Hi all. I wanted everyone's opinion on this. How do you see the best way fit to lower adwords overall costs while keeping same or better results in terms of conversions? What has worked best for you? Here are my thoughts: 1. Utilize conversion tracking 2. Improve Account and Keyword Quality Scores 3. Define highly targeted ad groups for high CTR and best quality score 4. Optimize keyword conversions. Delete words with no conversions, lower CPCs on high cost words but retain 1st page results. Raise bids on best converting words. 5. Split test Ads to increase conversion rates so you do not have to spend as much overall in time.
All good points. The key to maximise profit is to work out the bids at which you make the most money. Bid any lower, and the fall-off in conversions costs you more than you gain from the lower cost-per-click. Bid any higher and the additional conversions generate less additional profit than the additional cost-per-click. For example, if you are making a profit of £20 on a sale with a conversion rate of 5%, and your results in 3rd, 4th and 5th are: 3rd: CPC = £0.50 Clicks/Day = 100 4th: CPC = £0.30 Clicks/Day = 80 5th: CPC = £0.20 Clicks/Day = 60 In this case, you make a profit of £50/day in 3rd, £56/day in 4th and £48/day in 5th, so you should appear 4th. Note that this is NOT the place with the best ROI, it's the place with the most profit. Unless you are paying an agency a fee, or are seeing a higher conversion rate in higher positions, the ROI will always increase, the lower your advert appears...
I would also try adding negative keywords to campaigns in order to filter out waste traffic, this should lower the cost you are paying for conversions.
Also pull out a geo report from adwords and see where your conversions are coming from and what cost. You will find that some countries do not convert at all (China in my case) or convert poorly with high cost (about 43 other countries in my case). Filter these countries out.
I agree. Also, if you are using the content network I strongly suggest using the placement report to filter out any non-converting domains. I recently pulled this report on a campaign and realized that the company I work for had paid over $2000 in clicks from myspace.com and only had two conversions. At a cost of $500 per acquisition they certainly were NOT profitable.
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Great ideas all. To add to my original post I would agree that negative keywords should be addressed as well. Use the Search Query report to identify negatives to add plus new ad groups to go after. I turned around a huge account by using this report. Dropped their cost per sale from over $200 to under $100 in less than 2 months by using this method.