Need help/tips organising Adwords campaign...

[fluke]

Hi

A client of mine owns a small business and wants me to construct a website for them which i am quite happy about as i have done it many times before. But I think that instead of SEOing the site they may want to go for a Googles adwords campaign. Now i have read quite a bit on PPC campaigns in the past and have recently brushed up a bit on how adwords works.However i get the impression it can be quite a complicated business running a ppc campaign and also i seem to recall that with overture it is possible to spend alot of money quite quickly with little ROI(although with adwords I understand that you can cap your daily budget so you don't spend too much - but can still get a poor ROI i guess). If i can't get a handle on where the possible pitfalls lie i may have to pass the campaign wholly on to someone else.( which i don't want to do - but i don't want to take risks with my clients money)

I would be grateful if anyone could give me any advice on the most important things to look out for when conducting an adwords campaign.

I am also wondering how much effort /time (and therefore money) would need to go into an adwords campaign to make it worth while.

i guess there are tools to help you work out traffic figures and click through costs in adwords (i see there is a "traffic estimator" - can you access this before signing up for an account?) and so estimate how much money the adwords campaign itself would cost - but i havn't a clue about what it will cost me in time and effort (and therfore don't know what to charge my client)

i guess like most things all these questions are quite subjective but it would be very helpful to hear any advice you chaps may be able to give.
ithe main term has a highest bid of 45p in overture and minimum bid or 10p and the overture traffic tool gives a figure of around 16000 if that helps any)

also if anyone can reccommend any sources for exhaustive information on PPC campaigns i'd be grateful (i guess google itself is pretty comprehensive but i feel it may not list any of the "bad" things)


thanks in advance.

[T0PS3O]

There are no bad things. You have full control. It's easy as one could wish for. There's tons of help files available. Read PDFs like the Google Adwords Definitive Guide and you'll be a pro from scratch.

With conversion tracking you know every little detail to monitor your campaign. We have about a 1000 ads running simultaneously and it takes no more than 15 minutes a day to monitor and tweak. On top of that we prolly spend a day a month deleting unsuccessful campaigns and creating new ones.

It is important to know the margins on the products sold so you know what yuo want to spend per-click.

I'd say 'Go for it!'. You'll find it a breeze.

After AdWords, when you find that it's hard to pump more traffic into the site, you can look at Overture. Overture has got a lot better recently, now also with daily budgets etc.

[fluke]

thanks tops30

thing is right at this point in time i am utterly broke and can't even afford the definitive guide.- so i guess i'll keep looking for other articles etc(trouble is they all seem to be similar and never seem to say enough).

can anyone give me any tips please? (or where to find a really good free guide?)

[T0PS3O]

The tutorials and your experience/imagination should get you well on your way. Just tell your client you need $100 up front to set it all up. Buy the guide and spend the other 50 on the first ads.

Try Kazaa if you want PDFs for free ;) (I did actually buy mine).

[fluke]

nice one - thanks muchly tops30

while were on the subject of money/time how much time do you'd think it would take to optimise a group of ads in order that you can then be satisified they are giving you good value for money?
(also is there any way to find which ad click-throughs are converting to sales or is it not possible?- as i guess that is pretty fundamental to weeding out your best ads/keywords from the worst)..

sorry for all the q's - it's just i need to try and give the guy a rough quote as soon as possible..

[T0PS3O]

You can install Conversion Tracking. Very useful! It's just a bit of script that goes on your purchase confirmation page.

Gettting a campign up and running involves several steps. Keywords reseacrh, writing copy, running it for a week or two, reviewing it, tweaking it and after that moment you can probably leave them alone for some time. It all depends on how many ads you're writing and whether you want one ad to show for 100 phrases or 100 different ads for 100 phrases. The 1000ish we're running can be done with just a few days dedication to start off with, then tweaking 2 hours a week with a full day's work once a month to review I guess.

[fluke]

Thanks :)

[T0PS3O]

I didn't see any positive karma coming in ;) haha.

No probs; it's always good to mess around with something yourself for days. But if you then can get someone else to do the same in under 24hrs it makes you feel like all that work paid off even better.

[greatlinks]

I would be grateful if anyone could give me any advice on the most important things to look out for when conducting an adwords campaign.

Bid higher in the beginning, then lower bids after your CTR is established

[havok2004]

To me it is important to know what kind of product you are promoting. Depending on that, you could get many clicks with no sales. If it is a niche product that you are quite certain will generate sales... go for it.

[T0PS3O]

Originally Posted by T0PS3O
I would be grateful if anyone could give me any advice on the most important things to look out for when conducting an adwords campaign.

Bid higher in the beginning, then lower bids after your CTR is established

You are putting words in my mouth I've never said... The threadstarter asked that, not me. Please edit, it's not proper quoting and creates confusion.

[fluke]

yes i thought i said that

[webvivre]

Use "" or [ ] filtering. This targets your advert with the effect that your % clickthroughs increases and Google rewards you with better a better click cost.

[mrjonman]

There really are a lot of variables to learn about with Adwords. IMNSHO, Perry Marshall's eBook is the best to learn about maximizing your campaigns quickly.

I've written a free eBook called "Beginner's Guide to Google Adwords" that you can download at mannmadesoftware.com/downloads.asp I'm not sure what "level" you're at with regards to Adwords - it is definitely a beginner's book but the price is right!

John