that's great. AOL managed to increase its user base and revenues long after I thought its service was a terrible value.

[Atomic]

I'm happy that the latest curve ball Google threw me convinced me to look at alternative ways of driving traffic to my sites. Google priced itself out as far as I'm concerned. A few of my customers still enjoy throwing their money down the hole but I keep advising that there are other ways the spend it. Some are listening.

[Syzygy]

I've been running adwords for nigh on three years now - and I'm at a stage where I want to give up. I'm seriously thinking about recommending to our company that we stop.

Most adgroups are full of once prime kw's that I can no longer afford to "increase quality or bid" - during the course of this year I've increased bids, then increased them again. I've just been looking at adgroups - successful 12, 18 months, two, three years ago - that are languishing. Every time I've upped bids the price goes higher - I can no longer justify it.

Because of this, all adgroups are now underperforming - returns are shrinking. Overall campaign ctr's of +2% a year ago are now under 1%. The Adwords boat is taking on water.

The purpose of using Adwords was to enhanced our online activities - and, in some respects it still does. I'm not saying that Adwords doesn't work, far from it. However, administering Adwords is (or was) a tiny part of my day (with tiny budgets) and an even tinier aspect of our company's activities. Now, though, it's become a time-demanding and excessively complicated administrative burden offering declining returns. It is a burden I feel we could very probably do without.

I'm actually very sorry to say that, I really am. But, it's a fact.

Syzygy

[edited by: Syzygy at 11:21 am (utc) on Oct. 4, 2006]

[europeforvisitors]

I don't know how many Google shareholders monitor the AdWords Forum--or even the GOOG forum, for that matter-- but I suspect that most investors are more interested in real numbers than in forum threads. They don't have long to wait for those numbers: The Q3 2006 announcement is scheduled for October 19, which is just over two weeks from now.

[Craigv]

More, just b/c i hate Yahoo's system soooo much

[np2003]

Google ROI is declining and the other PPC engines are returning better ROIs.

Lately: Moved 10% of budget over to the new MSN adcenter. Increase impressions/clicks.

Another 30% moved over to Yahoo Overture!

[beren]

It's just that a couple years ago I was really mad at Google because of all the fraud in AdWords, and I wondered if Google's stockholders understood how upset their paying customers (advertisers) were. It didn't seem that the stockholders knew (or cared) because the PE was sky-high.

Nowadays, AdWords is much better from my perspective. I don't see nearly as much fraud. I'm just one person, but I would bet that overall advertiser satisfaction has increased. YSM has gone totally down the drain in the past two years, though.

And as a web user, AdWords is better because when I search on Google I don't get so many ads for eBay.

[ccam96]

My ad spend is down 50% but rising through content ads and direct linking to my merchants.

Everyone going to Y and MSN are going to face the same issue in time. Yahoo will be implementing the panama update at the end of Q4 which will whack many of your keywords overnight as well. I'm getting ready through slowly redesigning my site based upon my experience with G.

[humblebeginnings]

This thread demonstrates the skewed picture of the advertising market you would get if you relied on webmasterworld.

No, it just shows that some individuals spend less on Adwords and some spend more on Adwords. Folks are just answering my question. The picture is as skewed as the mind of the observer.

[Atomic]

Google ROI is declining and the other PPC engines are returning better ROIs.

That's an important point. Google may not miss my advertising dollars but I don't miss traffic that became too expensive to remain profitable. Once enough AdWords users realize this it's going to make a difference. How can the keyword bid minimums continue to rise at this rate?

[toddb]

Not sure what others are seeing but we saw an increase in our spend last month. These minimums just bounce all over and so much time and effort is needed to maintain the account now.

This month we just started slashing keywords left and right. Yes traffic is down but so is the time needed to maintain the account. Overall CPC is also lower so ROI is better and holding steady.