I personally think Google adwords is too expensive. This is really interesting and open to some debate. I can see how one side feels this way and yet others feel another. Personally, it's very hard to say. I think I'm not going to take a stand on this yet. Curious to see what others feel. Gordon http://www.thepaypalstuff.com
My personal view is Adword is good. And if you search you can find some coupons. Yesterday I found $100 Coupon.
"Too expensive" is relevant to the situation. If you had to pay $8 a click to get the exposure and CTR that makes you a good profit at the end of the day, then is $8 a click really "expensive"? Adwords is really no different than running a direct TV ad campaign. If your commercial is a good one and stresses an "act now or miss out" and the result is hundreds or thousands of leads or sales, then you have a good commercial that will make you money. If your commercial says "call if you feel like it" and the result is very few leads, then you have wasted your money. On Adwords, you must think like a direct TV advertiser. Get them to your site, now get them to do something (convert)... whether that be join your mailing list, call you now, or buy something while they are there.
Well said, Iknowalittlebit. Adwords brings you visitors and it is your job to have a product (landing page) that is up to their expectation to convert into sales.
It depends on your market niche. I have clients who are paying $50/click and others that are paying $0.25 - totally different markets and both make profits from advertising at those costs. The trick is to taylor your Adwords campaigns to 1) get targeted traffic at the lowest cost 2) track conversions so you can weed out the weakest keywords, ads etc. 3) continually tweak and manage the campaign so it constantly improves.
I concur with iknowalittlebit and smallbizmkter. Adwords will be too expensive for you because you're not getting a good return on your investment. In other words, paying more than you should for that click. Remember that it is US, the advertisers who set these prices. There are way too many out there who do not understand the system and driving up the price for everybody.
The cost depends upon your niche. If you have chosen a competitive niche like Internet Marketing, Affiliate Business, Work from home etc., then it is really going to be expensive. Try some negative keywords.
It's expensive in the beginning but if you're experienced and know that you can lose for a couple weeks straight then it will turn around, it's pretty cheap actually.