Why are most of my hits coming from Mexico ?

[Digmen1]

Hi Guys
Not that I have got anything against Mexico !

I just restarted an old Adwords campaign and clicked on the North America and European areas (to make it easy)

I have started getting hits, but most of them seem to be from Mexico and Eastern Europe. None from USA or Canada or UK which I what I was expecting seeing as my ad was in English.

Any thoughts on this ?

Is it that Mexicans feel richer at the moment ?

[edited by: Digmen1 at 2:26 am (utc) on Jul 17, 2010]

[lammert]

You have probably more competitors for the same ad-space in US, Canada and Western Europe which makes it harder to get your ads visible in those countries with your current bid/QS combination.

[Digmen1]

@Lammert

Thanks for that, that makes sense now.

Gee Adwords is getting very expensive now. (per click that is)

[ZeeOne]

Depends on the widget you're selling! Or selling for someone else.

[Digmen1]

@Zee one

That is not a very realistic response.

For the average small business, we are not all selling $100 items.

I am merely commenting that Adwords and most other online ads are pricing themselves off the market.

It is ludicrous to pay 50 cents or $1 a click just to get a hit.

What is a good conversion rate ?
Not many people have the courage to say what theirs is.
But I would guess that a good average conversion rate would be 1 in 50.
So 50 hits times 50 cents is $25.00 to get a sale.

What do you think ?

[netmeg]

As ZeeOne says, it depends on what you're selling. My clients sell stuff from $14 to about $7500. Some customers have a lot of repeat business, so we don't mind paying more for the initial click.

But not every business works with AdWords either. If the ROI isn't there, then you have to look elsewhere.

[Digmen1]

@netmeg

Thanks for that.
I see what you are saying.

It is just a shame that the cost of adwords clicks has just gone up and up. I read somewhere the other day that in the early days of the intent overture ads were about 10 cents.

It just means that my product is not viable in Adwords. Unless I put the ads up in places like Mexico and Spain and Italy and Estonia. But will I get any sales from there !?

[netmeg]

Don't know. Do you ship there? Do you have a customer base there?

Everything in the world has gone up in price. Not surprising AdWords has too. And it's not just Google's fault; in some of my markets we were the first ones there and made a killing. Then all the competition started flooding in, and that drove the prices up too.

Don't look back. Look forward. It's the only way to keep moving.

[Digmen1]

@Netmeg

Thanks for that, you are the first person who has ever explained that to me so honestly.

I will ship to those countries. So may try it.

Yes I suppose it is just a fact of life hat the more and more join the internet, the harder it is for everyone to be seen.

[ZeeOne]

Apologies for the short reply. I just find that AdWords is very relative to the type of business you're in.

Just this week a client and I agreed it was a bad move to keep on with a campaign because the ROI just wasn't there. In the same day I gave a second client awesome news about the conversions that we were pulling in. To note was the fact that their industries were actually not that far apart at all and initial tests would show that adwords would favour the former over the latter campaign.

Its not that we don't have the courage to give up our conversion rates, its more that we don't have a figure for you. Every product or service is unique and it's only by trial and error that you are able to establish this.

If you think that $0.50 is ludicrous, think again. I pushed up a bid for a single keyword to over £40/click last week! Ok, that's our record here so far, but yeah, you get the idea...

[Azimuth]

I wouldnt mind seeing if anyone in this thread sells products similar to mine so we could compare conversion and CPC rates.

Our company sells trips and the prices range anywhere from $1000 to $15000. Our conversion rate from AdWords from the last 1.5 years averages out to about 0.20%.

That may sound low but we are selling a luxury product and our revenue from AdWords is about 700% of our spend on AdWords.

Our average cost-per-click is around $0.80 cents but it varies a lot based on the keyword competition and type of ad.

[Digmen1]

Thats a great idea Azimuth comparing is always fun and interesting.

But my products are about $20 for a set, so we will have to compare with someone else.

For BP40 a click, they must be doing asbestos claims or something similar. Or selling A380 airbuses.

[Azimuth]

Yea I do wonder about the prices on certain keywords. I feel that in ultra-competitive markets some companies may be running AdWords campaigns on a very thin margin or maybe even at a loss because it gains them other advantages.

[Digmen1]

Or it makes their executives look good because they are on the net ?

[Azimuth]

Sure, there could be company politics at play where the ROI isn't actually measured or acted upon.

Also, if their prices are not high compared to the competition, then grabbing the top percentage of search engine users generates a steady stream of buyers which can allow them to spend more per click on AdWords.

There are plenty of shoppers on the net who can't be bother to compare prices.

[netmeg]

There are all kinds of reasons for high PPC costs, some good and some ridiculous.

I had a client once who wanted to be on top no matter what it cost. I couldn't convince them it wasn't necessary. Guess what? Eventually they went out of business. Not specifically because of the PPC costs, but it was indicative of how they ran their business.

Had a client for whom I was advertising a service, and the costs were between $28 and $50/click. Not a bad deal, because the service ran $7500 to $9000. You can afford a few non-converters at those margins.

Then, as I mentioned above, I have a client who has an extraordinarily high rate of return business. The product he sells is good, and it's a consumable, so people have to come get more when they run out. We figured out the average value of a customer over time, and we base our threshold of pain on that, rather than the value of the first sale.

Like I said, lots of reasons.