Google Adwords is it worth ?

[TheLeader]

Hello everybody , im thinking to join Google Adwords program and do u think its worth to join it.
Looking for your suggestions.

thanks

[mjtaylor]

Are you serious with this thread? Google is The Leader in search. How could it not be worth it?

[cw1865]

If your cost to acquire the customer exceeds the gross profit from the sale, its not going to be worth it. I see some really poorly placed adwords ads out there.

[innominds]

If the ROI is higher by using Google Adowrds, it is definitely worth to try.
All you need is a proper planning and of course execution too.

[kamrenroder0]

Adwords worked for me but it costs alot of money after a while. It is good at getting visits to your site and it will generate some sales, if your website is an online business, it did for me anyway. It's a good way to get sales and visits while you are stuck in the sandbox.

[musiclover]

Don't jump in with a big dream and hope if you don't have any knowledge on PPC. It will eat all of your money. But instead get some good knowledge from experts like:

Perry Marshall
>> Perry Marshall's Google AdWords Advertising & Pay Per Click Program (http://www.perrymarshall.com)

And,

Glenn Livingston
>> pay per click search marketing (http://www.payperclicksearchmarketing.com)

These guys are amazing. Once you learn some knowledge then start testing. If you have good product to sell I'm sure you will succeed.

[weblover50]

google adword works great for me..but some things u should be careful..plan well before u go with them..do some research about the keywords and try to use budget as good as u can..but first of all make a unique looking website to get ur user attracted on it..

[soniqhost.com]

It depends on what you sell, and what your profit margins are, but for the most part if targeted corrected adwords can be really beneficial to a business.

[GThomson]

I think the big danger with Adwords is that you can easily spend a lot of money if you're not certain how the system works.

[mjtaylor]

Google Adwords is probably the best thing you can do for your business......just about!

Why do you think so? I think we have to assume OP is seeking more than a 'go for it' or "don't waste your time" opinion, but to understand the benefits.


I think the big danger with Adwords is that you can easily spend a lot of money if you're not certain how the system works.

It's fairly easy to set a budget; I wouldn't be too worried about spending too much. That said, I had a client opt in to the "network ads" on Overture (long time ago) and in less than a day or two, they had spent $17,000! Believe it or not, Overture refunded the money.

[weblover50]

Google adwords is certainly worth the time and effort. One has to be careful in the selection of keywords in the sense that well selected keywords make our job of getting good traffic easy.

[weblaunch]

Yes, but you got to know what you're doing, or else you'd end up spending a small fortune on Adwords.

[mjtaylor]

I think the big danger with Adwords is that you can easily spend a lot of money if you're not certain how the system works.


Yes, but you got to know what you're doing, or else you'd end up spending a small fortune on Adwords.

Looks as though you are just rewriting Gthomson's post ...

[mjtaylor]

AdWords suffers from a lot of click fraud. You will be paying for clicks that don't result in any possible customers because they are fake clicks.

Do you mean from competitors?

There are software tools to monitor your clicks. And I think Adwords does a pretty good job these days with doing their own monitoring. I think this was a larger problem some years ago.

Perhaps I am wrong? Any SEMs with more experience have something to add?

[deepsand]

You cannot sell that which goes unadvertised. If you can get sufficient "free" advertising from the SE's SERPs, lucky you; for everyone else, it's pay or perish.

That having been said, which form of advertising where is best can only be determined by testing. The demographics of your target audience are not those of either any one or all SEs and/or your potential competitors, direct or indirect. Thus, the ROI experienced by you will vary by SE in a manner that cannot be reliably predicted.

For anyone to categorically say "yea" or "nay" is to do no more than speculate.

[ford_perfect]

From my experience, it works, but you need to tweak it properly first. Otherwise you can end up paying a lot of money for ads and getting no return. When I used to play with it I got the following results, which I think are good - test budget of $5 per day, getting around 50 clicks on my ads, from which I get around 5 registrations on my site. This is 10 cents per click and 10% conversion rate, with $1 cost per conversion.

[Marlie]

PPC is the key, you pay for what you get.

[deepsand]

PPC is the key, you pay for what you get.
If not careful, you might also pay for what you are not getting!

[thersey]

When it comes to adwords, here is my best advise. Go with google search only. Stay away from their search partner network because it is hard to control unless you can exempt certain websites if you can find their list. Even though you can control the content network, you have to decide if it is worth posting your ad to people who are probably not searching for it.

[Anukapoor]

yes, it is worth.
Adwords worked for me

[LD]

A lot of the keywords I have researched and installed in my AdWords account show a status of most of my keywords show "first page bid estimates" anywhere between $2.75 to $4.50 per click! I know generic keywords can cost more - sometimes quite a bit - but this affects the majority of the 100 or so keywords phrases I have in place. This sounds ridiculous and is putting me off getting into this game as I don't want to exhaust a daily budget in 3 or 4 clicks.

Anyone add some insight into this?

[deepsand]

Google doesn't control the prices; they're driven by your competitors.

Look for long tail phrases which, using exact match, are affordable.

Aside from that, it's case of "if you can't afford to lose the table stake, don't play the game."

[LD]

Deep - At $4.50 a click - that's arguably crazy. And that isn't even the highest bid. I think at least one or more advertisers are driving up the estimated click cost to scare competition off. IMO. I recall at one time there were a couple of keyword phrases which the first page bid was close to $10.00 per click, which has to be artificially inflated to scare people off. I worked on me. You’re right about getting out of that game and also about longtail phrases.

[deepsand]

I think at least one or more advertisers are driving up the estimated click cost to scare competition off.
Some do it for that purpose; some because they can't see what other are bidding.

In the days of transparent auctions, e.g. Overture prior to its being bought by Yahoo and transformed into the Panama platform, such was easily identified and combated. Then, ad publishers discovered that they could increase their revenues by using opaque auctions.

Now, to detect and attempt to combat unrealistic bids requires a good deal of time spent gradually changing ones bids in a systemic fashion, and observing both the positional changes of all bidders' ads and those of ones own actual CPC. And, as you've no way of knowing which other bidders might be doing likewise, you've no way of knowing which results were caused by your actions alone.

It's akin to a group of the deaf, dumb and blind wandering about in a very large space, trying to form a straight line ordered by the product of age, height and weight.

[ThurstyToad]

It wouldn't still be around if it didn't work for some advertisers... but the answer really depends on you. If you spend $100 on ads and sell $1000 in product and make $200 then I think it was worth it. But if you spend $200 to sell $50 worth of stuff, then it wasn't... Adwords is a tool, and can be an expensive tool. Whether or not it is "worth it" depends on what you do with it! :)

[lambpie]

I work with a lot of companies that literally run their entire businesses off Adwords, one trend that I have noticed with these companies though is that they got in there early. Starting on Adwords back in 2002/2003 whilst there was limited competition. They now have a huge amount of data which in the right hands makes it very difficult to knock them out of the top couple of slots.

It can be very difficulto to get started nowadays, especially with a limited budget. My advice for people starting out with Adwords is to actually start with fewer carefully selected longtail phrases. What often happens is people set up new campaigns, with limited budgets and then spread that budget across 1000's of phrases and then wonder why they can't spot any patterns. Find a couple of phrases that work and build on them..

[lambpie]

Oh and one other thing, regarding the bid prices $4.50 is low compared to some of the click costs ive seen. I worked with one client in the finance sector that was paying £50 per click! but even at that cost they were offering a high value service and were able to make money out of Adwords..

[deepsand]

I work with a lot of companies that literally run their entire businesses off Adwords, one trend that I have noticed with these companies though is that they got in there early. Starting on Adwords back in 2002/2003 whilst there was limited competition. They now have a huge amount of data which in the right hands makes it very difficult to knock them out of the top couple of slots.
:confused:

Given that all that's required to attain any given position is a sufficiently high bid, of what import accumulated historical data vis-a-vis display position?

[lambpie]

the data they have enables them to better optimise their campaigns, they can eliminate 1000's of negatives, they have finely tuned thoroughly tested ads, they have ROI data on each and every phrase..

they also use this data to drive their business, actually adding products and services to the site if they need to based on the Adwords data.

they'll be testing landing pages consistently.. they'll use the Adwords data to better understand visitor intent

..and if they get all this right they end up in a situation with high click through rates, quality scores, conversion rates + high ROI meaning they can consistently outbid their competition!

I'm not arguiing that you couldn't knock them out of the top slot with a high bid, but you couldn't afford to stay there! they can afford to be in those slots AND make money!

[deepsand]

I'm not arguiing that you couldn't knock them out of the top slot with a high bid, but you couldn't afford to stay there! they can afford to be in those slots AND make money!
But, that is precisely what you did say!

You stated that having such data made them difficult to dislodge from a given display position; this is absolutely false.



They now have a huge amount of data which in the right hands makes it very difficult to knock them out of the top couple of slots.

[AppletreePrint]

I agree with most comments here...

If you are in a niche market then use Adwords until you are out of the sandbox, then concerntrate on getting your organic listings to the top. If your in a saturated market then use adwords until you are performing well enough with your organic searches. Obviously Adwords doesn't work for everyone but if you register with adwords and don't use it for a couple of weeks, you will probably find that google will email you with an incentive to start using it - when you recieve your voucher try some free advertising and see how adwords performs for your business.

Kindest regards,

[deepsand]

If you are in a niche market then use Adwords until you are out of the sandbox, then concerntrate on getting your organic listings to the top. If your in a saturated market then use adwords until you are performing well enough with your organic searches.
There are many markets where SEO will never yield sufficient traffic and/or the ROI that PPC does.


Obviously Adwords doesn't work for everyone but if you register with adwords and don't use it for a couple of weeks, you will probably find that google will email you with an incentive to start using it - when you recieve your voucher try some free advertising and see how adwords performs for your business.
I've set to see such offer that applied to existing accounts.

[hospitality]

It is worth to join at least to see how it works.
There are several reasons to get traffic via adwords, i.e.: build a base of registered users, sell a service or a product, price lists downloads, etc.... What it matters is how much you spend vs. result (registrations, sales, downloads, etc..).
When you will start using Adwords you will have the opportunity to set a daily budget, initially keep it low but not near zero so that you can experiment, expect to spend some money for the cause of learning but do it wisely.
Once you have learned which keywords work best, which ads work best, which landing page work best, etc... you can continue to grow from there, refine you budget, keywords, ads and so on.

[AndrisE]

The worst part about all this is Google’s got you. You have only 2 choices: advertise with them or advertise with no one. They dominate the online search market. Competitors like Yahoo are sadly a joke.

[Spiffy2]

I have been using Google adwords for about 9 years now. It used to be well worth the money. However, with the changes they have made over the past few years, it is very expensive. I used to spend thousands a month and then they started making it so difficult with their "slapping" of my sites. Even though I had totally relevant landing pages, it became hard to figure out what the issues were. I use them far less today.

[Spiffy2]

The worst part about all this is Google’s got you. You have only 2 choices: advertise with them or advertise with no one. They dominate the online search market. Competitors like Yahoo are sadly a joke.

I totally agree! I really have grown to dislike Google.

[deepsand]

The worst part about all this is Google’s got you. You have only 2 choices: advertise with them or advertise with no one. They dominate the online search market. Competitors like Yahoo are sadly a joke.
To the contrary, excellent results can be had with both Yahoo and Bing.

I find the ROI from both of them to be higher than for Big G.

Which works the better is wholly dependent on the demographics of your target audience.

[mamola500]

They offer a free $50 when you first open the account, they give you a voucher code to use - so gotta be worth it just for that.

[mamola500]

although think it has to be taken within 14 days of opening account, and you have to deposit £5 or £10 to activate the account. Free money (almost!)

[LD]

To the contrary, excellent results can be had with both Yahoo and Bing.

I find the ROI from both of them to be higher than for Big G.

Which works the better is wholly dependent on the demographics of your target audience.

Could you please explain the last part about how demographics factors in making Yahoo and Bing a better choice over G?

[deepsand]

The demographics of the users of each different SE are different.

Therefore, the demographics of your target audience, i.e. those most likely to want your product or service, will determine how well a particular SE performs relative to others for you.

[LD]

That information would be very significant - determining the demographics of each SE and how they differ from each other.

[deepsand]

While such information can be a useful starting point, knowing the demographics of the totality of as SE's user base at a given point in time will not tell you much about those searching for your particular product or service over the course of time.

While some SEs can and do now provide such data to advertisers with active campaigns, and may even provide for selective ad impressions based on such, the advertiser still needs to do the testing in order to learn real results applicable to his product/service, his ads, at what time of the day/week/month/year, etal..

In marketing, the 3 cardinal rules are :

Test;
Test; and,
Test.

[arenee]

it depends on ur budget in my opinion. yes, it can generate customers, but those customers cost. sometimes more than the amount u will have to pay to google. research all potential ad solutions, including affiliates, before choosing.

[deepsand]

it depends on ur budget in my opinion. yes, it can generate customers, but those customers cost. sometimes more than the amount u will have to pay to google. research all potential ad solutions, including affiliates, before choosing.
As is the case all marketing.

Only by testing can you determine what is and is not profitable.

[shonmark10]

I think the grip of Google Adwords is totally based on the fact which can be tested by your campaign at low cost and based on the result.

[williamc]

I think the grip of Google Adwords is totally based on the fact which can be tested by your campaign at low cost and based on the result.

Ok, so you can reformat what someone else just said, what else have you been trained to do?

[SuperMan]

You better have a big wallet with Google Adwords and you should start slowly and learn as much as possible. Big learning curve to become really great with Adwords and that is what you need to become successful at PPC. But you cant beat the amount of traffic instantly to your site...

[deepsand]

You better have a big wallet with Google Adwords and you should start slowly and learn as much as possible.
Only if you get stupid with your bids and budget, especially with Content Match.


Big learning curve to become really great with Adwords ...
Time consuming, yes. But, not all that intricate or difficult.