Our goal for this experiment was to see how many impressions AdWords tracked for each keyword and compare it to various keyword research tools. I made sure to adjust our bids so that our ads would show up on the first page of results, and I also wrote boring ads in order to reduce clickthrough (we weren't interested in clicks, only impressions; plus, we wanted our experiment to be as cheap as possible). After constructing landing pages for each term that defined the keyword and linked out to additional sources, we ran the ads until the end of 2006 so that we could analyze 3 months of data.
After October turned out to be a bust (I forgot to edit the campaign settings and only show our ads on Google searches, which resulted in us owing Google $649.40...grrrrrrrr), we analyzed November and December's data. The results did not make us happy.
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Six of our ads didn't show, so they had zero impressions. "Blood in urine" had 11 impressions for the month, which probably means that the ads only showed for part of the month. December is even worse:
Eleven ads didn't show, even though I made sure all of our campaigns were activated and that each bid was enough to show on the first page of search results. Clicking on a term with zero impressions brought up this note:
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A pink notice box for the ad group also offers the following advice: "These keywords are marked in the Status column of the Keywords tab below. Improve their quality through optimization, delete them, or raise the keywords' maximum CPCs to the minimum bids indicated. (Raising the bids to at least the minimum will activate the keywords.)."
So, basically because nobody else is bidding on "fishing in the dark," I have to increase my cost per click in order to have my ad show? Yet "sulfur dioxide" is fine? What doesn't make sense to me is that when I set up these campaigns, I adjusted the costs to ensure that they'd show up in search results, and I checked a few times to see if they were showing (which they were). Some time between when I set up the campaigns and when I checked them to see how they were doing, Google decided to stop showing certain campaigns until I pay them more money.
What am I supposed to do, check the campaigns a couple of times each day in order to see if the ads are still visible? Not only is that going to throw off my impressions, but I (obviously) have other things to work on than to devote a good chunk of my week making sure AdWords is doing its job. I can't keep fiddling with CPCs because what Google decides is sufficient one day is unacceptable the next. To further add to the frustration, I don't know if the impressions are accurate because for all I know, some of my campaigns could have stopped showing for a couple days, which would throw off the count.
If anyone else has had a similar headache with Google AdWords, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Or, if you have advice on how to improve our experiment or know if there's an easy fix for our problem, let me know. OR, if you're on the AdWords team, let me know what the heck is going on here. I am not a happy Mozzer.
Update from Rand: What really makes me upset about this is how frustrating AdWords makes it for new users to figure out their system. Granted, I probably should have spent some serious time with Rebecca figuring out the ins and outs of the system, paying attention to the spend and the figures, and not playing fire and forget. But, at the same time, Google is way off base by:
- providing a way to ensure your ad shows (particularly when no one else is bidding)
- not defaulting to the content network (that's more than a bit evil, IMO)
- not showing more accurate estimates for traffic and spend - that accuracy will serve to provide more revenue and use; any time marketers get better information, they spend more - that's why search marketing is such a great investment.
OK.... here's the question... how much time did you spend learning before you jumped into this?
Is the analogy.... sitting down at the poker table with your money before being very clear about the rules and knowing a little bit about probability?
I like playing poker with those folks. You can find them at Atlantic city on weekends. (personal experience here... even if you are savvy you gotta be very careful in Las Vegas during weekdays - those poker sharks will pick your bones clean)
Ha ha... I love it - comparing Google's Adwords program to card sharks trying to clean you out. I suppose I had never thought of it that way. I had the presumption that it was a far more benign relationship, but perhaps you're correct.
lol... Google is the house! The house can win the hand and the house always rakes the pot.
... they write the rules too ;)
Just like in Vegas, the house always wins. Google didn't hit $500/share by giving things away.
I agree with EGOL whole-heartedly. If you put your moneys on the table, there's no reason in the world which you should think or assume that someone else will spend it the way you wish to.
In my experience, a lot of the blogs/forums I've read, half these guys haven't even read the manual...and I've only just got started.
We tries google adwords quite a time but i think its the luck also some times 10 clicks and query generated but some times 100 clicks but no result. You just can't predict when its better to advertise. although adsense help in revenue generation
Greetings Mozzers! I am brand-new here, so please educate me if I'm committing any newbie faux pas'. Otherwise, I'm just gonna jump in w/ both feet...
Many valid points in this thread. PPC campaigns are definitely _not_ set-it-and-forget it. On the flipside - I think if an advertiser is seeking high impressions / low CTR, with no regard for conversion or ROI - then actually the Content network can be the way to go. It, too, can be (and should be) micromanaged.
I love the flexibility and immediacy of the AdWords platform. It gives almost instant feedback on A/B testing for effective copy writing. Yahoo/Overture on the other hand? Holy cats - you want to talk about headache. Absolutely abysmal to use. It was awful back when Overture started it, and it has not improved. With Yahoo a PPC advertiser is almost forced to set their ads and forget them, as even small copy edits can send your campaign into an editorial review black hole. I haven't moved to Panama yet, but I can guarantee you Yahoo is losing many, many dollars a day by being as virtually unusable as they are. The Ask UI for managing campaigns, OTOH, has some very useful features. Too bad their search market share is nominal.
IMO the best approach for marketing quality sites is aggressive SEO work, along with prudent SEM/PPC management. Over time good SEO gives positive support to the SEM campaigns and strategy, and eventually helps to increase the ROI of the PPC campaigns, as the paid and organic results start to approach each other on results pages.
Effective PPC is definitely a way to bring a new site very quickly to the surface while waiting for the SEO results to catch up. The niche market targeting capabilities are impressive.
I do emphasize that daily, if not hourly, monitoring is prudent in order to save oneself or one's client from bankruptcy. The "Daily Budget" feature is a parameter I highly recommend. Saves some ugly surprises.
"What am I supposed to do, check the campaigns a couple of times each day in order to see if the ads are still visible?"
I loved this one (no offense Rebecca b/c you are a PPC newbie and the rest of us deal with these things and accept the fact that like manual link building, PPC can be tedious). If only we could setup the accounts, let them run on auto-pilot and still rake in 15-20% commission on the account month-to-month. Unfortunately, yes Adwords requires day-to-day attention. On the whole though, I must say that it is the best platform available right now and can provide amazing returns.
Yeah, I told Rand how dumb I felt after reading all of the comments. Everyone's like, "Well, no wonder your campaigns failed!" Grrrr...guess I have to learn the way of the AdWords better than I thought...
Nah - don't feel dumb. Everyone has been there at one point. Just be glad it was SEOmoz money and not the money of an irate client :)
Yahoo pulled a nice "card shark" trick when they opened up their publisher network. All of a sudden the advertisers had a new tab for content bids and money began disappearing in arbitrage hell without a nice email to advertisers explaining that the change had occured.
Look at it this way: if you sent out a misprinted brochure (or even mailer) or messed up on a radio spot, you'd be out many thousands of dollars. A $600 marketing mistake is pretty forgivable, especially if you learn something from it.
Hi Rebecca,
One problem with Adwords campaigns and stats is that Keyword stats don't show correctly how many times a keyword was searched, but how many times it was printed. i.e some users may scroll on the SERP and if there are few ads they will repeated on and on.
So don't always believe on those ad stats as keyword search.
Regards
Manuel
SEO PT, are you trying to say that while your ad may be slotted to display on a page (and does), but a user just doesn't scroll down the page far enough to see it, that doesn't count as an impression? Cause if so, that's totally not how the Adwords or the internet works.
That doesn't sound right...can you explain your reasoning?
One way that PPC can be wrong is if the user goes to the next page. Say someone searches for "blood in urine" and goes to the second page. Your ad may be shown twice, but really that is just one search. Keep this in mind.
Not to defend Google's lack of transparency, but to be fair, compare PPC to traditional marketing. How much time and money does it take to produce a TV spot, especially when you consider that you've basically got one shot at making it work. If it bombs, you've blown all that time and money. Even if it "works", your metrics are poor at best, and highly correlational (your sales go up, and you're left assuming the commercial was a good one).
With AdWords, even small players can get into the game, and the tracking and accountability rival any other marketing medium out there. Sure, it could be better, and it shouldn't be complicated and opaque just to make Google more money, but PPC is still a pretty sweet deal for many of us.
I totally agree! I didn't mean to complain, all I meant was that it's not something a beginner can just start using and expect great results. It takes time to learn and improve on just like any other skill.
I was thinking about it a bit more and I wonder if, because we compare PPC to organic SEO, and PPC is paid, we naturally expect PPC to be easier. We must be buying convenience, right? I suppose that makes a certain sense, it's just that it's a pretty narrow field for comparison.
I'll also second (or third, or fourth) that AdWords has been problematic for mom-and-pops. These represent the majority of my clients, and although I've found it's a good idea to use Adwords for keyword research purposes, very rarely has it actually brought a positive ROI. The main reason is exactly what Rebecca found -- going after the less competitive search terms is far more difficult, and going after the more competitive terms is cost prohibitive with smaller budgets.
For whatever reason, it seemed easier for those terms to stay active prior to whatever update Google made last spring/summer. Now in some of the accounts I manage, it's a constant stream of "Some of your ads are not showing -- raise bid to $3.00 to activate." I have yet to really dive into Overture post-Panama, but that is my next starting point.
I do appreciate Stokelake's post on improving the "quality" of the landing page, though, that is a great tip.
Obviously, PPC is "Rocket Science"... that organic stuff is "bull shit"! :)
[Just kidding...]
I think that you are "right on". PPC is the easy way to blow a load of dough - especially if you are ignorant. This is why Google should require 98% on their exam to earn the "adwords professional" designation. Awarding credentials with lower scores gives people a license to blow their client's money. If the score needed is 98% more people will be happy with adwords. And people who want to be called PRO by Google will exert themselves to attain that score.
Actually, the first PPC campaign I ever ran I wasted a couple hundred bucks within a week and my return was absolutely nothing... now after I've gained some experience working with it, it is a lot more clear how it works, and what you need to do to manage a PPC campaign.
It's really common thinking (especially for beginners) that you can just setup those ads and leave them, but that is definitely wrong. A lot of my PPC time is spent checking my cost per clicks to adjust my bid amounts so I am not getting hosed. Also take into account landing page optimization, web analytics, keyword research. PPC really has way more to it than I initially imagined about 6 months ago.
Adwords used to be that simple. Not any more. Like you, I tweak bids and ads constantly.
You couldn't be more correct.
-Justin Russo / Regional Sales Manager In Touch Media Group
I had a fun time with Google Adwords this winter working on our family business - Creative Gift Solutions. It was my most successful attempt over the past few years. In the past, I have tried to learn as much as I could about Adwords, and tried different campaign strategies. Two years ago, I also wasted about $600 on Google Adwords because I made the same mistakes. This winter through a combination of my new knowledge and experience, and through a consistent monitoring of each campaign, we were able to get a 10% conversion rate from Adwords (conversion meaning somebody who clicked an adword and then in the same visit purchased one or more gift baskets). While this was a good accomplishment for me, I don't know if this is good overall - can anybody tell me if there are stats on this?
Sorry for bolding - could anybody guide me on whether 10% conversion rate is good, and if there are any stats on this in a general sense? Thanks.
It depends on what conversion you are tracking and if your landing page is established with the proper code that google uses to track conversions.
Our company finds that 1 in 20 is decent, however, our company is averaging about 1/10 to 1/15. That is about 6 - 10 percent conversion. If you compare this to the 1% - 4% that most marketing pros agree they are getting from Print Advertising, then you can definitely see the trend moving towards SEM.
If you are converting at 10 percent, you are definitely doing well. However, your ROI is an important factor. If your quality score with Google is poor, you can be paying .50 cents - $1.00 more per click than you need to. This would definitely affect your ROI, when you take into account how much you make per sale.
Also, you can convert leads at a rate of 10% all day long, but if your salesmanship is not good, it won't matter what your conversion rate is.
Justin Russo
As I mentioned in my post, I was counting a conversion as the sale of a gift basket, so it was 10% of clicks on Adwords resulted in the sale of a gift basket. I think our ROI is very good but I wonder how we can maximize our campaigns so that we have similar results throughout the year rather than only during Christmas.
Blood in urine... ouch.
Hmmm, I bid a penny for the site name, Google say "no way, bid more or make it more relevent". So like the stooge I am I make the page more relevant and Google accepts a penny. Why do people take the easy way out (bid more?) and then complain because G wants extra for maintaining, tracking and providing reporting for campaigns that don't make them much in the way of $. Sure G makes a hatful o' dough, but.... they do it the old fashioned way! They earn it! by providing superior search results and advertising platform that is head and shoulders above the rest.
i am surprised that you have encountered so many problems... i found google adwords very friendly and intuitive...
but still, romanian search market is not that big :D
I agree with this post completely.
I too am more familiar with organic. I was setting up a small local/regional ppc campaign for a furniture store. Great idea right. No other furniture store in the region uses ppc. So for every major retail furniture search term (in that local region) I wanted the ad to show up. Sounds simple right?
Wrong. I too started getting the same error box. Not showing ad b/c its a low searched term. So b/c no one searches this term I have to up my bid? Huh? I know know one searchs for a lot of these term. Especially b/c I have limited this to a local region. But I still need the ad to show up if someone searches. It's not a relavency issue b/c this is a local furniture store.
So basically I jetted off an email to google and they fixed it, and it hasn't been a problem since. They said it was a "temorpary error". I know Google might not be interested in these small potaotes local businesses, but it is a huge niche blind spot they are missing. To not make it easy for them to get ads up for locall residents searching for local b+m products (like furniture) is dumb,
I to agree that turning on content network by default is evil. For my situation it is completely inappropriate. My client is only interested in people seaching for furniture to go and buy in his city. He doesn't want his ads showing up on millions of basically useless adsense spam sites or general furniture blogs. But since google gets something like 50% of its revenue from adsense it gets checked by default? This is a whole other subject that I don't see addressed very often. Google wants relevant results, but basically pimps the very system that creates the most internet spam...adsense...talk about a viscous circle...
Hello All
Looks like I might be a little late to this party, but I'd like to chip in with my 2 cents.
I'm pretty much a newcomer to e-commerce, and I jumped into AdWords with both feet. Shotgun approach, bid on everything that I thought we could sell, kept raising my spend every time my budget ran out before midnight. I thought AdWords was easy. It worked OK during the holidays, when the high sales volumes masked the issues, but come January reality set in. We're doing much better now, and this is what I have learned.
Granular is better. Separate campaigns for each category, separate ad groups and separate ads for each product. Incredibly tedious to set up, but this is key to good QS, CT and CR.
Using a more granular approach lets you optimize every ad for a specific keyword, which makes every ad much cheaper. Including the keywords in the ad title, ad text, and the display URL helped reduce my minimum bids from 20-50 cents to 3 - 12 cents. Click through rates went from 1 - 2 % to as high as 50%, conversions are approaching 10% and rising.
Optimize your landing pages! It works, and it helps organic search as well, so just do it.
Search pages are your friend. If you sell several varieties of the same product (as we do) having your ad link to a landing page that only shows that type pf product is a huge difference maker. Even without having keywords in the URL or page title, we get great quality scores even for low volume searches because the entire landing page is dedicated to that topic, and links to even more pages dedicated to that topic.
Avoid content networks. Even using site-targeted ads, I haven't figured out how to show an ad that is directly relevant to the page. Maybe someday I will, but the PPM for the high quality sites is prohibitive when I have so little control over the other factors impacting conversions and the low quality sites have worse conversion rates and impact our brand negatively (I think).
This is still a work in progress, but we have seen incredible results so far. We tore down the old campaigns and started with the new ones about a month ago. So far, we are only bidding on about 25% of the keywords we were before, bringing new campaigns up one at a time. Traffic is down 60%, but sales are up 45%. But what's really telling is that we set our daily budgets based on Google's suggestion (about 10% lower, actually) before we optimized, and we are currently spending less than half our budgeted amount, even though about a third of our keywords are relatively low converting, high CTR generic "brand awareness" type terms.
All in all, this has been an educational yet disappointing experience. The things I have learned have given us a clear competitive advantage, so we are now actually benefitting from the obstacles posed by AdWords. On the other hand, I've been a fan of Google for a long time and I can't help feeling like they spent 10 or so years banking a lot of trust from the user community and now they have decided to cash it all in. Too bad, but I guess they have to eat too.
I'm having a different problem with AdWords. This probably qualifies as an advanced problem. You can read the details on my post today at: https://albany-lawyer.blogspot.com/2007/01/adw... but the short story is that they're screwing with my efforts to target my ads to specific regions. I run ads in a part of New York State far from New York City. If I use keywords with 'ny' or 'new york' in them, AdWords will not display those outside New York City. Read my post for more.
Warren
Rebecca,
The company that I am a Regional Sales Manager for, has 3 of the only 233 Google Adwords Professionals in the US. We are one of Google's top 100 certified companies, and our company was co-founded by Steve Blom, who is considered by many to be one the top search experts in the United States.
I have analyzed your campaign from the screenshots you've posted and I can see many flaws. I also read a few of your comments and I can see where you are wasting a lot of money.
Give me a call at 727-465-0925 X229, and I can discuss your needs, budget and determine where we can fit into that.
Thanks,
Justin Russo / Regional Sales Manager In Touch Media Group
Only 233? That number seems low to me. Can anyone confirm this with some type of proof?
Read this link.
https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/1/prweb496...
Also, here is a link to our company's certification:
https://adwords.google.com/select/Professional...
Ok, so your company claims this. Is there any proof from Google that this is true. I know that most companies who are certified have at least 3 professionals so the math doesn't add up. If there are 233 professionals and 3 to a company, then there would only be 77 or so certified companies. You claim that there are more than 100. I just can't see how these numbers are accurate. I even called Google and they said they aren't allowed to disclose this info...
You are assuming that all companies that are certified have at least 3 certified professionals on staff. Since we're playing your game, then I would like you to back up your claim.
Also, the link that I sent you was a press release about Leap Frog Interactive, and not our company.
I don't have time for this game anymore today, so please give me a time when you would like to call and discuss and I can put you on my calendar.
Please email me at the address in my SEOmoz profile or feel free to call me at 214-451-5787. I really want to find out if this is true. If it is, I would love to say that I also have 3 of only 233 certified people. This information would be a great sales tool but I want to be able to prove to my clients that this is in fact true when I make this claim. And to back my claim of there not being 100 certified companies if your # of 233 is true then look at this link: https://www.iprospect.com/media/press2006_05_2...
They have over 30. So, 233 minus ~30 leaves about 200. 200/2 would mean that there are only 100 certified companies. Now if any of those companies have MORE than 2, then this number of certified companies will be less than 100.
Could be 30+ subcontractors, which would equal more than 30 companies.
Hmmmm...
Once again, you're forgetting that we did not put out that press release. It was submitted by Leap Frog Interactive. You need to call them with your braininess.
Stop trying to disprove me. I never attacked you.
I am not trying to disprove you or LeapFrog. I am HONESTLY curious to see if anyone TRULY knows the number. I would love to be able to use this as a sales tool just like you, but I would like to know that I have the facts before I make this claim to prospects. Again, if ANYONE can show me where to find these numbers (with factual proof) PLEASE email me.
Okay, then I am sorry if I misunderstood your intentions.
I can have my guys do a search into the voracity of the Press Release.
FYI, the 233 number is bogus. Yes, I'm a QGAP. Everyone's a QGAP. You can use whoisagap.com to find the lower bound. That QGAP directory currently lists, just for the US, 189 individuals and 46 companies. You have to have at least 2 individuals for company status, so lower bound is 281. Add in all the companies with > 2 QGAPs and all the companies and individuals who don't know to list with whoisagap.com and you're likely talking > 1000 QGAPs.
It's not an elite group. Sure, it indicates you're a little more serious than others, but it's not a rigorous certification by any stretch of the imagination. I'd stop using it in your materials. Since Google doesn't have their own directory, all of the numbers are made up.
Thanks, Justin. I'll try to get you on the phone. In the meantime, can you send me an email?
Check out www.google.com/adpreview tool for the future, so you won't dilute impressions on your advertisements with your testing.
Peace and love is what this blog is all about.
Thanks for the fierce discussion ;)
It distracted me :D
Yeah, they're driving me nuts too. I've been running some campaigns for a couple churches where there are absolutely no ads running for their targeted keywords. I'm experienced in optimizing campaigns, but somehow Google keeps bidding up the minimum cpcs. However I don't know the keywords get disabled unless I'm watching like a hawk. These programs are not spending enough to justify constant maintenance which seems to run counter to all the automated processes that Google does for themselves.
boo!
I've had the same experience with low volume keywords. It's frustrating to do the KW research and find some low searched, high-converting terms, only to have the KWs/ads booted because they aren't searched enough.
Isn't a little money for G better than no money at all? Apparently not. They prefer their odds of forcing you to double-down on your zero competition bids than to let you have an ad run for cheap. *wink to Egol*
I didn't realize they won't let new advertisers opt out of content ad delivery. I guess; that sounds about right for what my expectations are for Google these days.
With the secretiveness of their AdSense ratios and the policies for AdWords, my imagination conjures up a scenario where some financial boss calls down to The Chief Knob Turner: "We need more money!" The Chief Knob Turner hears and obliges, grabbing a giant wheel and slowly turning it counter-clockwise (it never gets turned clockwise), small gears clicking at every degree of movement, setting into motion other finer mechanisms, each one adjusting AdSense publisher's percentage payouts per click, AdWords minimum bids to display ads, AdWords bid values to reach the first page and even search algo relevance (forcing larger investments in AdWords).
But that's just my imagination at work. I'm sure that in reality, the knob really isn't that big.
That's right... i have not yet seen a landlord that will let you move in for free... or a billboard along a highway that you can get for free. Why should google run ads written not to get clicks for free. Lots of people think that putting a toll free number in their ad will save them money... because it will keep the ad from getting clicked. Those can be counterproductive... the only way to figure things out is to test and run analytics with tags on the traffic.
My supporting evidence for this is.... look at the arbitrage ads... they have nothing to give you but another page of ads... yet they get their ads clicked heavily by saying "FREE XXXXX!" Where XXX is the KW that the searcher used or is the KW for contextual relevance. They MUST get clicks on the cheap or there MO does not work... so they attack them with ads written to get an enormous CTR knowing that the less savy people write ads that they think will only be clicked by the person with a high probability of conversion.
This is another one of those markets where contrarian thinking wins big.
And probably those 'boringly written ads' were partly to blame - low CTR means they won't show your ads. I have no idea what the boffins at Google are thinking, but it certainly isn't 'lets make it easy for people who can't get into the organics to advertise' :(
Like leadegroot said, if your CTR is low then they will stop showing your ads. I have to side with Google on this. I think that it is good for everyone. If the ad is "boring" like you said yours are then there is no added value to the searcher to see your ad. By not showing your ad, Google forces you to write better ad copy. A better ad, it will be better for you, the searcher and for Google. Of course, that doesn't help if you are just running an experiment on the cheap to see how many impressions you are going to get. :)
I've managed a few Adword campaigns. The help center is very good: https://adwords.google.com/support/
Rebbeca, I know that you are busy but I'd study the help center and then take the exam. Become an Adword Pro. As a lead SEO company it would be good to have someone in your office that is deeply knowledgable about the workings of Adwords.
https://adwords.google.com/select/professionalwelcome
In some ways you are lucky it only cost $649.40 for the first month. Your daily budget is over $1000.
Good point. I should study up on AdWords so I won't have quite as many questions (or at least new ones to bust my skull over...)
If you think that the google systems is bad, you should check out the yahoo system (I have not been upgraded to Panama yet). I like the adcenter interface, but I have trouble getting sufficient traffic.
Changes in the old Yahoo system take at least 15-20x more time to accomplish in Yahoo than in Adwords (example: changing bid prices, creating an ad, moving ads, duplicating, etc.) For that, I have nothing to complain about.
I completely agree that Google is deliberately and possibly evilly forcing content ads upon users. This is the single larges trap for inexperienced adwords users, and has caused people i know to abandon adwords completely, because they received loads of nonconverting clicks.
Rebecca - one reason your ads may not show 100% is the scheduling option. Many companies disable ads after business hours, so if you checked an east coast based site at 4:00 west coast time, chances are you weren't bidding against them.
I made sure to check the "always show my ads" (or whatever it was) option, so I'm not sure that would be the problem.
Rand & Rebecca,
Have you been to the AdWords Help Google Groups? They're here: groups.google.com/group/adwords-help
There are very few Googlemployees (good contraction, eh?) that post there, but there are some pretty good "volunteer" posters. I answer questions as Rich@Apogee. There are also good answers from user JezC (his blog.merjis.com is a good AdWords resource).
I've been managing AdWords accounts since 2002. The system has changed over the years and has become more difficult for advertisers to manage. Google has tried to address this by rolling out Starter Edition. I've argued (via blog and in forums) that this is a very bad solution for new advertisers, for many reasons. It doesn't even give newbies the option to opt out of the content network. Yikes!
Anyway, if you want some help, let me know. Rand, you have my email. BTW, did you ever win a game of Flickr TagMan? ;-)
Where's Adam (Dr. Google) when you need him?
You have to have the focus of a spammer to do well with Adwords sadly. It is not for "mom and pops".
Hey Rebecca, can we get a look at the landing pages to get the complete story here? ;)
We weren't trying to make any money because we had no call to action on our landing pages...just wanted impressions. Oh, how we wanted impressions...
Here's a good example - https://www.seomoz.org/articles/deciduous-fore...
aaron..you name looks familiar..r u in DC area?
And I was wondering why my venndiagrammingtheuvula.com MFA site was starting to earn money ;)
The content network auto opt-in is where a lot of money is wasted (and where Google makes a killing).
Check out the top 17 mistakes PPC marketers make. It's a nice little checklist of easy-to-avoid money burners.
Rebecca - this has happened to us for numerous customers... I even had several keywords start at 0,15$ / click ending up at 6,51$ / click because of inactivity - moved from 0,15$ to 0,61$ to 1,21$ to 3,20$ to 6,51$. WAIT... that's 45 times the initial price... Damn, inflation is tough on you sometimes.
The way to approach and trick Google CPC system (although it takes a bit longer to implement) would be to split generic keywords (the one who will get tons of impressions) into separate groups, because the CTR affects SO MUCH the CPC in Adwords. As an example:
You have 10 keywords (let's name them #1 to #10):
#1 has 50% of the impressions and a CTR of 0,5% (generic term) #2 has 30% of the impressions and a CTR of 0,75% (still generic term) #3 through #10 all have 2,5% of the impressions each and a CTR of 15,00% (your most targeted keywords). As a smart kid, you believe that those are really going to lower your CPC... That's where you're totally wrong about it!
The results of such an Ad campaign will be a nightmare ROI/CPC wise. Since 2 keywords rack up 80% of the impressions, most of your "CPC rate" will be based on the CTR of those 2 keywords, ruining your efforts of lowering the CPC to increase the ROI.
This is simply rigged - As an example, I had 2 campaigns running simultaneously for the same keywords for 2 mortgage companies of the same branch... And one had the keyword "loan" in it, and the other didn't have it... and that "loan" keyword was generating 40-45% of all the impressions of my keywords...
Well, believe it or not, if I removed the keyword "loan" in the 1st campaign and compare the average CPC paid for all keywords, I was paying 50% extra on the first campaign because my CTR was so low because of the "loan" keyword. Imagine... this customer of mine spends tens of thousands a month for its PPC. Should we call that a professional service, or just another slightly over the edge technique?
Can someone tell me who thought about this system?
Hope it helps - take care
Guillame - Keep in mind that CTR and CPC and QS (quality score) are assessed at the keyword level. The way to rank well on AdWords is to group keywords by theme and have short keyword lists per ad group so that those keywords can actually be in the ad text and on the landing page. From Google's help pages:
Ad Rank = CPC X QS
Before the advent of QS, this was essentially:
Ad Rank = CPC x CTR
I believe CTR is still the biggest factor in QS but you have to overcome the initial AdsBot hurdle for landing page QS and you have to establish a solid historical CTR. This is important to understand from the Google help text:
"The Quality Score used to determine your ad's rank is slightly different from the keyword Quality Score used to determine your ad's minimum CPC bid requirement. Your keyword's overall Quality Score considers the keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR) and the relevance of the keyword, your ad's text, and landing page. The Quality Score used for ad ranking considers your keyword's CTR, ad text relevance, and your keyword's relevance in relation to a user's search query."
Yes, there are *two* QS values (three if you count QS for the content network). Only the first one uses landing page quality. That's the QS that impacts minCPC. Nowadays, you'll see this user-agent in your logs shortly after ad creation: "AdsBot-Google (+https://www.google.com/adsbot.html)"
Most people don't seem to realize that it's a 2-step process. It's useful to "work it backwards," i.e. first build a landing page that's relevant for a handful of related keywords (or use an existing page if there's a relevant one), then write the ad text and then fine-tune the keyword list (setting appropriate match types and layering in negatives over time based on feedback from web analytics or server log analysis to capture the *actual* keywords typed).
Also, consider carefully how you use exact, phrase, broad, and negative keywords in the short keyword list for a given ad group. If you're using broad match which is actually expanded broad match, either bid lower on it than phrase and exact or else develop an extensive negative keyword list. IOW, you don't really know what you're buying with (expanded) broad match. You do with exact and have a pretty good idea with phrase.
Getting back to the Ad Rank "formula" ...
Ad Rank = CPC X (keyword's CTR, ad text relevance, keyword relevance)
So, if your core keywords are on the landing page and you succeeded in achieving a low minCPC, then CPC and ad text are important initially. Once the ad runs for a bit and, assuming the ad text is highly relevant and interesting for a given search, the keyword will establish a decent CTR. That will then become the dominant factor in QS. But, because you need to generate a sufficient number of impressions to get clicks to establish CTR, it's often worth bidding a high CPC initially. If CTR isn't high enough after generating some clicks, rework the ad text. If CTR is good, drop the CPC after a bit.
HTH
-Rich@Apogee
Here's a person who knows how to do this type of experiment and make sense of it.
Thanks, EGOL. I do try to be helpful - and thorough. I put together a Google Custom Search Engine for AdWords Help to, well, help.
You gotta make sure you have grouped your keywords in related groups (better yet, if you only have a derivatives of a word in a group), write keyword-focused ads and same targeted landing pages. Keyword focus is the key in reducing the cost with PPC.
If you had few landing pages and non-keyword focused ads, you surely got burnt. In a way, low CTR must have influenced your cost, too.
My two cents - I can relate to the frustration as I recall how it was when I started out with PPC (considering I've been doing both natural-seo and PPC now for over a year I actually find that they tie in very closely in terms of ROI for a particular business).
The confusion occurs because one is SEM and one is SEO and both have the word Search Engine in them. But the reality is they are distinctly different in mode of operation, setup, and of course tracking. Although what happens after the click is where they work hand in hand (landing pages, conversions etc`) and this adds to the confusion.
After using Google, Miva, MSN Yahoo etc` from my perspective the Google limitations are quite a positive thing as it lowers the amount of competition. Regarding the Ad-content being on when you first start your campaigns, Google's "do no evil" doesn't mean "not make money" and one should really dig into the help file before just starting it off. It is a specialised skill set (though not nearly as comprehensive as natural seo in terms of the experience and background knowledge required) but still takes a while to get the hang of – and especially when we are talking ROI. So far you’re only facing the challenges of setup, its competitive industries which make it a real challenge to manage.
Re ad content - a lot of the users of PPC come from an agency background with banner advertising where they focus on branding. Ad network content is ideal for this purpose and this is how I justify Google leaving it on, in many senses it can prove good returns.
It sounds like your nonsensical terms are coming back to bite you in the ass as they are filtered through as nonsensical.
One thing in common with the Google and Yahoo is it is becoming increasingly more difficult to optimize the campaigns due to "black box relevancy algo" (another way of saying you need to increase your order in your IO or campaign budget settings to pay more dividend for stockholders and meet the quarterly goals)and optimize the site naturally so that site owners are encouraged to ramp up SEM campaigns. (see black box relevancy algo) LOL
Hi Rebecca,
Sounds like you got a problem with your landing pages, due to Google's quality score.
Below are 10 ways to improve your quality score:
1.Allow robots to spider the site
2.Ensure you have a clearly defined privacy policy (Robot Friendly & Easily Accessible)
3. Ensure you have a contact details page with full address, telephone number & email. (Robot Friendly & Easily Accessible)
4.Avoid standard sized Banners & Creatives. Maybe even host creatives yourself or mask the src. Basically Mask any code that could be attributed to an affiliate network or PPC Search Engine.
5. Increase Content to Banner (Image) Ratio
6. Google will know names of existing advertisers & those which have affiliate programs, so reading a number of merchants on your page will flag that you are possibly an affiliate. Not sure on the solution to this, maybe merchants name is an image or javascript & avoid mentioning merchant name in copy or url. But this is a last measure.
7. Add outgoing links ( not many -- 5-6, to authority sites) providing surfers access to more information.
8. Important - Ensure there are related keywords and terms on the page – body copy, meta-data, etc
9. Ensure the content is unique
10. Add About us page
This is a very good example why SEM campaign management is something each and every potential client should seriously consider when purchasing SEM services. Too bad most smaller clients simply try to cut off the expenses and leave campaign management out of contract.
Wow, thanks for all of the comments. SEOmoz is all about the organics, so this AdWords business is a whole new frontier for us. I'm really pleased to read all of the advice you're giving us, since it's all new information.
PPC and SEO are similar in ways, and differ in others. Try listening to a PPC person speaking about SEO and you end up with the same type of confusion or BS.
I can understand people who don't use the adwords system often having a tough time adjusting. It's like watching a new SEO creating crappy pages that never rank and getting every link they can muster to try and rank a page.
From the perspective of a big budget advertiser, I think the system works really well. I like the fact that stronger ads show, and that if I convert better and / or I am more relevant the system favors my ads. It is a better end user experience to show the strong ads.
I think some of the frustration you are having is because you are doing exactly opposite of what AdWords was built for. You are trying to buy spots on low traffic terms with ads that don't get clicked. That is going to cause a headache for sure. It's like using a blowtorch to cook a piece of toast, or a toaster to cook a pizza. The results won't be good because you are not using the tool for the reasons / scenarios it was designed to handle.
If you spend a lot of time on PPC networks, you'd be surprised at how far ahead Google's platform really is. It is intuitive... but web advertising is not some simple thing for anybody to handle. Nor is TV. Nor is Direct Mail. Nor is Radio, etc. It's the real deal and experience is necessary to be able to really push the envelope.
I do agree however, that defaulting to the content network is a little effed up.
drop me an email, I have something you can tinker with.
A great tool to check out is www.google.com/adpreview to make sure your advertising is showing in a specific regional area. This tool allows you to not dilute impressions, and also allows you to search as if you were in Dallas, TX, if you were searching from Miami, FL. This Google tool is awesome for National Campaign PPC Management.