Google Adwords is it worth ?

[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.

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.