I have a few questions . I have run sever add champaign on Google and also on Yahoo I pay a pretty penny each month for both and have for many yrs. I am a business owner of a Crane Inspection company for the past 30 plus yrs plus. My business is lucrative . I do certifications,Inspections,Accident investigations and i am also an veteran litigation Expert Witness to over 55 closed accident cases at ONE time . I have ALOT of domains that have been registered to me for 10 yrs plus . Because most people don't use a telephone book for advertisement these days . I definitely have word of mouth business over the yrs but I am looking to bring in more from the internet. This is a New company goal - How much weight should be placed on PAYING for Google & Yahoo adds to keep you at the top when times are slow .? If i discontinued the billing for it what are the best avenues beside that ?? How much in my advertising budget should be placed in the hands of Google /Yahoo vs other Internet Marketing companies ? Or is it really the Best way to go for someone like me who has a solid company out side of the WEB. And yrs on the web with many domain names and sites ?
Only you can answer that question really. If you are spending $10,000 in advertising, and that advertising money brings in $100,000 profit, it's probably worth it. If you are only bringing in $5,000 profit with your $10,000 advertising expense, it obviously wouldn't be. The first thing you should do (if you aren't already) is setup a system to track EXACTLY the revenue you are getting for your specific ads. Then you can make such comparisons.
I would suggest you to try face book advertising.I won't recommend to unsubscribe from ad sense,since you are looking for more business from the internet it is better if you maintain the relationship with them.
Any advertising that results in getting more business and doing it profitably is worth it. As with anything else, using something properly is another question. Being involved with cranes, you surely know that. I suggest contacting an expert.
There are several ways you can verify if your Google campaign is profitable or not. The most basic thing you can do is to install the free conversion tracking that comes with your Google Adwords account. The basic idea of this form of advertising is to show your ads to users who are already looking for what you have to offer. From what you've said I can guess that your campaign is probably not optimized. The good news is that you can actually increase your campaigns profitability.
Why don't you start with checking to see if the Keyword you want to advertise gets any traffic and see how much per click will gets you the most traffic. So, let say your KW is $1.00 per click. if you bid the maximum dollars, you will get 100 clicks per day. That will be $100 per day you have to pay google. If your willing to pay $100 per day and get the maximum traffic, your advertising budget will be around $3000 per month. Use the KW tool, see how much traffic, how much per click..hope it helps
Sounds like you need to be tracking your keywords a bit more. That way whether times are slow or not, you can always only run the ones that are profitable for you.
Since you are in a big business. I will recommend you to hire a very professional company to run ad words campaigns for you. If they do it correctly. They will bring you everything you want.
That is the key for you right there. I can't tell you how many times I simply threw money out the window by blindly choosing generic keywords that didn't convert. For instance "New York Rangers" as a keyword for selling jerseys was a terrible choice! Not one sale with that keyword. "New York Rangers Jerseys" sold like hotcakes. Get my drift here? So then..... using the term "cranes" might be a very risky venture. Try long-tail and see how it goes.