Example: [casio calculators] and [hp calculators] (i don't use these keywords, just making them up)
I'm finding i have to pay close to 70 - 80 cents a click to get on the front page (and in the top 4 spots to be in AOL and other content sites). The exact phrases I use are popular, as I do have several competitors, though probably not as popular as something like [web hosting].
Anyway, I am finding my daily budget being eaten up within a few hours - after increasing my CPC on the ads. I have budgeted as high as I can afford. Yes, during these few hours I do get orders, but it is not enough profit to cover my adwords expenses. Once my budget is eaten up, my ads are down, and I get nothing the rest of the day. I have to keep my prices low to remain competitive. This puts me in a predicament, as I do not feel my ROI on adwords is positive at the moment.
I feel if I just hide out on page 2 with a low CPC I get hardly any traffic. Also I am not sure, but do I get impressions for those only looking at the front page, and not the second page? This would lower my CTR.
I need help with a good strategy to eventually get on the front page by building up a decent CTR and a reasonable CPC for these more popular phrases. It seems to get the high CTR, you have to pay up for the clicks. Then maybe as the clicks come, the CTR will go up. I tried this and it is not feasible from a cost standpoint, as I'm giving all my profit to Google.
Sigh...Thanks for any advice.
Steve
Have you tried lowering your bids to get more visitors for your budget over a longer period of time?
Also, thinking laterally, can you do anything to improve the profitability of your website?
You could:
Finally, are you sure that a narrow range of expensive keywords is serving you well enough? If you can find just one other phrase that pays out at a lower CPC then you might well tip the scales towards profitability. If you can find a hundred lower CPC phrases then you can put a deposit on that new sports car you've always wanted. ;)
Col
Yes, I have tried lowering my bids to get more visitors over a longer period of time, it just seems that the orders are much less frequent that way. I'm trying to pump things up, so to speak.
[Also, thinking laterally, can you do anything to improve the profitability of your website?] Yes, good point...for the most part the site is good, but there are always things I can do to improve its look, functionality, and in turn, profitability.
[You could:
Encourage people to buy more than one item - 'Would you like fries with that?]
Great idea, we do get alot of 1 item, 1 time buyers...but that's the nature of the products unfortunately. The product is inexpensive and lasts a long time, usually.
[Maintain a mailing list of past customers to encourage them to repeat purchase.] Another good point. We do have a database, and will be doing mailings to encourage future purchases.
[Negotiate your cost price down with your suppliers. ]
Working on it, problem is I need more volume before I can get the discounts, but in time it will come.
[Finally, are you sure that a narrow range of expensive keywords is serving you well enough? If you can find just one other phrase that pays out at a lower CPC then you might well tip the scales towards profitability. If you can find a hundred lower CPC phrases then you can put a deposit on that new sports car you've always wanted. ;) ]
On that point, I am sure that the expensive keywords really get the most traffic. For example, people know the products by this name more than any other word, so it has brand appeal, somewhat like the word Kleenex has over Facial Tissue. I have several combinations of other exact phrases that are set at 5 cents, that do get a click every now and then.
Steve
On that point, I am sure that the expensive keywords really get the most traffic.
No doubt, that's usually the case. It's why they are the expensive keywords, after all!
But usually when people make that observation they're missing one point: you can't replace that one expensive keyword by finding one or two, or even ten or twelve cheaper keywords. Dig deep. Find 30 or 40 keywords and phrases. Look through your logs at the strange things that are bringing people to your site, and stem from there to explore more phrases.
It's not as easy as buying a couple of expensive keywords, but that's often the choice.
It's also about raising the bar a little bit in a lot of places.
By that let's say you increase conversions from 1 in 100 clicks to 1 in 95, and get your average CPC down from 30 cents to 29 cents, and get your average CPC up from 0.6% to 0.65% and you get your average order up from $15 to $16 (raise your prices or sell bundled).
Each of these on their own is not very spectacular, but if you worked on each and made it work for all of them, the impact would be quite significant.
My advice would be to work on the one you feel most able to influence, and then work from there.
It all counts.
Thanks much!
In terms of actual revenue generation, the top 4 slots on Page 1 seem to be about the same, while the 7th and 8th give a better ROI than the top 4 - though not as much actual profit.
The click throughs are dominated by single word keywords (a brand name). We've had some success with keyword phrases (eg buy keyword online) but the single word on its own is by far the most successful.
One thing we've found to be the single most important factor is getting the wording on the ad right. We've experimented (and still are) with literally hundreds of different adverts - sometimes only changing a word at a time - until we've come up with ones that work well for us. (Minimum CTR 5% for the lowest performing ads - maximum 18% for the highest).
In this particular industry, extensive analysis of the best combination of position / advert is certainly very time consuming, but also very worth it - maybe it's the same for you?
