The most I paid for PPC was .70 a click and that was a cheap lesson and made me rethink my campaign and target audience. It is not a waste if you learn from the experience.
To OP. I about tripped today when I saw some changes in my keywords. they went from a min .50 cent bid to a five to ten dollars increase. um.. sorry, but I AINT bidding that. I'm not even selling a service there, just a little pr for the forum. I like to advertise a little bit with the change I pick up doing work on the internet, but my work is so limited that I don't actually advertise it with adwords. I have Digital Point at the top of the list for keeping me plenty busy with some jobs summary: I saw a huge rise in the bidding price on my keywords list today. PS. I tracked that my adwords ad was being showed on a torrent site and it came up in a " particular keyword" search. LOL. I took Google partners off of my adwords campaign. I'm not rich enough to advertise on a torrent site.....
I truly agree Unless you have a targeted campaign with an optimized high quality landing page, Google will surely increase the required bids Best regards Ron
it really is hard to believe that google has convinced us all that 50 visitors to your site for $20 is a good price...
It also depends a lot on what you are selling and how targeted you are able to make the ads, in terms of geographic location. With us, we ended up getting nothing but bogus orders, or orders that were bought with stolen or false CC information.
Even if google says there's 0,0 search volum on [long string of keywords], just add them. Copy paste your current phrases and change em slightly (plural ftw). I easily generate hundreds of keyword phrases this way within a short period of time (wtihout using a tool). Also use gooogle's keyword suggestion tools, very handy. It's not hard to get 200 keyword phrases that will cost you 0.05 per click and will bring in the same amoutn of traffic then a few expensive keywords, but at a much lower price
Yeah I guesss the main idea is to constantly check up on things and monitor whats going on... Being careless will cost you money... I knew a guy that put in words to do with xbox and playstation or something like that and he was getting beat over the head.... little did he realize is that some little 13 year old kid was clicking on them around the world... Reseach what keywords are perfoming the best and which ones arent You can set a schedule when your ads run... Maybe your business is only selling to the US... and your ads are running all night when they could be running between certain times...
Also I have a question.... Lets say your selling tools, why would it make a difference for lets say the word Screwdriver... to list is like this.. Screwdriver [Screwdriver] "screwdriver" Why would this generate more results? Do people actually type words in the search box like this?
Adwords can cost you a pretty penny if you are a beginner. There are too many little things that you neglect as a beginner (turning the content network off!) that it turns people off to using it. But I think if you thouroughly research your niche and set it up properly, split test ads, monitor, tweak, test again you should be okay.
Just wait til you accidentally add a "suggested" keyword that Google gives you and it blows through your daily buget within a few minutes!
Thanks , for the great comments, I really appreciate it. I will take the advise and try to improve my adword skill.
I do believe that Adwords is a very good advertising resource BUT as a beginner you must invest a little money to experiment with the system to find the best solution for you. When setting your adwords up think about: 1. using phrases that are directly related to your product/service. 2. use lower cost phrases and keep away from the major keywords. 3. set a realistic budget. You are never going to do anything if you only intend on spending a couple of $$$ per day. One other thing that you have to think about is, if you are getting loads of clicks and paying a lot of money out but you are not getting any sales ask yourself WHY? Take a good look at your website and more importantly the homepage. All in all. For beginners, start off small, experiment and in time you will find the perfect solution for your own requirements.
Am I missing something here? If Google keeps raising your minimum bid, it's because your Quality Score is poor. In this case, you'll lose money whatever your budget is. If you want a good QS, there are plenty of discussions around, but in summary: Write a relevant advert, with the search term prominantly in the title. Link to a relevant page. Write compelling advert text, to get people to click on the link - this is the key to a successful campaign. If your ad contains the search term and you have a good clickthrough rate, you'll have a low minimum bid, and you'll appear much higher for the same money (a $0.40 bid will appear much higher with a good QS than with a bad QS - see http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/...your-adverts-position-and-why-it-matters.html for more on this).
don't go that far.. it really hurts when you get clicked on a 4 buck bid. It's not a waste of money when your smart.
for small business (less than $100 a day) or for quick results, I found AdWords is not good, try other networks AdBrite or AdEngage, if you want quick results or if your business is not so big
Adwords isn't like most other things in life that require experience though. Someone can spoonfeed you information on exactly how to suceed immediately and you will. But for obvious reasons (people not wanting to give away their secret profitable niche for instance) this doesn't happen. So adwords isn't like other things in life that actually REQUIRE experience to be good at.
google is changing its tos rapidly and making campaigning difficult for webmasters...its very difficult for a newbie with very less investment to survive out there