Hi Where the money is? Are you making Google adwords profitable? Tell me how to improve ROI on SEO and the big money eating google adwords campaigns? Well I have to admit I made some obvious, rather newbie mistakes along the way (like accidentally biding #30.00 on keywords instead 0.30c) and so far within a year I ended up paying more than two grand to the big Google daddy. Although, I haven’t given up. I knew there are other smart marketers making tons of money on Google so I tweaked my ads, changed and redesigned my landing pages, and stopped biding on too general keywords. I ended up with somewhat promising results regarding to my click-through rates, sometimes in the 35% range. However, those sales that should fuel my adwords campaign didn’t come. I redesigned my WebPages again, included 15-20% coupon codes, offered free shipping, quantity purchase prices and lowered the prices in overall and did everything that supposedly improve ROI. In my industry (we sell remanufactured inkjet cartridges) it is not rare when somebody is bidding on keywords in the ten dollars range. (I don’t have any clue how they make any profit with it.) My average bidding price is around a dollar. (Not included those keywords that Google recently trying to force me to bid $5.00-$10.00 on.) So to make the long story short just imagine the following scenario: $100.00 adwords daily spend at 75c per click-throu’-rate provides 133 visitors. Assume a 2% conversion rate and our visitors spend an average $45.00 that would almost equal to 3x45= $135.00 daily gross revenue. With the awesome 60% profit margin that would equal to $81.00 pure profit. Yes after spending $100.00 on adwords, it would mean I ended up loosing $19.00 each day. So how do you make money? With long term customers?
Hey don't cry, can i take a look at your website before i make my recommendations. Thanks Pm me if you want.
It would be my guess (Though I don't have a lot of experience with AdWords) that the keywords that you're being forced to pay a LOT of money for are either very competitive, or Google's "Quality Bot" really doesn't think your page fits with what you're trying to advertise, you can try changing landing pages to see if that brings the cost down -- or you could also try to find some more obscure keywords that are less expensive (yet have a high ROI) to either reduce your losses, or put you into the black =) The red is never a fun place to be, but this would just be my guess. Hope this helps.
My only suggestion is more testing & experimenting with what position your ad gets the best ROI, as it appears you would need the lowest paying keywords to optomise your profits.
I know exactly what you are talking about since I am an affiliate for 4inkjets.com with cj.com I've been bidding on inkjet/toner keywords for 3+ years now. I use adwords, msn, and yahoo for ppc. The reason so many people bid in the $10 range is because they want to capture the customer for repeat sales. So the $10 is really only paying for new customers, which is cheap over the lifetime if they retain that customer. Some companies like hp.com will bid $20 or more (remember when overture used to show you bids?), just to dominate that particular niche. Other companies do the same thing. The inkjet/toner market is so competitive as you know. Combine that with spyware software deleting cookies for affiliates like me and high bids and you have a huge nut to crack. If your an affiliate, then you need to find extremely targeted and untargeted keywords. For example, if an inkjet cartridge has a model number and a sku number, use both for keywords. ie: bc-20, bc20189321. Sometimes the model number of the printer is all you can do like "4c". Those are like $0.10/click. In the end, you'll have like 4000 keywords. Divide that by 200-300 separate campaigns for each group of related keywords. That's how competitive this market is now. I focus on a few select models, so I have about 30 campaigns running across adwords, msn, and yahoo. Even then, each one brings in very little net profit. Overall it's less than $1000/month net. Compared to 3 years ago, when I could bid on a general keyword like "hp ink", I was doing like $10k/month. It was so nice back then, but this is now. I look forward to some good tips that will help both you, me, and everyone in the forum.
Yes I am doing basically the same thing. I stopped bidding on general keywords like inkjet cartridges. I mainly bid on the model numbers of the cartridges and the printers and direct visitors to the exact page. For example if I bid on the Hp DeskJet 940C printer the visitors would go to this page. The click-through rates are good but the sales are not. I am just not able to make profit. Yes I know that the life time value of a customer is important. I am planning to focus more on permission based email marketing to my existing customers. However, what bothers me most is a visitor who clicks on a targeted ad like this and takes no action: DeskJet 1000cse Cartridge BK $8.45, Color $15.45 + Combos Coupons & Free USA Shipping. Save! 1printer-supply.com/DeskJet-1000Cse I am planning to put up an exit pup-up and give 5 dollars worth of coupon to each exiting visitor who fills out a 10 question survey. That way I could determine the cause for rejections and still capture email addresses and make more customers.
I know what you mean about targeting the ad including model #, price, shipping. Then the url has the model #, brand, or whatever. Then your keywords and landing page have all those things to match exactly. And the people still don't buy. You'd think conversions would be higher. I really don't have an answer, but I can empathize. In any case, your website seems fine, if not a bit crowded. I keep my website very simple. http://parrotink.com My landing page simply replaces the text at the bottom with the cartridge information and coupon. The adsense income supplements my adwords costs since the conversions have dropped so low. I don't give these campaigns the attention I used to. It's no longer my main source of income thank goodness. Only thing you might want to consider for your campaigns (I'm sure you do this already) is adding negative keywords and doing exact match only. Here is a list of negative keywords I use: -acer -allison -am -audiovox -battery -book -books -cadet -cam -camcorder -camera -canon -canon bjc 2010 -club -compaq -compare -denon -digital -download -downloads -driver -drivers -drum -dvd -empty -epl -epson -fix -fixes -ford -free -help -hewlett packard -home -home page -hp -incredimail -initial idm -install -installation -instruction -instructions -ipaq -knwx -kprz -linux -ltd -mac -makita -malata -manual -manuals -mintek -nfpa -parts -philadelphia -phone -pixx -presario -psc -radio -rebate -rebates -repair -repairs -review -reviews -roller -rollers -samsung scx 4100 driver -samsung scx 4100 laser multifunction -samsung scx 4100 laser multifunction printer -samsung scx 4100 mac -score -service -shoes -skechers -software -support -talk -tech support -technics -toshiba -tractor -tray -trays -vx -warranties -warranty -wcau -web -web site -website -windows -windows 2000 -windows 98 -windows nt -windows2000 -windows98 -windowsnt -wpht -wskr -xp This list varies slightly from campaign to campaign based on the brand. Mostly because model numbers can overlap. Obviously I don't want to "-epson" when selling epson cartridges. But I don't want epson customers for canon cartridges. Maybe you'll find a few things in the list you didn't think of. Hope this helps.
First, don't loose your spirit many peaple in the industry are making it becouse they are making a lot of money per customer... I would suggest to leave the primary keywords and spread on other less targeted keyords.
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