My first 3 posts here were basically Bit*ching about Advords but everyone here really gave a lot of input and helped me a lot. I took all your advice, experimented a little and finally am getting what I feel are some pretty good numbers. So far this month I have a CTR of over 5% on my main campaign and a conversion rate of almost 18% and I am happy to say it is at this point profitable, not huge, but profitable. Someone posted this link in the SEO forum that I found hugely helpful: http://submitedge.com/seo_tools.html My CPC had not been over .15, (Same keyword that I was being charged $10.00 at one point) Here is the take home message to anyone that is interested. It takes work, and a lot of experimentation and research but Adwords can work. Without paying for anyone to give you info that is readily available for free. That said, you have to have something that people actually want. We sell toys and kids stuff. If you trying to fulfill the "I work 10 minutes a day and make $10,000 a month" dream, I don't know, maybe it can be done, but I doubt it. The only way is to tell people that you can sell them something so they can work 10 minutes a day and make..... you know. But to all the frustrated out there, keep at it and learn, learn learn. It took me about 4 weeks to feel comfortable doing what I am doing. Also, FYI, I have4 been running an identical Yahoo campaign at the same time. While the total numbers are lower, the cost was a lot better, the click through was the same and there was no "inactive for search" crap ever. More competition though because yahoo appears to be less selective. Just my 2 cents, and sincerely, thank you to all of you in this forum who have posted advice, you are a great help and I appreciate it. Gary
Sounds great. Welcome to Adwords profits! Having crossed the boundary, it's now up to you to optimize until you are well clear of losses. Never rest happy that you are doing well, as you can almost always better your campaigns some way or another. Keep researching, learning and implementing. Some things you try will have a negative effect, so watch your results carefully. Learn what you can from such experiences so as not to make the same mistakes. Other things you try will have a positive effect. Make clear note of these, then try to enhance their effects for increased betterment. Good luck
Gary, good words to hear! AdWords definitely rewards patience and attentiveness. My big boost is always to look at my competitors and say, "Hey I can do better than that." I think that a person just needs to accept the fact that they may lose money at the start. But my view is that $200 spent on a hard-fought AdWords campaign is a better education than $200 spend on one of those knucklehead AdWords/SEO "gurus" for their stupid Clickbank book. Way to go!
Thanks all, and absolutely I'm looking forward to learning how to get even better at this! It's so cool when it actually works. I do have to say though that I think Google in their quest to ...well, do whatever it is they are trying to do, makes it a lot more difficult than it ought to be. Yahoo was a lot easier to figure out without all the "inactive for search" junk.