5 year old Adwords Newbie need advice

So many questions. Help? Coupons, accounts, spending, quality, ROI...

[hulahoop]

I had advertised using Adwords over 5 years ago I believe and stopped as I just couldn't justify the cost. Since then organic is the only thing I have done. I have a good product and didn't do much tweeking and basically just left it and do ok. 5 years later and I have some extra cash and a new site and could use traffic from anywhere.

Here are some questions I have:
1) Adwords Coupons.
My host gave me a $100 coupon and I used it on my old site and signed up a new account as my old account was signed up with my partner's email. Everything seems to work out fine.

I was recently given 2 pieces of $2000 voucher and was estatic. Someone gave it to me at my launch party - and I don't know who it is actually so I can't even ask if it is legit. I googled it and never saw such a thing. I am scared s**t to use it. I will definitely use it for my new website as it is brand brand new and never used any sort of advertising before. But I don't know if it is illegal to use it for my old website. It does have to be used for a brand new account under 10 day old so I would have to open a new account.

My questions are:
- Is such a coupon even legal?
- Will I get banned? My first website? My 2nd brand new site?
I don't want to be charged $4000 for what was suppose to be free credits if this is illegal and worst any legal implications but this is such a good deal that I don't want to miss it if it isn't illegal. I am a serious business owners online and offline.

2) How much will I have to spend to see some good results?
At this current rate with my mini campaign of about $20 a day on ads and with $2.50 per click roughly on average, it doesn't seem very promising to justify adwords. I don't know if any convert at all. My fault as I have set up conversion tracking but based on traditional rates, conversion is likely to be very low 1 digit numbers in terms of percentage right? It could be higher with target adwords keywords but I am just assuming all these factors.

Would I have to spend a certain amount to actually see things work and the after effects or spin off with people recognizing and backlinks seen from my ads? Any advice would be great. What is a minimum per day I should be looking at and is $2+ worth it per click?

3) $2 per click for item that is micropayment?
For my new site, I sell products I would categorize as micropayment under $1. It would be quite absurd to spend $2+ for a click so I would think? Is there a way to go around this? Any advice? Long tail effective but it may not be that targeted. I was thinking of doing a pretty sraightforward ad now that is straight to my keyword and I am just doing just one keyword only.

4) The otherway around. Large ticket item, poor quality ranking.
My older site sells in reverse site sells some large ticket item that is over $1000 because I am selling in bulk. But I have to compete with competitors that sell per units in their ads. So when I run my Ads for these large bulk items, i get lesser clickthroughs but obviously there are people that want to buy bulk right? I want only qualified leads that would only be interested in buying bulk yet when there are less CTR, my quality ranking goes down. I am willing to pay more for each clickthrough though.
What do you advise for something like this?

I have a tonne of questions but I think it is more than enough for one thread.

Thanks

[netmeg]

I don't have time to answer all your questions; would suggest you spend some time searching and reading through this forum as there is a lot already here that might help you.

A couple things jump out -

I have never heard of a Google voucher for more than $100. Moreover, most vouchers are for *new accounts only* and creating another account just for the purpose of using the voucher would likely get one or both account kicked out. The exceptions that I know of is sometimes I've been given vouchers in exchange for product testing and/or surveys. I would be *very* wary of a $2000 AdWords voucher; in fact, if someone gave *me* one, I would require a verified Google employee to stand in front of my face and tell me it was legit before I'd use it. And I'd want to see some ID.

I doubt very much that AdWords would be an effective marketing tool for products under $1. You could try it, but I think you'd just be wasting money. If you can actually make money selling these products, you're probably going to have to find an alternative way to advertise them.

[BlackHatters]

What is it your trying to sell? It's unlikely that selling goods with such a low average order value is going to work on Google AdWords due to the cost of CPC's, you'll need to bet great conversion rates or else it wont cost in.

[DiscoStu]

3) $2 per click for item that is micropayment?

Use higher priced backend items. Once they've purchased one thing from you, sell them on something bigger. A lot of people take a loss on the front end and make all their profit on followup sales

[hulahoop]

Hi Netmeg,

It comes on an actual coupon and it looks legit. I am soooo tempted to try it as you can imagine but I am one that doesn't run a yellow light so that has kinda made me really pause. I tried to call Google but as you can imagine support is non existent. I have up to end of this month to use it. Don't know what is the risk of using it. Account being suspended? Charged the whole bill? I haven't used Adwords in 5 years so a suspension is not a big deal and the charge isn't too as I would have spent anyhow. The only thing is the legality and this tingling feeling if it is legit. Well will think and sleep over it.

DiscoStu, you got it right. My micropayments are really my french fries to my burgers. They are to attract customers who may then consider bigger ticket items.

What are the methods to minimize cost of per click for micropayment items? Suggestions?

On the other hand, what are the methods to get good keyword quality score and more clickthrus for higher ticket items (bulk) over $1000 when you are competing with sellers that are selling single unit items at a couple of dollars? Yet we are still competing over same keywords.

Appreciate your advice.

[hulahoop]

I finally tried to enter the codes with the new coupons and it works! I really can't believe it and I guess it must be legit else it wouldn't have work right? Google is the one that gives the codes out right? But still I am scared to use it and honestly I haven't done much research on my keywords yet. I am think of perhaps selling this. Or just blowing thru keywords to try it out but it may hurt my score right? I am really lost with Adwords and should really get a consultant as this isn't my actual job.

I am hoping to get more advice on how to work out the micropayment and large ticket items method of advertising on Adwords. Any more advice would be appreciated. Thanks.