I just signed up with google adwords and went for dinner. Came back in an hour to find that there were 55 clicks and I had a cost of about £45. Am I a victim of 'click fraud' or am I doing something wrong here. I wouldn't mind this being the case if this is normal ... but I have just recently read about click fraud and wondering if I should be concerned. I have used quite a few keywords... but they are all relevant... Any expert advice before I loose hundreds pleaseee.....!!
# of clicks is not all related to click fraud. I work with campaigns that get thousands of clicks per hour.
You need to set daily spending limit if you don't want to lose lots of money fast. I know lots of people who have lost hundreds of dollars a day just because they didn't set spending limits.
are you opted in the content network? Yes I am opted in the content network. ------------------------------------------------ I had set a daily spending limit of £70. But within an hour... I had already reached £45. (on £53 while i was writing this post!) --------------------------------------------------------------- My conversions say 0.00% Thats why i am concerned. ----------------------------------------------------- I sell home furnishings, blinds, curtains, mirrors and fabrics. I have quite a few keywords as I have 350 products for now... and increasing daily... ---------------------------------------------------- What in your view is an ideal spending limit to get a decent conversion rate. ------------------------------------------- thanks guys.... any help is appreciated. Anish
You really just have to do some testing. There are so many variables it's not possible to give you a dollar figure you need to spend. I'd suggest starting with the search network only, figuring out what works there and then trying your hand at the content network. Read the AdWords Learning Center material as well.
go to http://www.hittail.com/ sign up etc and get started finding out your long tail terms. you will be able to lower your cpc while getting more targeted visitors. i have been involved with ppc campaigns whih cost 80-90 k pm your clicks are quite normal for home furnishings. i mean i know how often my missus goes shopping
Did you op for a wide range of keyword? If yes, alot of site might be publishing your ad and im not sure about the conversion part.
As you appear to be selling physical goods switch off the Google Content Network and just bid on keywords in Search. You would likely get lower conversion in the Content Network as you ads may appear on not very targeted pages. Hence you may just get tyre kickers. Start bids low, and build up for traffic and conversions. Then bid higher on those keywords that bring yu converting traffic. Although I feel that maybe difficult in your market unless you have good tracking software operating on your site to track orders. As a tip: When I look for products at Google Search, I find mainly ebay listings. So if you dont already, start selling your furniture and so on, at ebay and you may get high organic listing very quickly for those products.
Get out of the content network ASAP! This post might help you - http://www.clickinput.com/adwords/top-10-donts-when-using-adwords/
To be fair, the conversions tend to take longer to appear that the clicks, in my experience. I would strongly recommend slashing your bids, rather than shutting down the content network, at least until you've got enough data to tell whether it's working or not... Ideally, I'd be looking to set my bids at a level where your money just runs out at the end of the day on average. That gives you as many clicks as possible for your money, and hence means that you'll be able to tell what your conversion rate is (and hence what you can afford per click) as quickly as possible. If you find that the content network is spending 90% of your budget, then you may want to pause it whilst you optimise the search network.
I suggest you limit yourself to a much lower budget until you are used to Adwords. You seem to pay a lot for each click, with those kinds of prices (1 pound = what? 1.5$ now a days?) you need to know they convert. And get out of content (and if you ever get back, run a separate campaign for it).
I've heard from time to time good and mostly bad things about the content network and I tend to totally ignore it. This has really got me concerned as I was considering starting a new campaign with the content network turned on. I believe testing both search and content seperately is a good idea and depending on how it converts you should slowly increase your budget.