Hi guys, Was wondering if i was the only one. I bid on min $0.05 and max $0.10. What do you bid on and are you convenient with it (i mean do you get good ROI)?
Lowest bidding I have ever done is .98 Anything too small and you don't get first page placement most of the time.
My average currently is about $.26 It was more like $.36 before the recession. I have had to lower it to maintain ROI these last 3 months. I maintain 100% ROI. (My goal is to double my money.)
Unless you're bucks up and have a desire to place 1-3 with ultra competitive keywords, that's a sure fire way to go broke fast. Long tail keywords are the way to go from my experience. I'm no PPC expert by any means, but I'll research the keywords for my niche, then find long tail keywords that don't get quite as many searches, but have almost no competition. I'll bid $.05 all day long and still be in the top 4 spots. The CTR and ROI are much better because the traffic is even more targeted and usually in a "ready to buy" mode. Right now I'm spending about $400/month and grossing about $1200/month. That's with two small Adwords campaigns.
I do direct linking, with bidding varies from 0.10 - 0.25. The ROI is 20-20% for new merchants, but I do keyword tracking which raise the ROI to 60%-80% IMHO, you can get lower bids if you're bid for long tail keywords and action keywords. Avoid competitive keywords if you're not sure the keywords converting. Unless, you got big budget for testing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail Long tail refers to the vast number of less common searches that make up the majority of search engine traffic. For example "ringtones" would be too hard to get a number one spot in Adwords. But "michael jackson thriller ringtone nokia 9100" is an obscure enough search that it may have no competition at all. If you use longtail keywords you can get high positions at low prices. Downside is the limited traffic. So you have to have more keywords/adgroups/campaigns to get the volume you might want. Proper keyword research will let you choose keywords which are searched enough to justify your efforts, but which have low competition. They are under the radar of your competitors. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Here is a good place to start. Enter the number one search word/term for your niche. Run a search for descriptive words or phrases; choose columns----show estimated CPC; Calculate estimates using a different maximum CPC bid:=100; recalculate; click the estimated Avg. CPC column at the top to sort. You can find high paying keywords for your niche here. Good topics to write articles about for your blog. (if you use Adsense or similar) and you can use this to look for low prices too and find good deals on keywords with some search volume. Look at the column for advertiser competition and choose keywords with less competition. Put a price you can afford in the maximum CPC field or leave it blank when looking for long tail keywords. Have a good one. GhengisKhan
Does it not cause any problems of ads not showing? say if the search volume is low because of them being long tailed keywords.
it definitely depends on the keywords. even the bids in my ad groups vary a lot. make sure to check which keywords convert and work on getting more traffic to those while maintaining a low CPA. in essence, much of PPC is about running with what works. if you're able to bid .50 per kw and get a 50% gross margin or more, that may work for you. good luck!