I was wondering if anyone else here is using Google Adwords.

I've been using it for about 3 weeks now and im still working out the kinks on both the ad and selecting the proper keywords.


Are any others doing this as well and if so, what has your ROI been using it.

Thanks!

Erik

Originally posted by essene
I was wondering if anyone else here is using Google Adwords.

I've been using it for about 3 weeks now and im still working out the kinks on both the ad and selecting the proper keywords.


Are any others doing this as well and if so, what has your ROI been using it.

Thanks!

Erik

is this for freee ?

adwords.google.com

No, you bid on your ranking..no different than the other search engines such as altavista, hotbot, infoseek, yahoo, etc

Google is one of the few search engine that offers this themselves..

The rest are controlled by Overture
www.overture.com

The specifics are on both sites :)

Originally posted by essene
Google is one of the few search engine that offers this themselves..

The rest are controlled by Overture Just to clarify, it's not just Overture that has results placed on other sites. Google AdWords are used as "sponsored listings" (or a similar designation) by other sites, too: most significantly AOL and MSN.

man, i never could get any good ROI from adwords. I'm not an SEO guy tho.

Originally posted by JayC
Just to clarify, it's not just Overture that has results placed on other sites. Google AdWords are used as "sponsored listings" (or a similar designation) by other sites, too: most significantly AOL and MSN.
Shudders at leads coming through from AOL and MSN. :D :eek:

Adwords or Overture are places that can make sense if you can convert good prospects into sales at a good rate, but due to the pricey nature of the prospects - its not a place to use to tweak the effectiveness of your website / offering

Track your conversions from the expenditure and you'll know if it works for you ;)

I personally haven't had experience with Google AdWords (if you want to read more about it, head to: searchengineforums.com and use the search feature).

However, I have read other people that have accounts with Google Adwords and their success has taken months and months. It's basically trial-and-error. Drafting catchy and legal AdWord text, and submitting them to the public to see what the outcome is is what it is.

Optimizing your keywords, etc.

Just because you didn't have a good ROI from the first time you placed your ad on Google AdWords for one month doesn't mean it's not very useful. You didn't try hard enough. :)

Are you guys saying you're getting a lot of clicks, but no sales?

Good Points all of you....

Here are my results from the past 2.5 weeks

36.40 USD Total Expenses on Adwords

Total Signups - 5
Profit - per month - 64.65 USD

Of course, these are going to be reoccurring so the ROI (should they stay) is higher...

Granted, ive only been using it so my advice is partially worthless, but if you narrow your keywords to a demographic you want to aim for in any given month, the returns are higher...

A good example is the keyword "web hostng". Youre looking at 50.00 per bid at $240.00 per day just to sit in the top 6...

I'm thinking seriously about taking the plunge with Overture considering their saturation...need more information though...

I try to handle advertising much like stocks...diversify..

Grassroots Local, Canada Only, US Only, Sponsored Links, people in the IT consulting industry..etc....

However, the Overture offering as well as google for everything I said, still boggles me..

any thoughts?

erik

AdWords have proved to be quite a low ROI for us when compared to other PPCs.

Sam, can you expound upon this...

Compared to what other PPC's?

thanks in advance,

erik

Originally posted by essene
Good Points all of you....

Here are my results from the past 2.5 weeks

36.40 USD Total Expenses on Adwords

Total Signups - 5
Profit - per month - 64.65 USD
erik

thanks for sharing ;)

Jakob Nielsen's written about his experience with Google's adwords:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010902.html

Not a problem Mike..

Nothing ticks me off more than a post where someone asks for help on advertising or how they do things, and everyone keeps their "information" close to the vest...

People arent looking for everyone's yearly financials, but sharing information, in the long run even some ROI information, helps people just getting into this insane business alot..

Also, just to put a disclaimer into what I've said, when advertising or marketing, it's important to treat it as though you were a good investor of stocks...diversify..that means local grass roots, provincial/state marketing, national marketing and international marketing....

Dependent upon each, perhaps you re-brand to fit the demographic..

Anyway..anyone else with any suggestions on the google adwords?

Oh...

and helping is good for the karma :fairy:

Suggestions?

Track each adword individually (with cookies) and measure the conversions produced by each adword. You can then dump the under productive ones in favor of good ROI keywords! ;)

This way, you can tweak your ROI up further ..

Here's a good article I found on Searchengineforums.com that you should read:

Hi, I have recently started using AdWords for three clients and I have a couple of observations to offer that may be helpful for newer users of AdWords. You experienced users will likely know this info already so feel free to skip this. Or better yet, add to it with your experience.
When I first set up an ad for one client, I put a general catch all ad up with many keywords. It wasn't bad and had a 4.79% click through for a time. That began to fall and bottomed out at 2.5%.

At this point I advised the client that I would write ads that targeted each keyword and put them in separate adgroups. This has resulted in a steady climb in the click throughs to the point now of 3.8%. That is not spectacular I know, but the climb has been steady and prolonged.

This technique also allows you to use the tracking url with each keyword being identified. I have not been able to correlate anything into a return on investment as the clients shopping cart is hosted on his banks server where they do not log IP addresses. Do not use the Bank Of America's shopping cart!

This cart is the worst designed thing I have ever seen. I could not begin to describe to you how lousy it is. And they charge clients $100 US a month plus a $250 setup fee. I figured a warning about that fit into this thread as the shopping cart is the sole reason I can't tell you if the ROI has also improved.

I hope this thread ends up helping other new advertisers with Google.

Hi essene,

We did a bulk of adwords aimed at a UK market and were promised they would appear on the UK only pages. This didnt turn out to be strictly true, i think most of the referers were from the US so they were pretty much useless to us.

I think we possibly got one sale out of about £200.

Thanks a bunch to the three of you for your insight!

You know..I'm looking at Overture now as well, but based on the information, this may not be a good investment..

Do you think Overture has the same low ROI involved?...And for that matter, are they more specific to your region, unlike what unfortunately happened to Sam?

Im also wondering out loud if the ROI involved with google is industry specific...In essence, is the global average around 3 - 4 percent.....

Theres a number of other PPC engines out there. This one is trageted for the hosting industry: http://www.ppcforhosts.com/.

Here are a few others (Listed in no perticular order):
http://www.sprinks.com/
http://www.findwhat.com/
http://www.7search.com/
http://www.kanoodle.com/
http://www.goclick.com/

Hope this helps!

Originally posted by protecweb
Hi essene,

We did a bulk of adwords aimed at a UK market and were promised they would appear on the UK only pages. This didnt turn out to be strictly true, i think most of the referers were from the US so they were pretty much useless to us.

I think we possibly got one sale out of about £200.

Some PPC engines 'syndicate' their search results to third party sites to increase exposure. BUT often the quality of the 3rd sites are doubtful ... hence the overall ROI gets dragged down badly.

Be careful of PPC search engines who don't have much traffic themselves and use 3rd party sites for most of their results. Unless these PPCs monitor their partners VERY closely, the quality of the traffic will be low.

There nothing's terribly wrong with syndication, but it's the level of effective monitoring and commitment to advertisers that will affect your ad success ... so look for an honest and reputable PPC.

Thanks both of you...

The syndicate feature is a good point as I'm finding that I have more aol visitors than cdroms at this point.

Apparantly, the other search engines have formed a cartel of sorts, the culmination of which is Overture. They oversee all advertising for I beleive Yahoo, MSN, Infoseek, hot bot, lycos, and altavista.

Their approach is fairly unique in that, initially, they will develop a proposal and submit this to you. It will contain (i would assume) your market space information and a "go forward" plan for your advertising.

The price for the proposal alone i beleive is $199 USD, so entering into this venture is not as easy a decision as google's was.

The sprinks plan is also unique and after reading through ppchosts.com it was interesting to note that upon entering the first page of the site, you garner the impression that they not only market you within their own environment, but will also strategically place you in others. Once I went into the "How it Works" section, it seemed as though you are relegated to their environment in terms of marketing your site.

vhedesigns, have you had any experience with ppc for hosts and if so, am I reading the literature incorrectly?

Thanks again all of you,

Erik

essene,

Sorry, I do not have any experience with PPChosts as I only came accross it yesterday. The good thing about PPChosts is that its pretty inexpensive, so you can try it for a few weeks without breaking the bank.

Smaller PPCs like this one are the perfect arena to launch different campaigns and to find out what works.

Hope this helps!

sometimes when i search there is sponsors directly under the search window, how is that?

how can i get there?

thanks

Google Premium means you must spend $15k over three months.

Here the link:
http://www.google.com/ads/overview.html

Google Premium means you must spend $15k over three months.

Ack!!!!!

yeah i think advertising.com is right up there in price if not more.....

The irony of course, if I had enough clients to warrant 5,000 a month on just google premium listings...

I wouldnt need premium listings :eek:

ahhh..the rich just get richer

Originally posted by essene


Ack!!!!!

ahhh..the rich just get richer


An the poor get f*****? :bawling:


Yeah but with the 15k over three months you doing PPC advertising. So if you can convert at a great rate then it may be something to consider?

Anyone have an success with target emailing?

Thanks!

$15K ... you could list your hosting plans for more than a year on some of the better hosting directories! :eek:

yeah, actually, im also looking at tophosts...or in my case tophosts.ca

Canadians dont play nicely with US rates, so I'd be looking at alot more than 15k...

more like 25k...

I mean, i can rationalize 15k for the year..but not 15k for 3 months..plus you would have to use that with just one service..If I spent that over 3 months..I would keep second guessing wondering what's on the other side of the rainbow...

I think I'm just going to hang a sign around my neck in downtown Calgary that says "Will Host for Food"

LOL essence :D

Originally posted by essene
The sprinks plan is also unique and after reading through ppchosts.com it was interesting to note that upon entering the first page of the site, you garner the impression that they not only market you within their own environment, but will also strategically place you in others. Once I went into the "How it Works" section, it seemed as though you are relegated to their environment in terms of marketing your site.


Just for clarification...

PPCforHosts in fact markets exclusively outside our site. That is, the visitors we deliver to our advertisers come only from our network of partner sites, NOT ppcforhosts.com. The search feature you see on our site is for prospective advertisers to get an idea of how our system works.

I hope this clears things up.

Best,

Thanks PPC!

Ok so in essence, we would sign up for free, then we would bid against other hosting companies for specific positions within..At least this is what I have gathered.

if this is so, it may be the best deal going becaus they are targeting potential hosting customers...

It would be cool if we could also target demographically...

Originally posted by PPCforHosts


Just for clarification...

PPCforHosts in fact markets exclusively outside our site. That is, the visitors we deliver to our advertisers come only from our network of partner sites, NOT ppcforhosts.com. The search feature you see on our site is for prospective advertisers to get an idea of how our system works.

I hope this clears things up.

Best,

I've seen PPCforHosts advertised here quite often ;) Managed a few emails with them too ... Their other competitor is findyourhosting.com which displays their paid listings within their own site.

I think they're the 2 main sites in the hosting-specific PPC market.

Originally posted by essene
Thanks PPC!

Ok so in essence, we would sign up for free, then we would bid against other hosting companies for specific positions within..At least this is what I have gathered.

if this is so, it may be the best deal going becaus they are targeting potential hosting customers...

It would be cool if we could also target demographically...

Exactly.

You can have a free listing in the PPCforHosts directory, but your company will appear at the bottom of a list of hundreds of other web hosting companies. To get real results from our system, you would want to make a deposit and bid for higher (top 10 or 20) placement.

Other hosting-specific PPC services include ISPCheck and HostPPC.com. The format of those two services, and of FindYourHosting.com, is different than PPCforHosts in that they provide categorized lists of hosts. PPCforHosts is a searchable database, more interactive. Different approaches to the same advertising model.