I spent almost a quarter of a million dollars on Google Adwords in 2012 for my real estate business in a major city in America. I plan on spending even more in the coming years..... soon most likely $500,000/year. Im guessing besides the major Amazon, Walmart, L'Oreal, big corportations....... im one of the biggest advertisers on there for small business (I have maybe 40 employees). Ive had no advice at all.... just started my own campaign... and kept increasing it. It brings in condo leads people looking to buy homes and I make decent money. My website also gets heavy NATURAL traffic too from 5 years around the clock working on this site. The thing is.... Im wondering if I should talk to an adwords company for just advice, not to run campaigns.... I wonder if that service exists..... I can do it on my own as I have been... I have however talked to Google on the phone, theyve called me numerous times to check to see if I have any questions and they were helpful. But what Im worried is.... my cost per click is high..... Maybe I can get the same $240,000 results for $120,000 by fixing my pages to get my CPC lower. I have everything go to the same signup page.... say for instance for example: Chicago Condos for sale --> $3.15 CPC to be 1 or 2 ... avg 1.4 placement Chicago Houses ---> $3.05 CPC to be 1 or 2 .... avg 1.6 Chicago Foreclosures --> $2.85 CPC to be 1 or 2 .. avg 1.3 Chicago lofts for sale --> $2.05 CPC to be 1 or 2 ... avg 1.8 placement Illinois Realtors --> $2.71 CPC to be 1 or 2... avg 1.9 And say the Click through rate is 5%-12% for all keywords Long story short.... lets say I have all advs pointing to the same signup page: mydomain.com/search.html Lets say that this page doesnt mention the name of the keyword... instead its just a general page, related to the keywords but not mentioning them, or mentioning them little. This is whats going on in my site and campaign..... However....if I made separate signup pages .. such as: mydomain.com/Chicago-Condos-for-sale.html mydomain.com/Chicago-Houses.html mydomain.com/Chicago-Foreclosures.html mydomain.com/Chicago-lofts-for-sale.html mydomain.com/Illinois-Realtors.html And say I made the title tags matching these keywords.... If I have my Google campaign pointing to these words instead, do you think it will be a cheaper cost per click? Because even a CPC going from $3.00 to $2.50 will caust me tens of thousands of dollars always.... maybe even could save $100,000 a year who knows What is some other advice you guys might have? Id seriously like to save some money in 2013!!!!!! The other thing.... is it possible I can see what my competitors are paying for the SAME keywords? Thanks!!!!! - Frankie J
HI, Not sure whether you are serious or not by the numbers you are putting here. Millions stuff. Anyway the answer would go same for a million $ advertiser or someone going with a 100$ a day budget. Here is what I suggest. 1. Export all your keywords in a notepad 2. separate them in to groups of slimier theme. for example "houses in Chicago", "houses in Chicago for sale", and so on would be one group. Another group can be Illinois Realtors and related ones. 3. now create landing pages for each of the keyword group you have created above. make sure to optimize the landing page with the keyword theme. you should not stuff the keywords a lot in the page, just one occurennce is enough,maybe in footer. 4. place proper tracking on the landing pages while building it to make sure what works what does not (For split testing going ahead soon) 5. now head over to adword editor or web interface and create seprate adgroup for each keyword group you have above. 6. Write Ad text for them make sure to include the keyword in ad text heading (It increases the CTR a lot,thus lowering your CPC and effects your Quality score positively) 7. Now put the target landing pages for these keywords and then let the ads go live. Watch and compare the results, I am expecting to a see a much noticeable change in just 1 week. After that start split testing and you will get each $ you spend on adwords well worth . Feel free to post back should you have questions. Unfortunately no until you are from Google. You can spy on their keywords but practically you never get an accurate idea as to what they are paying for. Usually its much depends on the the ad you see and their landing pages. if its not sounding like designed or maintained by a pro, much likly they are also paying more than what they should. Adword companies usually does not care much about your campaign. Rather find an expert(Plus if he is certified from Adwords) and pay him for his consultation fee (Will be much lower than companies ) and he will get you going with personal one to one guidance.
User click your ads and read your site. User buy something to you around 5% .it meant that 100 click 5 sales. So it is my experience, and add also autoresponse ( I use weber ) . In fact ,I use facebook to ad my site and youtube to review my product
Think about it, you have two problems. One is how much you pay per click, and the other is your conversion rate. If I click an ad that says "peaches for sale" and the landing page has 20 different kinds of fruit, making me sort through to find the link to the peaches page I am likely to hit the back page button and try someone else. Whereas someone looking for peaches might be interested in a banana, someone looking for a loft will probably not be cross-sold into a storefront, duplex, or mansion. If someone is looking for a loft, then send them to a loft page. This will not only increase your conversion rate, but it will enhance your organic traffic. I really need to follow my own advice! wiz
The ideal solution is for you to get Adwords Accredited. I know time is factor but it will pay off. Until you do that, hire a Google or Bing Accredited expert. Ask around. If in your area there is a local Warrior Forum group that would be one place to start. A local Meetup group might also be albe to help in this regard. All the best.
Um, of course setting up specialized landing pages are going to help you. What's your quality score at right now for keywords? A better quality score usually can result in a lower CPC. Overall $2-3 is not TERRIBLE for your keywords (if this is around that amount, i know it's not in their policies for you to tell), but if you set up landing pages that are optimized for each campaign/keywords within them you'll be in a better spot. And the easy way to see if your competitors are bidding for keywords within your market is to do a search on Google for your targeted keywords and see if your competitors come up. If they come up based on 'x' then they are bidding for that keyword, however you just wont know if it's a phrase match, broad or exact, but they're still bidding for that target and they're paying for it if they're showing up for it.
Four things: 1) One of my small business clients spends a million + on Adwords per year (poor guy), yes he has received everything from the Google beach towel to the tiny Google mouse as a thank you. 2) To potentially lower your PPC fees, group every keyword in particular ad groups. For example, condo related keywords should be in the ad group condo, foreclosure related keywords should be in the ad group foreclosure. Surely you have an Adwords rep you can speak to about this. 3) Get Tim Ash's book aptly titled "Landing Page Optimization." 4) Yes, if you have the KW in the URL, and in the meta tags, and in the body of the landing page, you can potentially lower PPC fees, but it is auction based so everything can come back up when new competitors enter the scene. That being said, for a guy who is spending $250K, I hope you are seeing at least $500K net after all your expenses? If I were you, I would have spent at least a dime of that Adwords expense on proper SEO.
Great reply! I, too, need to follow your advice, though I've always known that my landing pages need to correlate directly with the keywords and ads I have chosen and created. Love your analogy.
I agree with most of the people here. I want to add that I run a half million yearly campaign. We been with several large PPC management companies and they did nothing for our campaign. In fact each time we re-organize and setup our account with a large PPC management company our campaign took a nose dive. You would be better off finding a consultant. But not just one. You need to verify your findings with someone else so you are not making changes based on one person's opinion. This is dangerous when you are spending a ton of money. I would also suggest going to a PPC conference or seminars to gain more insight, but more importantly network with other individuals. I've attended Pubcon and SES almost every year. Most of the value is in the people you meet and can call upon when you are in a rut. The Google reps are not that useful or knowledgeable. Think about it, they are not doing this every day like we are. As someone else mentioned here, get dedicated landing pages for your ad groups and this will help raise your quality score and in turn lower your CPC.
You are absolutely right. I argue with my clients day in and day out about this. Keep EVERYTHING TARGETED. There are a ton of different ways to increase your conversions, both your site and PPC ads. I specialize in Adwords copywriting... So, let me tell you my process. First I would have to see which of your Ads are converting the best. Then I would write 35-50 different ads to compete with that. After that, I would take the top 5 best converting ads and then write 25 different variations of each performing ad. After we have a handful of winners (3-5 ads) we would then begin testing different URLS to help boost those conversions even more... The process takes about 4-5 days. So, there it is. If you do that, then you should not only see a huge increase in your CTR, but your CPC will down as well. Hope that helps give you an idea on how to help with your conversions.
Basically, Google is concentrating on relevancy born out of genuine web content matching keywords and ad copy. They are fighting automation in PPC optimization and are looking to ramp up their algorithm in line with this ethos. Most very small businesses I meet who want to engage outside help with campaign management, are usually looking for a "One stop shop," or a guru. They are out there to some extent, However, I don't believe that running campaigns and writing the creative stuff go hand in hand anymore. Adwords is complicated and the different aspects require different skill-sets. Google know this of course and are profiting from businesses who fail to delegate or hire in appropriate skills. The biggest challenge I see facing growing businesses is actually facing up to the fact that the monster has grown to a point where hiring inside or outside help isn't just helpful or useful, but critical. Last week I ran a report on a new client that I was only hired to write ad copy for, and discovered that he was spending $30k a Month on keywords with poor relevancy. The problem was that the CPC was $50.00 a click and if you have thousands of keywords these issues can get buried. Of course, uncle G isn't in a rush to alert you of this. With that in mind, If like the originator of this thread you are in the fortunate position of commanding a sizeable Adwords budget, then you need to decide at which point do you hand at least one of the reigns to someone else! KE