There must be a better way !

We all bid each other up and away....

[Mark_A]

So, as we all bid each other up up and away for our covetted keywords, google remains totally disloyal, taking the passing affections of the momentary highest bidder as we ratchet towards unsustainable levels of pay per click.

We recently shut down a campaign for a subsidiary because despite loads of clicks, there were neither loads of sales nor loads of enquiries.

What quality then these ever more expensive clicks?

And how much per keyword is enough?

[buckworks]

google remains totally disloyal

Yes, Google's loyalty is for sale, that's the name of the game. Fortunately it's often possible to get ahead of competitors by outsmarting them rather than outbidding them.

Over-bidding newbies come and go, so try not to let the competition influence you too much. (Easy to say, not so easy to do sometimes!) Develop your own metrics for deciding how much a click is worth and stick to that.

What kinds of tweaks did you try for improving the quality of the traffic before you shut the campaign down?

[jdMorgan]

Also, test your CTR! I ran into this situation early-on in the AdWords game. I played the "bid-raising game" for a couple of days. But... then I noticed that click-throughs were actually better when we were #2, #3, or even #4, depending on how "busy" the search results page was. If there was 'clutter' at the top of the page the ads placed lower down simply worked better because they avoided "learned top-of-page blindness."

So, I let the competition think that they had "won," and only occasionally bid up the placements to make them think that it had worked... that they had out-bid us, and we could not afford to keep up with them. They had indeed won the battle but they had lost the war, because we were getting more clicks for a lot less money.

This is certainly NOT true in all situations, but it is very much worth investigating -- in addition to tweaking your keyword-matching and ad-text to get better-focused, higher-converting traffic. Sometimes a single word can make all the difference...

Jim

[Mark_A]

buckworks: What kinds of tweaks did you try for improving the quality of the traffic before you shut the campaign down?

Very little, the subsidiary was basically running an expensive adwords campaign and just not getting results from it. I was not party to the negotiations but the decision was simply to shut adwords down as the return (in terms of enquiries or sales through the shop) was not there.

As it happens they had an SEO working on the site and they have secured first page natural rankings for many terms, for the time being they are going to rely on the natural listings.

[Mark_A]

jdMorgan: So, I let the competition think that they had "won," and only occasionally bid up the placements to make them think that it had worked... that they had out-bid us, and we could not afford to keep up with them. They had indeed won the battle but they had lost the war, because we were getting more clicks for a lot less money.

Hi JD, well in my case on a UK site I have to say the competition has won, there is no way for two and three word industrial terms I can see any sense in paying £1.50 a click especially as so few make it through to enquiries or sales.

Now I know our site is not the very best, and our shop is not as easy to use as amazon but we are just not getting the business results in enquiries or sales from these hundreds and in totals thousands of click throughs.

[netmeg]

We recently shut down a campaign for a subsidiary because despite loads of clicks, there were neither loads of sales nor loads of enquiries.

I would not classify this as an AdWords problem, I would call it a landing page problem, and possibly an ad-copy problem.

Your ad campaigns lead the horse to water, but very few can make him drink in 25/35/35 characters. Your landing page is supposed to do the informing and converting, and your ad is supposed to represent exactly what the user will find when he lands on that page. Otherwise you get misdirected clicks, and no conversions. Which apparently is what you had.

There are things you can blame AdWords for, but this sounds more like lack of understanding of how PPC works to me. It's NOT the same as organics, and the landing page strategies are not the same as organic pages either.

[buckworks]

I have to say the competition has won

Not a good feeling! :(

I'm sitting here wondering if the subsidiary was casting the nets too wide, running keywords on broad match without making enough use of exact match or negatives. That could lead to a lot of off-target impressions and clicks, dragging down performance in more ways than one.

For many accounts I've looked at, the biggest, fastest tweak for improving ROI would be this:

Be more selective about where the ads are shown.

To tighten the targeting would be the AdWords equivalent of, "First, stop the bleeding!"

That can mean removing ambiguous keywords, adding negative keywords, making more use of exact match, and so on.

There are numerous other ways to fine-tune, but reducing the number of off-target impressions would be where to start, IMHO.

[Mark_A]

netmeg: this sounds more like lack of understanding of how PPC works to me. It's NOT the same as organics, and the landing page strategies are not the same as organic pages either.

You are probably right, I have no idea where the ads were dropping people into the site in question but on the site I am looking after they are only dropped into different area landing pages, not custom landing pages of their own.

But I am interested netmeg, how would you characterise the difference between strategies for PPC landing pages and organics?

[RhinoFish]

one thing I've noticed is the irrelevancy of ads seems to be going up. expected at Y, even some at M, but G's making people ad blind. i wish they'd show less, especially when the relevancy is low. i love to interview people about their search habits, and i am alarmed by the number telling me they avoid the ads.

i've been looking at several results pages recently as well, in the organic listings, and wondering #*$! is going on. if the ads are poor and the serps are too, will the blindness become online avoidance.

[Mark_A]

buckworks: There are numerous other ways to fine-tune, but reducing the number of off-target impressions would be where to start, IMHO.

Thanks buckworks, that is good advice, I could do to focus the ads on my site also. At the moment I don't use any negatives and no exact match. I cannot claim to be any kind of expert in adwords.

[netmeg]

But I am interested netmeg, how would you characterise the difference between strategies for PPC landing pages and organics?

That's a long and involved discussion, and not one (unfortunately) I have time to go into at the moment. If you do some searching around about PPC landing pages that convert, there is a lot of information out there.

[Mark_A]

If you do some searching around about PPC landing pages that convert, there is a lot of information out there.

Thanks, I will have a nose about.