I like Adwords. I think it was a great idea when Google came up with it. It's a multi-billion dollar industry based on people sitting at home clicking away at my advertising funds and my disillusionment that I can convert a reasonable number of those clicks into sales and hopefully make a profit. Click, click, clickity click! But I'm finding out that the vast majority of markets are saturated with advertisers who don't know how to optimize their bids and who are evidently more concerned with maintaining position than turning profits.
That's the way it is these days and we cannot blame them as long as they are plying for and within system rules and regulations of Google. That leaves us then today to look for alternatives which Google is somewhat providing like publishers getting in the publishing for feeds and so on.
I agree that it can be very difficult to deal with the strategy of throwing money at the problem. As you said, it increases the prices for everyone. Unfortunately I think that many of these businesses do not think it is worth there time to tweak and optimize their ads. For some people it really is easier to throw money at the problem.
I would venture to say that most people don't know how to optimize their ads. No offense, Techie people, but I've seen Google's instructions, and they are horribly written for the average newbie. I've already mentioned something like this months ago in one of their suggestions boxes. Their instructional videos do a much better job at explaining it, and so does Wealthy Affiliate. You're going to get newbies who start reading those instructions and their eyes will glaze over because the concept doesn't register in their minds. They get confused. So they gloss over that stuff and go with what they understand: just bid higher to get higher on the front page. So they do, and Google doesn't mind one bit. I hear you because it makes PPC advertising more expensive for everyone, but you may be barking up the wrong tree.
Did it occur to you that most everyone tries to take advantage of holiday shoppers online this time of year? Naturally, it is a race to the front page for a few weeks.
Good point claymation. This time of year we see variations in typical online traffic and marketing techniques. It seems especially this year a lot of businesses are making a big advertising push which can be very frustrating to the people who market year around. Here is hoping that CPC prices go back down after the holidays.
Hello, I am a newbie and it is very frustrating figuring out how much to bid, how long to let your ad run at a certain bid, and how to get a higher conversion rate. Any input?