Welcome to my worthless post. I used to use AdWords about a year ago. Today I got back into it. Seems like across the board prices are 2x or 3x. I guess I didn't know how good I had it back then! I am going to have to check out the second tier PPC sites again. Anyone else have the PPC prices, price you out of the market?
I've posted about it several times... I target typos and stuff like that that no one else wants, so I am the only advertiser, and even with that I need to bid 20 cents or more or have my keywords disabled. Ridiculous.
Do you target typos for keywords also? Interesting. I remember typing in a keyword that i thought i would get lots of results but I didn't and then I noticed that i typed it in wrong. Google allows users to fix typos anyway - i wonder how many users click the option to fix typos. I know i always use that option.
What industry/market are you in? AdWords has become a lot more popular in the last 12 months and some markets have increased more than others. I've yet to find one (a market) though where you can't find some decent keywords at cheap prices It's not as easy as it was a year ago, but 9 times out of 10 you can still make it work.
I don't understand how websites remain profitable if they exist almost solely on PPC ads anymore. For my market, selling a $20 product a click costs about 75 cents or more. If you take your profit ($10 or less sometimes), you have to convert at about 8% to make the keyword even close to profitable. This does not include any other expenses at all. Its amazing.
My overall Adwords CPC has gone up about 30% in the last two years. It's still very profitable for us though.
There are way too many variables per advitiser/industry to say it's not profitable. This practice has been around since the dawn of internet marketing. I call it "going after the low-hanging fruit". I do agree that prices have gone up however, I just manage to stay profitable. And I totally agree with fryman that it is absolutely ridiculous to be forced to pay $0.20 when you're the only advetiser using that keyword. Google is a liar when it says it has $.05 clicks...
I can't say it isn't paying off because it is but the costs have definitely shot up over the last 12 months. Does need careful watching however. That, and not letting yourself get carried away with the new keywords tools
Make sure you are configuring your Adwords campaign correctly. For example I use geotargeting for my ads to reach only Google searchers in Canada for my UsedMac.ca site. Paying for ads to display anywhere else would be a waste of money. I also choose to just advertise on the Search networks and not the Content pages. Also as with any other marketing campaign remember to stick with your budget.
I wasn't in any specific market back then. The stuff I did was PPC to feed affiliate marketing sites. Most of it was a complete failure since I didn't know a thing about what I was doing. Eventually I found a good combination of keywords / affiliates. My best roi was about +25% - today it would be about -90% lol. Now I am trying out PPC direct to ebay with things that I know about (games primarily). I am also trying out a caparison shopping engine idea with PPC traffic just to see if there is any hope with it. Both of these will be somewhat expensive for my budget but I hope to learn something with this campaign.