Google adwords - not for beginners

dburdon · #1 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005, 06:08 PM

I've just been appointed to handle the organic and pay per click activities of a small B2B client.

I couldn't believe the mess the account was in and the cost per click charges.

Sadly, the poor client (the originally word rhymed with rugger) was also signed up to the content network. He was paying unbelievable amounts per click.

Don't tangle with adwords unless you know what you're doing.

Duncan Pollock · #2 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005, 08:07 PM

Right on!
Look at it this way: it's the same as writing a 30 second radio commercial or putting a 60 second TV commercial together. You have about one hundred words in which to grab someone's attention, to get them to click on your ad because of it, and then, if your site itself is done properly, to buy the product/service/whatever that you want them to buy/sign-up-for/whatever.
There's a learning curve and you can go through weeks/months before you're able to get the hang of it all. Just look at the Announcement re Adwords Resources and you'll know there's no quick and easy road to success.

Duncan

dburdon · #3 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 05:54 AM

Duncan,

the poor client is a B2B operator selling print finishing services to a highly focused customer base. See:
http://www.fastnetfinishing.co.uk

I found clicks charged to ringtone websites at £1.85 ($3.25)each. How the hell the automated Adwords content programme ended up placing his ads on that type of site is beyond me.

I aim to deliver relevant clicks at sub 50p (90 cents). But I guess you're right. Caveat emptor.

Duncan Pollock · #4 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 11:19 AM

Well, it isn't going to be easy, but taking the client out of the content program is certainly a good start.
What you need to do now, as I see it anyway, is to zero in on why actual and prospective customers contact the firm in the first place. What are they looking for -- in fairly precise terms? What problem do they want to get solved. What keywords are relevant? What search terms would be used (and one approach to determining this is to "invent" some of your own until you start to see his site, as well as those of his competitors, turning up)?
This kind of analysis can form the basis of your ad creation. In greatly simplified terms, an effective ad has two elements:
a) The headline -- something that, one way or another, says "Here's your answer" or "Here's what you're looking for".
b) The two line body -- words that somehow offer proof or evidence of what people will find when they click on the link.
Beyond this, I can't help thinking that the present site needs to do a much better selling job than it does. For instance, why should someone give them an order instead of contacting a competitor? What makes them different? Price? Choices? Speed of delivery?
I suppose I'm back to how you write a radio/TV commercial, which is perhaps well captured by what Oscar Wilde once said about how his day had gone.
"Very well," he explained. "I spent all morning putting a comma in -- and then all afternoon taking it out."
My best wishes to you for the challenge you're facing!

Duncan

stuff_4_beauty · #5 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 02:54 PM

I have always in the past year come up in Google's organic results on the first page for all of our products. I would add a new product line and within 3 days, googlebot crawled my site and then when I would type in one of the newly added products, our site would show on the first page for whatever product I was searching for. Since this google update, my site is now doomed. Our traffic is down well below half of what it was. Most all of my products/pages are buried on the 8th or 9th page. I wonder if I am over-optimized if there is such a thing. I am extremely worried. I guess I have to do adwords but do not understand how to make a good ad. Maybe I can get help here?

Duncan Pollock · #6 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 06:44 PM

The consensus seems to be to wait and see. No one is unmistakably clear about what Jagger has done or how long it will take for things to settle.
Meantime, it will do no harm to give AdWords a try, even though, as this thread makes clear -- or so I hope -- this is easier said than done.
In my own case, however, I've relied for some time on both the SERPs and AdWords and see no good reason to discontinue either effort. You can't win them all, particularly in view of the ongoing algo changes. If your profit per sale is high enough (as mine fortunately is), it makes sense to, as it were, play both sides against the middle.
The worst you can lose is a few dollars, seeing that AdWords is the cheapest form of advertising anywhere (other than word of mouth, that is).

Duncan

stuff_4_beauty · #7 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 07:00 PM

I am trying to make an eyecatching ad, but every one I make seems to get lost in all the others when it does show. Any suggestions where I could get help in designing a good ad?

Duncan Pollock · #8 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 08:28 PM

If you're talking AdWords, there aren't any graphics involved. If you're thinking of something like a banner ad, though, I would imagine you can find some help in the WPW Graphics & Design Discussion forum. At the same time, you are, I'm sure, talking about a more significant ad spend (as they call it) than having a try at AdWords is going to call for.

Duncan

stuff_4_beauty · #9 (**permalink**) 11-04-2005, 11:02 PM

No, I am not thinking of graphics, but only words that would stand out. Everyone's ad looks the same in my sector. My ad just doesn't seem to stand out above others.

dburdon · #10 (**permalink**) 11-05-2005, 07:07 AM

Stuff,

you need to find the word or words that trigger. An example in service is the "provide". In flights its "cheap". Maybe in beauty its "Youth".

With adwords you can run parallel copy for the same keyword searhc term. This allows you to test and compare results.

stuff_4_beauty · #11 (**permalink**) 11-05-2005, 06:17 PM

Thanks for taking the time to give that advice. In my biz there are 1000's of products in the same general hair care area. It would cost a fortune to run an ad for every product. I am trying to come up with something general for all products. It seems like free shipping and free gift are pretty worn out across the board. I am trying to come up with something different.... still trying.... to come up with words that would attract someone to clicking...Maybe I am off and don't have the right idea. I have never had to worry too much about paying for ads before. On a lighter note, the new datacenter seems to be showing more of our pages again little by little, maybe we will make a comeback?

dburdon · #12 (**permalink**) 11-06-2005, 01:24 PM

Stuff,

anybody can cut prices or give away more things for free. Work on differentiating your products or service.

flyingrose · #13 (**permalink**) 11-10-2005, 05:41 PM

It can cost a fortune NOT to create ads for each product. Targeted keywords and ads convert more often and usually have far lower individual keyword phrase costs. The more general the keywords and ads the less clicks you're going to get.

Take one of your best selling or most profitable products. Research keyword phrases just for that product and create ads that match the keywords. Because searchers will see exactly what they're looking for they're going to click on your ads more and they're going to buy more often.

dburdon · #14 (**permalink**) 11-10-2005, 06:21 PM

Rose,

my sentiments entirely.

If you have time make your campaigns and ads as specific as possible.

The more targeted and well thought out, the better the ROI.

PressurePot · #15 (**permalink**) 11-14-2005, 11:08 PM

When Jagger first struck, my site dropped out of existance and I was wondering what the hell I had done to be penalized by Google. Although my own site had dropped out of the picture I still had several other sites linking to me on the 1st page but when the dust had settled, I had returned to the first page and with a better page rank.

All this to say that, despite having a generally good natural placement (except for the most general terms), I still run a hefty Adwords campaign. And despite a rather ordinary website (temporary while I am building a better one), I get rather good results. The CTR of the 26 ad groups in my 2 campaigns, has 6 in the mid 20's, 10 in the teens and the rest above 5% except one, and I convert about 10% (which I hope to improve with the new site).

The best results come from specific products with 3 to 4 word specific "keyword phrases". By far the best ROI. I have many keywords producing upto 100% CTR so it can work very well.

JuniorOnline · #16 (**permalink**) 11-15-2005, 04:12 AM

stuff,

I do PPC adverts and I noticed when I search online for personal things, I tend to choose the relevant URL/site if all other adverts are sounding the same to me. So the next big factor of my choice is the website name.. am not suggesting you change your website name - this is just one of my observations for my way of searching and clicking on adverts.

in response to the original post that triggered this whole conversation - when I first joined my company I found that they are paying £1.50 per click for keywords - despite the fact we are showing in top ten on the first page. I know - silly or what? My strategy was I drop down the amount so low, that we start showing page 3 and 4 - making sure we are targetting customers who missed out on us on the first page.

thanks
T

etechsupport · #17 (**permalink**) 11-15-2005, 09:23 AM

Referred to original post I think if the beginner take care for few point as below they can even do better with Adword.

1. Using Dynamic titles
2. Content targeting
3. Broadmatching after understanding well Adword
4. Setting weekly budget and sticking with it
5. Close monitoring.
6. Tracking conversion and analyze ROI.

Adword is addictive play safe.

Serious · #18 (**permalink**) 11-18-2005, 12:10 PM

I do think AdWords is for beginners (and others too). It has a lot of avantages:

1) strict budget (you can set it at 1$/day - to begin)
2) you can fix precisely the CPC: what are you ready to pay for a visitor?
3) you can exclude websites
4) you can see the stats very precisely
5) you can reach both websites and the search engine

OTOH, you must find the right keywords. Difficult? Yes. But you can predict the traffic and you can test them with a small budget for one day or two.
Is AdWords perfect? No. There is some competition. General words are expensive. AdWords is very good for specialized websites. For general websites, I would recommand another form of advertising.

<shameless plug>desktop icons</shameless plug>

JuniorOnline · #19 (**permalink**) 11-21-2005, 11:39 AM

so true.. I totally agree - for generic terms that are sooo expensive there are better ways to advertising. Specialised keywords at low prices are worth targetting using PPC.

stuff_4_beauty · #20 (**permalink**) 11-25-2005, 10:44 AM

Thanks for all the imformative input - I still find it confusing for some reason. I have bounced back in a lot of categories and started showing in the organic results again. Is there some kind of easy to understand book out there to learn how to make good ads? I am still lacking in a few area's and would like to learn how to do this, but am really having a hard time with it.

Duncan Pollock · #21 (**permalink**) 11-25-2005, 01:39 PM

Having just taken a (fairly) quick look at your website, one or two thoughts/ideas occur to me. It might be worthwhile considering them. In no particular order, what about the following?
1. You seem to be selling to salons rather than direct to the consumer. At least this is the impression I get. If this isn't the case, perhaps you're losing conversions and/or suffering low CTRs because searchers are as mistaken as I am.
2. If you are, as it were, in the wholesale business rather than the retail one, maybe your ads aren't properly focused to make the difference apparent.
3. Wholesale or retail, I'm guessing that you don't have a whole lot of competition. I mean, how many firms are offering your kind of stuff at "heavy discounts" (even if calls for volume orders)? Thus, are your ads emphasizing your Unique Selling Proposition -- which is one essential ingredient of an ad that works?
4. Are any of your competitors using AdWords? What do they say -- and not say -- that you could say differently?
5. What are your best sellers and best profit makers? Would it make sense to create ads that focus entirely on these products rather than trying to cover the full range you offer? For example, could you come up with a deal on one of these "best" products and create an ad that zeroes in on it?
6. In the same vein of thinking, is there a product that none -- or very few -- of your competitors has? Could you usefully try an ad with this focus?

I could go on and on like this, but I'm hoping that you'll catch my drift.
One of the absolute keys to success with AdWords is to find the search phrases that will bring people to you, coupled with ads that will almost guarantee that people will click on them because they realize you have the answer(s) they're looking for.

Against all this, I just have to wonder, in fact, whether you think you're only one of a crowd when I'm not so readily convinced that you are. Sure, everyone and his brother/sister/niece/nephew sells beauty products, but just how many of them do precisely what you do? Indeed, don't you need to recognize the One Special Difference that underlies your business and then promote the living AdWord daylights out of it?!!

Duncan

dburdon · #22 (**permalink**) 11-28-2005, 06:01 PM

Stuff,

the best book I've seen on advertising copy was written by someone called Drayton Bird. Combine that with a knowledge of ppc bidding and you're away.