Hi, After a fair amount of research and reading (thanks to all who participate in this group) in this forum, I've started my first campaign on AdWords. Here's what's going on as of midday today: Max CPC Clicks Impr. CTR Avg.CPC Cost Avg. Pos AG-1 Active $2.00 5 683 0.73% $1.79 $8.95 4.3 AG-2 Active $1.00 0 36 0.00% - - 7.0 AG-3 Active $0.50 0 4 0.00% - - 15.3 Total all 3 AGs - - 5 723 0.69% $1.79 $8.95 4.5 I sell a very nich oriented line of products and set up all my keywords to be phrase match instead of broad or exact--I also used a key word in each ad title. Since I'm just starting out I set my daily budget at $10--I'm pretty much almost there already today as you can see. So far I've had no calls or e-mails asking for pricing etc., therfore no conversions---I figure I'll give it some more time before I start tinkering with the landing pages If any of you who are more experienced with AdWords have any advice, on what I need to be doing next, I'll take it. Thanks
Sorry for the stats table being jumbled up---it wasn't when I wrote it! Here are the pertinents AG1 Clicks=5 IMPR=683 CTR=.73% Avg. CPC = 1.79 AV Pos = 4.3 AG2 Clicks=0 IMPR=36 CTR=.00% AV Pos = 7.0 AG3 Clicks=0 IMPR=4 CTR=00 AV Pos = 15.3
Why phrase match? I would go to broad match - add also a lot of negative keywords so. Why are you waiting to a sale after only 5 clicks? I would assume a low conversion of 1% on beginning so be prepared to 1 sale for every 100 clicks or less. You are just beginning so you don't know yet the right ads or keywords that really sells. Why your stat do not has conversion columns? have you not installed conversion code yet? What are you waiting for? I can not give you more advice only based in statistic numbers that you provided, but remember that is not easy to setup a campaign that really profit in AdWords, so begin slow.
Just thought this might be a good reminder... If you figure 1% of your clicks will be sales then you need to be sure that the cost of your click is low enough and your average sale high enough to allow for a profit. So if your CPC is $1.00 and your average profit per sale is $10.00, then multipy $1 by 100 clicks = $100 for a $10 sale....you've wasted money. If you're selling high end products with an average profit per sale of, say, $150 then that $100 for 100 clicks isn't bad...you've made money.
The average CPC seems quite high but then it depends on the market. Maybe try all 3 matching options for each keyword? This way you'll still gain the maximum CTR for the exact and phrase matches while still targeting all related traffic using the broad match.
5 clicks is statisically insignificant to make any kind of decision based on that. As others mention make sure you can afford the clicks if only a small percentage of people convert. You will eventually have a real number that will help you adjust, but it will be a while. You will need a LOT more clicks before you can make any statistically significant judgements. You could have had 3 people call you about your ad from those 5 clicks but that would not mean your ad is going to convert 60% of the time.
Many thanks to those who replied to my original post and offered their "two cents'. I'll agree with all of you re the statistical insignificance of my now 8 clicks. When I get to 100 or so, I should then be able to draw some conclusions I guess. Since everything I read seemed to say that I needed to be highly targeted, that is exactly what I did when I set it all up. The items I am focusing this ad campagn represent a fairly specialized sub-set of a very generic, large category of business supplies. Although our stuff is not focused on a particular business segment, you do need to have some specialized equipment in place in order to have a need for our stuff. What I am trying to do is to get existing users of these supplies to take a look and consider us as a source. Although these supplies are not usually high dollar items, they are expensive enough whereby we usually see decent amount of profit with every sale. These supplies historically also repeat, so that once a customer finds you and you take care of his needs, he usually sticks with you, even though you may not be the lowest priced seller. If I can, through the use of this campaign, pick up say 3 new small customers a month, I'd be making money and it would be worth it. Likewise, 1new customer with 1 big order of course would pay for everything a few times over, but the 3 newbies target is what I'm looking for. Also, since these types of sales generally repeat month to month, I would also hope that my new 3 would turn into 6 then 9 etc. each month I continued with the program. Lastly, I also sell hardware that works with and is related to these supplies. I also hope to migrate into some hardware sales as a result of coming in through the "supplies" door. Anyway, so far I can say that I am fairly surprised by the number of impressions that we've had. My thinking on this is that it will be simply a matter of time before we start seeing results. We have never had problems holding our customers, we usually get to know them and become quite friendly with them. We also don't nickel and dime our customers and are always looking for ways to give them the best possible service, help them out of jams, etc. Although we're not the lowest in price, we do offer great service and are very easy to do business with. Our biggest problem over the years has been in getting a consistent source of sales leads. It's basically been word of mouth up to to now, for the last 5 + years. Anyway, the plan now is to sit tight and see what the stats say. If we keep seeing impressions and clicks but no calls, I'll need to take a hard look at the landing pages. Also, we are pausing the campaign on weekends when no-one is available by phone. In doing this, I did increase the daily budget so that we run longer during weekdays when we are here and ready to ship. Thanks again for the advice, feel free to comment on any of the above--sorry for going on so long!!!