Google Adsense/Adwords - Is It Even Worth It Anymore?

[bijan814]

Adword is dead for me, it doesn't convert for me at all.

[turftroll]

I took all Google ads down on the majority of sites,
there are still a couple I haven't gotten to yet, and replace them with affiliate links when I do,

if not I would rather have no ads than a Google ad on my sites, but there ARE plenty of alternatives

[dann]

bijan814 - well here there is another. I get lots of clicks not many sales. Find out where G is placing your ads!!
That's where the quality score became relevant and landing page come into question,quality Score$%$ came into play.
Google says you get clicks and no sales because your product or landing page sucks, I say the traffic from Google SUCKS!
My conversion rate on Yahoo! is incredible MSN not that bad 30% possibly, Google? I forget the last conversion.

Google has less advertisers willing to pay ludicrous fees and many more have figured out their content networks are horses crap to put in nicely have gone away, their core financial base.
Yet they still allow arbiritidge and domains for adwords, if they are trying to fight spam they really got me baffled.
As a matter of fact they seem to be encouraging it, at the expense of the user.

Good Luck Google fan bois real soon you'll be all alone.

[ashley3471]

Wow!! I went out for a few hours and came back to see I'm not alone.

I should clarify. I have about 20 sites on different topics and I post faithfully ever 2 days with the weekend off. Most of my sites are 2 1/2 years old and so they are robust sites.

The adwords is not for me but for a client I have who was using adwords and needed some help as he did not understand why he was paying money when no once had clicked. It was during this I discovered some of his ads on porn sites and yet his site was about investment vehicles. That's when he ended that relationship.

I guess the concensus is that Adsense and Adwords are dying if not completely dead.

How sad. I was making a good income until 6 months ago when the floor went out from under me.

I've adjusted and gone to other revenue ideas that do not involve Adsense. If there is no change, then in March I will probably abandon adsense completely.

My customer abandoned Adwords in August and his site continues to prosper using other means of getting visitors.

Thanks for all the feedback.

[RichAtVNS]

There are definately long tail keyword sentences on Adwords that I make money on. I sell physical goods which I spend up to 12% on advertising (different business model then online service or software sales LOL).

We evaluated advertising on the "content sites" through adwords years ago and found that almost 95% of the traffic was coming from fradulent click activity. Plus my ads on the content network had a sell through rate of less than .002% that means for real goods which I spend up to 12% I could never make this work.

Now I come to the real crux of my question.
We do industry shows, have sales reps calling on accounts, and send out catalogs.
For those selling real goods wholesale, what marketing techiques besides SEO do you find most successful to aquire new leads?

I'd love to hear from you guys in this question.

[pauliii]

I've been doing AdSense and AdWords since 2002. I used to spend as much as I made to drive traffic to my products without net cost. It has been a constant fight over the years to keep my ads in a good position . . . had to go to 37 discret sites to be sure that the most important keywords had sufficient presence in the site pages. When all were combined on a single page, I couldn't get decent rankings for any.

Also, Google has refused my best ads . . . I make software for investors that help them invest in Fidelity and Vanguard mutual funds . . . that worked fine until Google decided that there was no such thing as fair use of trade marks. Even a letter from Fidelity saying that my use of "Fidelity" did not violate their marks was worthless . . . Ads I tried to change got refused and required special appeal. Also, random Google scans would cancel ads even if they weren't changed and even if thay had been successfully appealed previously.

Through all this, my Google adSense revenues a have varied from $1,000-$700/month . . . improving over the past month. At one point in late 2002, I was up to $3000/month, but then Google made changes that cut me back to currentl levels. Since mid2003, I haven't seen a lot of difference in my adSense revenues.

[deepsand]

Your client cannot spend $500.00 on Adsense since Adsense if for publishers to earn money...

Your client spent $500.00 via Adwords to run ads on the Adsense network which as most marketers know is akin to shooting oneself in the foot, the quality of most Adsense websites is very poor and as such does not drive a targeted buying consumer to the advertiser.

AdWords and AdSense ads are quite different things.

AdWord ads are published on those SEs which are affiliated with Google and, if opted for by the advertiser, on those sites which are part of their Content Match network.

AdSense ads are displayed only on those sites which are enrolled as AdSense publishers.

The client may very well have paid $500 for clicks on his AdSense ads.

Unfortunately, the OP used "AdWords" and "AdSense" as though they were interchangeable, so it's not really clear which his client is using.

[ashley3471]

AdWords and AdSense ads are quite different things.

AdWord ads are published on those SEs which are affiliated with Google and, if opted for by the advertiser, on those sites which are part of their Content Match network.

AdSense ads are displayed only on those sites which are enrolled as AdSense publishers.

The client may very well have paid $500 for clicks on his AdSense ads.

Unfortunately, the OP used "AdWords" and "AdSense" as though they were interchangeable, so it's not really clear which his client is using.

I apologize. I did mean to use Adwords in my PS. It was his ADWORDS account that he was paying money for no clicks and found his ads on porn sites. The response from ADWORDS customer service was completely inadequate to the situation.

[chrisJumbo]

We' ve done alright with Adsense. Mainly put the ads there because we ended up ranking okay for some general terms and most of the people searching for those terms wouldn't be interested in our service so the Ads give them an option to go to.

We are starting to look to ad some affiliate links, but it is hard to find a good one. Some people swear by Commission Junction, ClickBank, etc. Others hate them. Seems about 50/50 so not sure where to go.

[deepsand]

I apologize. I did mean to use Adwords in my PS. It was his ADWORDS account that he was paying money for no clicks and found his ads on porn sites. The response from ADWORDS customer service was completely inadequate to the situation.

If AdWords listings were appearing on porn sites, then such occurred because Content Match had been left opted for, which is the default setting, and/or Site Placement ads were employed .

Google provides for your opting out of Content Match (Pay-per-Click), as well as opting in with some selective site blocking. Site Placement (Pay-per-Impressions) listing are strictly an opt-in feature.

As for "no clicks," were these Pay-per-Impressions listings? If they were Pay-per-Click listings, then there must have been clicks in order for charges to accrue.

In either case, Content Match and Pay-per-Impression listings are those which bring the greatest risks.

One should always get a feel for the waters by 1st employing PPC Search Match listings alone. Then, after gaining experience in that arena, gingerly try the others, settings stop-loss points by way of limited budget and low bid settings.