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Am I wasting my time wit PPC?

Discussion in 'Pay Per Click Advertising' started by angloman, Mar 4, 2005.

  1. #1
    Hi guys,

    I've read a few posts here and there and I feel like I'm in over my head. I'm developing an e-commerce website for a nut company and need some help with the marketing of it.

    Currently we're only selling to canada, I've tried using a 3rd party PPC company that drove traffic from MSN.ca in 3 sections that I thought nuts would sell. I used high bids and, well in 2 days my $75 was gone and I didn't get one email or anything.

    I am advertising on google adwords and have about 100 terms that relate to my products, and spend about $10 to $20 a day on clicks, mostly top ranking clicks... I get like 30 to 50 clicks a day from adwords.

    I have really in depth hit tracking, and most of my clicks to my site view the gateway page which asks english, french, or outside canada... and then leave, or go to the index page and leave...

    What am I doing wrong? Why aren't they checking out my site? My text clearly says we've got healthy fruit and nut mixes... but most people don't even look at our products? What am I doing wrong?

    A few weeks ago I had used that 3rd party advertising company for MSN.ca and used lower bids, and made 1 sale after spending about $38!... since then we've really revised our site and made it much better, but the people that are coming to it just don't seem interested...

    I dunno what to do!
    My site is clean and very professional with gorgeous pictures... it's fast and informational... I'm so aggravated!!!!
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
    Blogmaster likes this.
  2. Blogmaster

    Blogmaster Blood Type Dating Affiliate Manager

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    #2
    I would say you are targetting not the right keywords, they are not landing on the right page or your site is not structured well.

    You say you have lots of information but too much can make people leave if they don't see the order button.

    Of course those are speculations. You should show us your site and I am sure you will get a lot of contructive input.
     
    Blogmaster, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  3. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #3
    natursource.com
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  4. Smyrl

    Smyrl Tomato Republic Staff

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    #4
    I can see why your site does not convert. I am on page three and expected to log in to browse. I think not. I am not around to log in just to look around.

    The first two pages should definatelyy be combined with possibly a choice of language tab and welcome in both English and French. Also an inviting image on opening page would be appealing. You want to whet my appetite and make me want to see more.

    Good luck,
    Shannon

    After next comment about load time I looked again. I did not stay on homepage long enough for it to get welcome and image online. I ditto the load time problem. I do not stay on pages that are slow load. Google always offers alternatives so if site loads slow, I just move on.

    S
     
    Smyrl, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  5. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

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    #5
    You should submit natursource.com for review in the website review forum.

    It's a very nice looking site w/ lots of potential. But there's lots that could be done to increase sales.
     
    Crazy_Rob, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  6. lycrafile

    lycrafile Peon

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    #6
    I didnt need to login to browse, the only navigational difficulty I have found is returning to the category listings from a product page could be a clearer. (i like to see a button perhaps with a back arrow rather than an instruction).

    I think you need to optimise your images as the page load times are far too slow especially for modem users. (http://natursource.com/products.php?id=1 takes 136.77 seconds on 56k and the product pages take around 60 seconds)

    It always best to link users to the deep content as they don't like to browse for something they have already searched for.

    When i run ppc campaigns for people i usually reduce the bid amounts and target a wider range of keywords to get more visitors per dollar.
     
    lycrafile, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  7. indianherbcare

    indianherbcare Banned

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    #7
    I think you have to analyze your keyword, may be your are using common keyword which are misleading. There is a good article I read on seochat which talks about writing ad for adwords and overture. I just opened one site and i'm getting 2/3 customer a day, my budget is $5/day. I'm targeting specific product instead of homepage..
     
    indianherbcare, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  8. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #8
    wow, you guys all have really helpful information.

    I will definately submit this site for review I'd love to see what else I can fix up on it.

    Smyrl, I had a look at what you said with that login thing... I changed it to show new features for now until I find something better to put in that spot.

    It's tough to find good words and terms to use right now, but I will try narrowing it down... you make a good point thouhgh... maybe I should be linking different words to different content... I'm going to look into that over the weekend!
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  9. fryman

    fryman Kiss my rep

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    #9
    You really need to optimize you images, they are terribly heavy and pages take ages to load.
     
    fryman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  10. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

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    #10

    Check out the competition. I had a quick glance and it looks like most nuts websites are billing their products as gifts.
     
    Crazy_Rob, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  11. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #11
    billing them as gifts?

    What do you mean?

    Wow you're all so helpful... and 7 more posts and I can post my site for review :)
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  12. Crazy_Rob

    Crazy_Rob I seen't it!

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    #12
    Sorry, "billing" is a slang word (I think) my dad used to use.

    It looks like a lot of the "gourmet nuts" sites are selling nut gift baskets and packages.

    Also, the pictures look great but as a customer, I would want to see what I'm actually going to get when I but a KG of the Tropix Mix . Maybe also show a little bag of the product.

    And as stated above, the pictures are about 100 times to large.

    Your best friend when it comes to PPC is going to be negative matching.
    Are you utilizing this already?
     
    Crazy_Rob, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  13. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #13
    I've actually never heard of negative matching before...

    I'm really new to all of this... i've had a few successful info sites that i've run myself, but i've never marketed them like this, so all this is really new to me

    even the thumbnail images are too large?
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  14. Smyrl

    Smyrl Tomato Republic Staff

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    #14
    Your thumbnails on http://natursource.com/products.php?id=1 are about the size I make my thumbnails (say 100 pixels by 100 pixels) but I run compression software on my images. I am not an expert on compression software. Used an online compression service originally but it was pricey. Now I use photoimpact to compress.

    Shannon
     
    Smyrl, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  15. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #15
    I complained to my photographer that they were too big... she said that was the best she could do but you're right... they're 40 to 50 kb each... i'm going to look into a way to shrink them down
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  16. fryman

    fryman Kiss my rep

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    #16
    send them to me... I work with images and earn a living with that ;)
    I'll compress them in a few minutes with no quality loss at all.
     
    fryman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  17. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #17
    I tried it on Adobe Imageready CS and it compressed them by 3/4 with no quality loss!
    Thanks fryman

    I got them down to about 10 to 12 kbs for most of them, some of them are around 20kb's for the thumbnails
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  18. angloman

    angloman Peon

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    #18
    alright,

    regular photos cut down from like 250 to 400 (original size) to about 50 to 90kb's


    and to the comment about no back buttons,
    at the bottom of every product it says back to the category you were in
    as well you can follow the arrows ontop, they all link back.
     
    angloman, Mar 4, 2005 IP
  19. lycrafile

    lycrafile Peon

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    #19
    The downlaod times are much better now but theres still a few simple change you can make to improve them further:

    http://www.natursource.com/products.php?id=1 is now downloading in 55.49 seconds (was 136.77 seconds before) but the thumbnail images are still resized in the html...

    look at the Cashews thumb on this page: http://www.natursource.com/products.php?id=1

    Now look at he image it is using: http://www.natursource.com/images/products/thumbs/cashewsdr.jpg

    you can see the image alone is much larger than the tumbnail displayed on the page, so use photoshop to cut them to the right size (the thumbs should be 85x85 pixels).

    This problem is repeated throughout the site.

    I think you might be able to halve your download time again once this is done.

    (great photos by the way)
     
    lycrafile, Mar 5, 2005 IP
  20. lycrafile

    lycrafile Peon

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    #20
    I did notice this eventually but when im rushing through a website i tend to miss "instructions" as they get lost amongst the other text, but i will easily spot an arrow or a button that will catch my eye.

    This is probly isnt worth'the effort of changing but it is something i harrass my designers about quite often :)
     
    lycrafile, Mar 5, 2005 IP