I've tried Ad words now for awhile and have seen an increase in traffic but very little time is spent on my website. I emailed google with my complaint that I thougth the clicks were false, but they assured me the were legite and suggested some changes. I made the changes....added a ton of negative keywords and listed multiple ad versions to see which might be better. Am I just a sucker for spending the cash on the hopes I might actually get a sale out of this?

Is there a better way?

Should I just go offline and spend the dollars on some paper advertising? maybe that's better?

Anyone else had this problem or have any solutions?

Online vs offline? best results?

Comments or suggestions would be great! Thanks

__________________
Big Door Fine Art - www.bigdoorart.com

I understand your frustration completely. Some industries are better for Adwords than others.

There's probably things that you can do to optimize your campaign, like focusing on other keywords and tweaking landing pages on your website.

In your particular case, you might try focusing on a few specific artists or a few specific pieces of artwork if you're not doing that already. And you might consult with a professional PPC campaign specialist, as well.

Just like any other form of advertising, Adwords works for some people and not for others. In any case, though, it's all about the ROI. If you're not getting any ROI from your advertising dollars, then it's not worth it to continue.

__________________
Bill Hartzer's Blog

I appreciate your honest opinion, I needed to hear it from someone not involved in the company. After recieving a bill for $145.00 for one month that was enough to re-evaluate. No ROI. Any suggestions for off line marketing?

__________________
Big Door Fine Art - www.bigdoorart.com

Have you tried the Georgia Straight? It may have an artsy local audience, and advertising is fairly cheap.

Personally, we are planning on spending most of our dollars on online ads. I think it takes a larger budget to brand your site enough offline that people remember it once they get online.

We spent around $450 for a 1/4 page ad in an industry magazine that had a distribution of 11,000. We saw zero returns. Could have been our ad, or our current site, but we were having success with other forms of advertising.

Okay.. you guys need to do some serious optimization.
Running adwords is not just about having people click on your ad... that way you just end up spending money. You have to make sure that the people who are clicking on your ad are genuinely interested in your product or service.
What can you do about it?

1.Make sure that your advertisement clearly states what you are offering. Since google lets you have only 70 characters, it means you have to be a good copywriter to target your audience.

2.Make sure you use the conversion-tracking tool. It helps in keeping track of ROI & also helps your ad ranking.

3.*Keyword*: You HAVE TO be extremely careful while choosing keywords. After the recent google algorithm change exact match & phrase match keywords get better ranking & naturally better ROI. If you want to target a particular keyword, it's best to find a few phrase match & loads of exact match keywords into your campaign.

4. Make sure you have a good product. It may be JUST because of that.

I find adwords to be one of the best advertising mediums & I have managed to learn to optimize the settings for optimal performance.

Oh! And using the "Suggested budget" is not always a very good idea. ;)

__________________
Web Design | Web Development | Internet Marketing

And oh! I have run monthly advertising campaigns through adwords for $450. With pretty decent ROI.
[Well actually my client didn't want to spend any more than that :lol:]

__________________
Web Design | Web Development | Internet Marketing

If you have $450 bucks to blow on Adwords of course you'll get good returns. Higher click counts, better ranking etc. I have done all the keywords and targeted phrases etc. Result: 1 sale.

If you don't have a large budget, it's not worth it.
Sure you have to spend money to make money but you need to get the sales to make it worth while. Just my opinion

__________________
Big Door Fine Art - www.bigdoorart.com

I would suggest print advertising in art related periodicals if you are not getting any response to your adwords program. If still running adwords - just select 2 or 3 keywords that match your site the best ( based on what you offer) and check it out for a month and see what you get - using too many keywords dilutes your audience.

__________________
Diamond Rings
Malpractice Insurance
Osaid Media

Another suggestion: Try to find a good art related site which let's you buy yearly paid listing. Make sure it has high alexa ranking & good page rank. I use this method & get a decent amount of *targeted* traffic on my sites.

__________________
Web Design | Web Development | Internet Marketing

By the way your site looks fantastic :) nice & clean design.

I always ask this when people are talking about low conversions from PPC engines. Are you using a tool to track which of your keywords are converting into sales for you?

That's great that you drive traffic to your site, but just like web guru Danny Sullivan states:

"It's more important that you're using a conversion tracking tool than a bid-management service." Conversion tools allow you to determine down to the penny how much visitors to your site are spending, what percentage of them request a free estimate, or whatever it is that you consider a "conversion."

"Once I know how much I'm willing to pay [to acquire a new customer], I can take the whole gamut of terms and bid 60 cents or whatever on all of them," Sullivan says. Bidding on PPC advertising without knowing whether you can make a profit from the visitors you attract is flying blind.

<mod note - content deleted as self-promotional - carju1 >

Matt
matt@IndexTools.com