Curious how many have quit AdWords

ROI is not worth it anymore

[bwnbwn]

I have cut AdWords out the ROI has been getting so bad it just isn't worth it.
Going in another direction to free us from this.
How many have moved away?

[RhinoFish]

For me, in general, Google is still the best place to advertise.
The growth they show in their quarterly reports shows, in my opinion, that they are still growing in advertisers.
I do agree though, that avoiding wasted spend at G is more difficult than ever.
Have you done everything you can to focus your spend down to the most relevant targets?

[bwnbwn]

rhinofish yes 2 years of hard work
reduced time displayed to best purchase times. 7am to 11 pm central time. countless bad clicks 3am 4 am etc.
keywords exact match to specific landing page
excellent page score in AdWords.
and so forth.
ROI was not worth the continued effort.

[Rndm]

I work with a lot of companies in the B2B Space. Primarily complex sales with larger revenues. Still seeing very strong ROIs especially if you take into account the LTV. Far better than any other channel. YMMV

The downside for me is that I depend on someone to answer the phone, respond to chats/emails, and be a decent sales person. Unanswered calls during business hours are the bane of my existence.

[RhinoFish]

keywords exact match to specific landing page

Excellent!

What bid strategy? (Target CPA, ECPC, Maximize Clicks, etc)

[Rndm]

One more thought. I prefer manual bids and I really like phrase match. Exact match can often cut down on the potential pool of buyers. I do use exact, but my phrase ad groups almost always do the best. However you have to be militant about adding negative keywords. I cannot stress the importance of negative enough. They are critical.

[bwnbwn]

3 calls from AdWords since I cut off account.
My experience with them 10 plus time probably more is all bad.
Their focus is not quality traffic but traffic ( look 200 hits ) yea 300 spend 50 sales.
Moving on without Google

[bwnbwn]

Rndm I have thousands of negative keywords One of Google reps thought broad search was a good idea although I insisted exact match.
The reps ask to give it 30 days testing.
Thousands of negative words from broad.
Been there.

[bwnbwn]

all my phrases were exact match. Phrase match is as bad as broad match.
I was set up for manual bids time to display etc.

[Mark_A]

I am loath to follow the upward pressure on CPC. If some of my competitors are willing to pay multiples of pounds per click, their loss, I am not prepared to. Consequently I try to remain on p1 but often don't attempt to be in the top 2. We spend our relatively small daily budget carefully, at the moment we are playing with it to try to see how many useful clicks are available - above our current daily budget.

Where Google is concerned, I would prefer to have organic clicks, and we rank #1 for quite a few useful terms, but the trend in organic sessions in part because of their demotion down the page is down yoy, sessions from G Ads are stable - as long as we continue paying.

[Mark_A]

Our pockets are definitely not bottomless.
G Ads produces about 35% of our sessions, it is significant as a traffic provider for us.

[trinorthlighting]

Been a long time since we have been on, we watched our costs skyrocket this year, we have been on the phone as well. Something changed today though, our costs plummeted....

[tangor]

Something changed today though, our costs plummeted....

Costs, or returns?

[bwnbwn]

We just recently came out with a product for a specific machine (enclosed tractor). There isn't one we are the only company that has this. I know hard to believe but true.
I set up an exact match for 3 specific phrases to this product page. We are the only ad the cost was above 2.00 per click.
Why?
Our product page was 2nd under Google Images.

[Mark_A]

@bwnbwn I am sure you can fix a manual bid, and if it is true that you are the only one bidding on these terms you should be top of the page.

[Rndm]

I have seen that before with search terms with very low volume. It is like Google does not have enough data to see the term as transnational/commercial. I also notice that Google will put ads below images or answer boxes at times. I think that they do this if they think the term is informational.

[trinorthlighting]

Seems like google was auto applying all those suggestions. We had opted out in the past, but somehow it was turned back on..... As far as the big change, competitor went out of business so they are no longer bidding on those keywords.

[bwnbwn]

Mark sorry yea our ad was 1st
our natural listing was below images.
Sorry my post was not clear.
I just found it surprising 2 buck click no competitors.

[bwnbwn]

Been a week since I cut out paid ads and as expected traffic has dropped by 100 hits a day.
BUT
sales have remained so close there isn't really a measurable drop compared to drop in traffic.
Page views has doubled.
Time on site doubled.
Best part saved 100 to 150 a day in cost.
Be interesting on a month measurement

[Mark_A]

HI again bwnbwn interesting to hear sales have not declined. For us 35% of daily sessions start at a G Ad so if we stopped them traffic would likely reduce to 65% of what it is today. Nevertheless it is an option, I will be interested to see how your sales go in coming days / weeks.

[bwnbwn]

me to Mark
Google reps have called me to the point I have blocked the number.
They can't understand I don't want to use the service anymore. All the calls are from India employees and just won't take no for an answer.

[Mark_A]

Hi bwnbwn, they probably just can't comprehend why you don't want to give Google all your money, especially as everyone else seems quite happy at the moment to do this! :-)

[bwnbwn]

I forgot to add this I also cut off Amazon PPC at the same time I cut off Google

[bwnbwn]

Been 2 months and it is going very well. No adword payments and no Amazon bidding payments. It is like getting out of jail at 1st I was very worried but with the decision to cut them off came the challenge on what to replace them with.
I estimate 40 to 60 percent of ppc traffic is carp never to convert. So the decision has turned us into converting traffic generators with GREAT success.
Still early but it is great to tell the Google rep I don't need you.

[tangor]

How many have moved away?

How many played? How many have left? How can we know?

As for revenue, g's year on year seems to be increasing so something is working right! :)

[Mark_A]

Still early but it is great to tell the Google rep I don't need you.

I would like to be able to say that also. At the moment we are paying Google .. they like it :)

@bwnbwn share some secrets about what is working, you might start a movement!

[engine]

The smaller business in a crowded marketplace has found it tougher to compete. Assuming every effort is made to maximize conversions, at some point, when a cpc exceeds the worth of a number of conversions it is no longer a worthwhile return.

Don't get caught up in a bidding war as there are always players with deeper pockets.

As for how many have quit, only google really knows.

FYI old thread and bigger company. [webmasterworld.com...]

[bwnbwn]

Wow engine reading the link you posted is an eye opener. Never saw this but it mirrors my move.
BTW eBay sales are better than Google AdWords sales. I don't spend on eBay ranking just the 15 a month to list. Still I sell more on eBay. Figure that out. I use the exact same content pictures for both.
On sales.
Couple things I did was become a member of forums in our nitch. Post good information add to discussion and after being an contributor I added links that answer a specific question.
Might be our product might not.
I become someone a visitor/member can trust.
I am not deceiving them our product is in US Coast Guard Cutters Advanced Special Forces Troup Vehicles and more.
I use my knowledge in these forums to help be it our product or another.
Been unbealivable in conversations.
Ya welcome on this one. We have been doing more maybe latter on post.
Let me add this not like I quit Google Amazon and joined a bunch of forums. I joined a lot of them while back just never put the work in them I do now. I use the same handle (Not the one I use here) on all of them. Adds credibility and I DONT spam. I can add links to other discussions and they see my handle.

[bwnbwn]

Been 4 months and I couldn't be happier. I will post numbers at 6 months but one thing I am sure of I am done will Google ads.
I think buying traffic made me lazy and seeing all the money we were spending on junk finally got that spark going I had 20 years ago.

[ember]

I advertised with Google for years but costs kept increasing and return kept dropping. The only advice I ever got from reps was to increase my bid amount. So I dropped them about three years ago and haven't looked back. They are not the only game in town.