Google adwords
Discussion
Received a promotion from Google the other day offering £75 of ad words credit with £25 spend.
Now I havent ever bothered with ad words before, so this is new territory. Obviously a £25 spend isn't a big deal and I am interested to see why / if any difference it would make to site traffic.
But before I crack on, am I also potentially wasting my time - is this another time sink that will cost me some money and more importantly a lot of my time?
Opinions appreciated.
Now I havent ever bothered with ad words before, so this is new territory. Obviously a £25 spend isn't a big deal and I am interested to see why / if any difference it would make to site traffic.
But before I crack on, am I also potentially wasting my time - is this another time sink that will cost me some money and more importantly a lot of my time?
Opinions appreciated.
moustachebandit said:
But before I crack on, am I also potentially wasting my time - is this another time sink that will cost me some money and more importantly a lot of my time?
As above, it depends.Leaving aside the ins and out of Adwords for a second, what do you want? That's the most important question, and it needs answering first. Do you want more customers? More enquiries? By email? By phone?
Adwords gets people to a site. But from there it's up to you, so if your site isn't geared towards the hard of thinking e.g. the CTA isn't clear or there's not much to grab them they'll go elsewhere. I'd recommend looking at that before spending anything.
Thanks for the replies.
In terms of what I want out of it - ideally to drive some more enquiries, either by phone or by email.
Almost all of our business has been derived through contacts, networking and the like. I think we have only generated two profitable unsolicited leads through our website. As a whole we tend to view our website as a portfolio - so prospective customers can review our work.
Just interested to see first hand whether it will generate any traffic / enquiries. Obviously though this is Adwords Express - so the simpletons big button approach to Google Adwords.
Looks like the minimum I can spend a month is £40 - with a massive £1.32 a day.
In terms of what I want out of it - ideally to drive some more enquiries, either by phone or by email.
Almost all of our business has been derived through contacts, networking and the like. I think we have only generated two profitable unsolicited leads through our website. As a whole we tend to view our website as a portfolio - so prospective customers can review our work.
Just interested to see first hand whether it will generate any traffic / enquiries. Obviously though this is Adwords Express - so the simpletons big button approach to Google Adwords.
Looks like the minimum I can spend a month is £40 - with a massive £1.32 a day.
moustachebandit said:
Just interested to see first hand whether it will generate any traffic / enquiries.
Two different things.Which is why I'd look at the site first. A portfolio site, nice as it might be, isn't necessarily going to convert as well as a 'buy now and save XXX/get started with a free X' conversion focused type.
Spending the money is easy. Getting clicks is easy. Getting those clicks to do what you want is what matters.
technodup said:
moustachebandit said:
Just interested to see first hand whether it will generate any traffic / enquiries.
Two different things.Which is why I'd look at the site first. A portfolio site, nice as it might be, isn't necessarily going to convert as well as a 'buy now and save XXX/get started with a free X' conversion focused type.
Spending the money is easy. Getting clicks is easy. Getting those clicks to do what you want is what matters.
I took the plunge and just set an ad up - just for educational purposes.
I have focused the ad with the intention of driving enquiries. Essentially I see this as a bit (albeit) very small bit of profile raising. All I want is for people who have a need for our services to know we exist, when they start looking.
All our business is B2C and its a long burn with multiple stages before any deals get struck; so conversion is always going to be low. Being totally realistic I suspect this to do the sum total of f
k all (other than give Google more money) - but its an mildly interesting experiment. I do need to spend some time reviewing the site set up, content and also addressing the SEO at some point as well. So thats on the list.
moustachebandit said:
All our business is B2C and its a long burn with multiple stages before any deals get struck; so conversion is always going to be low.
When I say conversion I don't mean deals done, just emails or calls made, that's all the site is converting.You're probably being a bit negative tbh, but where lots of peole go wrong is throwing a small amount at it without really understanding it. The aim firstly. Then the strategy, the site, the testing of different ads etc. It does take a bit of effort to do properly.
You need to look at what a lead would be worth to. Once you figure out this cost then you need to collect this lead for less than that.
So click throughs from Adwords to you lander, keep it simple with a sign up box. You want to get as many quality leads for as cheap as possible.
If you can get the lead for less than it costs you from Adwords then it is a profitable campaign.
So click throughs from Adwords to you lander, keep it simple with a sign up box. You want to get as many quality leads for as cheap as possible.
If you can get the lead for less than it costs you from Adwords then it is a profitable campaign.
I would stick to very specific key words if possible, this will keep your clicks very specific.
Also create landing pages if possible that are specific to the ad / keyword.
You might only get a tiny % of clicks but they will be quality and they will land on a page specifically for them.
Also create landing pages if possible that are specific to the ad / keyword.
You might only get a tiny % of clicks but they will be quality and they will land on a page specifically for them.
After spending thousands of pounds over the years with so called experts promising page one ranking on google , I thought I'd experiment and try google adwords myself and the response has been excellent. Set your monthly budget, track leads with google analytics and on the first page of google search. Change ads when you want to have special promotions, excellent. Wish I'd done it years ago.
Rider007 said:
After spending thousands of pounds over the years with so called experts promising page one ranking on google , I thought I'd experiment and try google adwords myself and the response has been excellent. Set your monthly budget, track leads with google analytics and on the first page of google search. Change ads when you want to have special promotions, excellent. Wish I'd done it years ago.
SEO is very different to PPC though. Your experts should have been pushing PPC before but too many [people got suckered (no offence to anyone who did) into SEO being the nirvana of online marketing and page 1 ranking being attainable for decent search terms with plenty of traffic. I've been in digital for 10 years and would still only push SEO in very specific circumstances.Adwords is just a platform, a tool. You still need all the usual caveats of planning, purpose, measurement etc. as you would marketing on any other channel.
Done properly it should work for most markets, as the cost per click typically reflects the conversion rates, value of the resulting sale to the advertiser and the margin the market is prepared to accept.
Done properly it should work for most markets, as the cost per click typically reflects the conversion rates, value of the resulting sale to the advertiser and the margin the market is prepared to accept.
I'll share a few things I've learned about adwords.
- 1 is they take a while to get going. Once you set up your ad set and key words, unless you use exact match you'll spend a while adding new keywords and blocking negative keywords before gaining any traction
- 2 is that I find they work best with a niche product. For instance if you sold sony bravias, instead of just using the search term sony bravia, use the model number ie sony bravia 12345 as that will get targeted quality traffic and somebody who is much more inclined to buy than some random person browsing tvs.
- 3. Unless you go niche you'll be outbid by the big boys.
My two cents.
Drive a bit of traffic our way.
No increase in sales though
Ended the campaign, and Google continues to charge for the ads, despite no running campaign.
Had to get the bank to charge back as Google can’t do this alone, hassle really, they continued to drop charges on me for a couple of months . Nat West have out them on stop for me now and all is good
YMMV, mine was a waste of time, effort and money; won’t bother again.
K
Drive a bit of traffic our way.
No increase in sales though
Ended the campaign, and Google continues to charge for the ads, despite no running campaign.
Had to get the bank to charge back as Google can’t do this alone, hassle really, they continued to drop charges on me for a couple of months . Nat West have out them on stop for me now and all is good
YMMV, mine was a waste of time, effort and money; won’t bother again.
K
We use it as our only constant form of marketing. Everything people do now to find a service or product is interenet based, regardless of user age. Click, tap a few times and you’ve found 10+ products, links or companies. If your not on that list, I simply think your missing out (and living in the dark ages).
The common thing i see is companies who have been going for 20-30 years start to struggle and fail, with a key linking factor being that they haven’t kept up with technology.
My advice....
Have a great website and make it easy to contact you
Do SEO yourself - you know your business and customers best
AdWords is trial and error and a large amount of fine tuning, but the rewards are there if you persevere
Regualarly update and tune your website, social media and adwords campaigns.
But, depends on your business model, customers, industry etc... it’s quite specific, but I believe it has application to most businesses.
I like the way google set it up, manage and help you.
Depending on our plans and projects, we spend between £6000-£8000 a year and we get good returns from this. The key to see this is tracking your enquiries. How many times do you ask “where did you find out about us”?
The common thing i see is companies who have been going for 20-30 years start to struggle and fail, with a key linking factor being that they haven’t kept up with technology.
My advice....
Have a great website and make it easy to contact you
Do SEO yourself - you know your business and customers best
AdWords is trial and error and a large amount of fine tuning, but the rewards are there if you persevere
Regualarly update and tune your website, social media and adwords campaigns.
But, depends on your business model, customers, industry etc... it’s quite specific, but I believe it has application to most businesses.
I like the way google set it up, manage and help you.
Depending on our plans and projects, we spend between £6000-£8000 a year and we get good returns from this. The key to see this is tracking your enquiries. How many times do you ask “where did you find out about us”?
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