# Has Google Adwords worked for anyone here?



## ekyrock1 (Nov 27, 2007)

Has Google Adwords worked for anyone here? I have tried it a few times and have not showed any profits from it. I never let the ads run more then 2 weeks however because I was paying too much and not seeing any results so I quit. I know I have used and changed the keywords a number of times to help out but I never seemed to get the results I was looking for. Anyone else?


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## omegahappening (May 31, 2007)

I haven't had any success with them, either. I've tried a bunch of different Cost Per Click Settings and Keywords. With one setting, I was getting 10,000 impressions a day, 50 clicks, and no sales. I just have it set to a very low cost per click price now so I don't waste a lot of money. Someone else might have some good tips for you though (I hope).

--Jamie


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## rrc62 (Jun 2, 2007)

It worked well for me in the extreme sports equipment business because it was such a niche that I was always on the top for very little per click. I haven't tried it in this business but I wouldn't expect miracles. There is just too much competition and so many websites to shop. Even if you are on top, which will cost a lot per click, people will look at your site then move on to the 100 other sites that came up in Google. When you are the only distributor selling the product they want in the US, it's a little easier to get the sale.

Take Jamie's example. If you're paying $.50/click, which is entirely possible if you want to be near the top, those 50 clicks cost $25 and did not yield one sale. I wouldn't want to spend more than $2 in PPC fees per shirt ,which means one sale every 4 clicks, which will not happen.


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## D3c0Y (Oct 23, 2007)

We've used it and recently stopped. 

I think it works well, but it can get very very expensive.

We generated roughly 681 clicks and converted 72% of that into sales.

Our max bid per click was $3, with an average of $2.17 per click and an average add position of 1.4.

I think that it did well, but we haven't even got into SEO and other fields of Marketing to see what they offer.

We ran our ad for 2 weeks. 

The main thing we realized is to keep your keyword list short and choose the right keywords. You don't want to use a generic keyword like "t shirt" because anyone will click it even if they're not your target demo.

Fortunatly for us, our target demo used very specific keywords that worked very well.

We decided to stop to see if there were other outlets we can focus on that were cheaper than Adwords. If we can't find anything that can give us the same response as Adwords, we'll go back to it.

Hopefully this helps you out.


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## ekyrock1 (Nov 27, 2007)

I have noticed that I produce more sales just by word of mouth because I have such a niche market. I was just trying to see If i could pull In more sales with Adwords but I did not find it to be worth my while. I will be looking for other low cost alternatives such as myspace.


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## rrc62 (Jun 2, 2007)

The problem with adwords is that 25 cents or so per click sounds cheap. People sign up to find that they had hundreds of clicks, no sales and a huge adwords bill. Like most advertising, the advertiser is the only one making money.


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## MiNGLED (Aug 22, 2007)

I'm running Adwords at the moment as an experiment (taking the free offer of £30 free credit). So far I have less than 5000 impressions using keywords resulting in 25 clicks (and no sales) and just over 200,000 impressions using the Google content network with just 22 clicks (no sales here either). So far it's cost me around £13. I'll let it run for a month or so and see how it goes. From what little experience I've had there is a lot of tweaking to be done in terms of what keywords to use and how the ad is written.


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## SoloStampede (Aug 4, 2007)

I have never used adwords but ive used search123.com. I've generated quite a few sales from there with just a $20-$50 investment (dont exactly remember how much, because I haven't used them in a 2-3 years). You should also checkout adbrite.com. They allow you to choose which sites you want your contextual ads to appear on, and each site offers their own adveritising prices. you can also choose which sites to advertise on; via categories.


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## SICK (Nov 16, 2006)

Use the content network and put the max bid from 2 to 5 cents a click.

Target niche low cost keywords, use your referrer logs to find them.

Use the conversion tools to find what keywords are converting

Use Google Analytics "Traffic Sources" and watch the stats of the campaigns

Run placement reports regularly and find out what sites are converting in the content network. Target these sites directly paying CPM

My online embroidery design business has a $50 a day budget for PPC on adwords and the conversion rate .66% with it costing me $3.58 per conversion


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## mshakir (Jul 7, 2006)

SICK said:


> Use the conversion tools to find what keywords are converting


How do you do this? I have set up my account for conversion tools but I do not see the breakdown by each keyword. I have the java script provided by google on the index page and then the second script right after customer exit making payment. I simply see one amount for all the keywords, but not broker by individual keywords.


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## SICK (Nov 16, 2006)

I was misleading with that statement. If you are trying to find out what keywords are converting on the content network, I don't think you can. It is all lumped together. This is available for Google ads only.


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## dbydprint (Dec 12, 2007)

I signed up 1 month ago, and have not been too impressed so far. Mainly because we have too much compitition in the screen printing field, so unless you are willing to pay a small fortune it does not seem worth it. Unless, like RRC62 mentioned about having a Niche


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## dancethoughts (Nov 28, 2007)

It has only worked for me in tiny niche stores - and I use it for advertising a local (not internet) business and it works great!


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## HeatherLHC (Aug 17, 2007)

I have generated a lot of traffic from adwords. More than any other advertising media, but like its been said - its expensive! Anyone know how to tell what % of clicks turn into sales and how the customer found you?


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## stayrooted (Apr 19, 2007)

I'm currently an "Adwordser". I've received thousands of impressions and hits, but NO sales have generated from it. Could be the words I'm using. I sell better with word of mouth advertising and eblasts. I may try search123.com that Solostampede recommended.
________________________________
welcome
"HIS Word. Your Style."


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

I posted this in another thread, but it's very relevant here as well:

Advertising with Google Adwords isn't just about picking some keywords and then letting it sit. It's not "easy" to make it work. 

But if you do your research and make time to test it, retest it and change things up, it can be an effective and profitable way to get new customers.

Even if you pay $1 to gain a new customer but you make $10 off that customer, you are still netting $9 each time. With enough testing, those kind of results are possible. 

Most people just pick a few keywords, pick a bid amount, deposit some money and watch the clicks add up and their deposit disappear. That will get you nowhere fast.

*I would suggest reading this book before delving into adwords:* Amazon.com: Winning Results with Google AdWords: Books: Andrew Goodman


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## RegularJOE (Oct 26, 2007)

D3c0Y said:


> The main thing we realized is to keep your keyword list short and choose the right keywords. You don't want to use a generic keyword like "t shirt" because anyone will click it even if they're not your target demo.


This is a very good point, and way of looking at the market. I think sometimes, it is the most obvious thing that slip past us because we have let society shape the way we think about things. Sometimes, simple minded is as good as "outside the box"

just my .02


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## amv101 (Jul 16, 2007)

I was using google adwords and was convinced it was taking advantage of me. I was happy at first, with what appeared to be low costs per click.

I understand they base the pricing off of the popularity of the keywords, and a few other factors. Within 3 months my keywords were costing me almost 5 times the amount they were when I had signed up.

The name of one of my clothing lines is "Konform". When I signed up, I did some research and practically no one was using or searching for that word. I figured after some marketing, people would start searching it, even if only a few times. Well within 2 months that keyword was costing me $.75 per click. And it barely had any impressions. Like 50 I think total.

I know part of Googles marketing plot is to charges lots of people, by lots I mean millions, only what would appear to be a small marketing charge. I bet they think that to the individual, or business owner, that a $.50 difference, wouldnt bother them, and even if it did, they could get away with it for a day or two, or even weeks. You can set your MAX rate for the clicks and they only charge you what thier software seems to come up with, based on all the other factors.

If they have 10 million AdWords users, and they increase the cost per clicks by $.10 in one day, they make an extra $1 million that day. Only for one keyword, and one click! Imagine that multiplied by 10 or 100.

The gas companies do the same thing with petro prices. Increase the rates by $.10 over the entire country and they can easily make an extra $100 million that day or week.

I sent them an email with my concerns, and I got a reply that pretty much stated the system is automated and the charges increase based on use and some other factors that are pretty much out of everyones control. I wouldnt mind so much if it is system based, and the price does increase, but if that is the case, then it would only be fair if the prices decreased as well. Lets say in the 2 week period one of your keywords is not performing well, then if someone does use it, then it shouldnt costs you like its getting 20,000 impressions.

It pretty much came down to, how fast my rates increased, from when I had signed up. Although I only paid around $50 total at the end of 3 months, to me it became more of a principle matter. Another fine example of billion $$$ companies being greedy.

Yahoo seems like a much better solution. Heck, after one day, someone from Yahoo called me and personally stepped me through the whole procedure and gave me valuable tips. And my pricing has BARELY increased.


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## jboitcet (Oct 7, 2006)

We've got a lot of mixed reviews here. I've looked at adwords myself and it looks far too confusing with all the specialized tools. I wish there was a button that says 'explain it to me like I'm 4-years-old'.


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## JerseyScreener (Jan 29, 2008)

I'm very skeptical about the AdWords. At one point I noticed that two of my "Keywords" had registered "Clicks" but they didn't even have any "Impressions". I found that very odd. I don't know if anyone else has ever experienced that or if there's any explanation. When I noticed that, that's when I decided to pause the campaign.


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## marlo45 (Oct 4, 2007)

JerseyScreener said:


> I'm very skeptical about the AdWords. At one point I noticed that two of my "Keywords" had registered "Clicks" but they didn't even have any "Impressions". I found that very odd. I don't know if anyone else has ever experienced that or if there's any explanation. When I noticed that, that's when I decided to pause the campaign.


I'm kinda skeptical, too.

I had an AdWords account for another web site about a year ago. I also had a live chat software that would notify me when people came on my web site. This was the very early stage of grooming this site (my first) and i was literally sitting down in front of the computer waiting to invite guests to a live chat to convince them to buy.

Well, i was billed for 3 or 4 clicks before i actually saw my first visitor through my software. I still used it, but i thought that this was weird. Only Google knows if they have been robbing us folks.


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## Timewarp (Nov 15, 2007)

After some tweaking I was able to make a couple of campaigns that were slightly better then breaking even but as I tried to scale up the margin shrank until I was losing money. I turned most of my ads off except for a couple of small niches that didn't get many clicks ... until January 1 when a keyword that usually got 20 impressions a month jumped to over 20000 in 5 days, basically maxing out my daily budget every day until I noticed. They were unable to explain what happened. Im not using them anymore.


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## edski (May 3, 2007)

We were spending about $150 a month on google adwords. The clicks were there, but no orders. Try to use keywords in your website to come up on the main search side.


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## tshirtpimpz (Nov 23, 2007)

Google WAY too expensive, Yahoo much more cost effective.


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## JerseyScreener (Jan 29, 2008)

I didn't even think about Yahoo having their own version of AdWords. Do you use it pimpz? if so, how are your results?


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## signs_n_tees (Jan 18, 2008)

A year ago, I used them for the sign & banner part of my business. I did it conservatively, mostly 5¢ per click and low limits per day.
I got hammered with hits. As far as I could tell, it was the same 20-30 people EVERY SINGLE DAY. They click, blow out your budget and you disappear. Low life's aplenty. I did grab a single nice sale in about a six month period. A motel ordered two 4x20' banners on some very heavy 19oz material. I have to admit this plum was sweet, but never repeated. While this sale was over $700, my next biggest sale was not even $100. Excluding the big one, my total sales in 6 months weren't $700. It just wasn't worth the time. Another interesting thing was my ads showed from 6am-10am, by then they were used up. This one big order came to me around 7am. I really think some people get up and harass you, that's their "job".
I was on eBay. What a horrible place. Creative products are custom made. You have choices, which is a violation of eBay's terms of service, unless your item is custom made. Good luck getting that through to eBay. They refused to understand that a banner or sign was custom made. I got nearly every auction canceled. I had to use my wife's account to get off the radar screen of the person reporting me. I ultimately gave up after being suspended for two weeks for repeatedly violating rules, which I wasn't, but could not convince eBay otherwise. Like Google, once a competitor has decided to harass you, you get victimized far too much. Ironically, the ones reporting you probably use pirate software and have no respect for trademarks. I try to get out of the gutter the web can easily become.


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## marlo45 (Oct 4, 2007)

signs_n_tees said:


> Like Google, once a competitor has decided to harass you, you get victimized far too much.


I am absolutely terrified of this plague that Google seemingly refuses to eradicate. If someone sits on his/her computer all day clicking on competitors' ads, they don't care unless it is obvous. We all know it doesn't have to be that obvious for it to cost us some money/frustration.

This is a quote copied from online, somewhere:

"Google closely monitors all clicks on Google adwords ads to ensure that there is no abuse of the program. This includes analyzing all clicks to determine whether they fit a pattern of fraudulent use intended to artificially drive up an advertiser's clicks. Google's proprietary technology automatically distinguishes between clicks generated through normal use by users and clicks generated by click spammers and automated robots. As a result, we're able to filter out clicks you don't want and ensure they don't show up on your reports or bills." 

It seems to me that if your competitor stays off their fraud radar, they are allowed to harass you. I would love for them to simply stop charging for any duplicate clicks received in a 24 hour period.


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## tshirtpimpz (Nov 23, 2007)

JerseyScreener said:


> I didn't even think about Yahoo having their own version of AdWords. Do you use it pimpz? if so, how are your results?



Their version of adwords can be found here Online Marketing from Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture)

I did get quite a bit of traffic for a particular shirt I was advertising (a parody of Britney Spears). My average cost per click was around .09, Google wants $1.00+! I got between 200 - 600 hits from it a day depending on which day of the week and if Britney did anything crazy that day.


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## Roly (Jan 12, 2008)

Not me. I budgeted $50/month, a bunch of clicks, ZERO sales.


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## amv101 (Jul 16, 2007)

Yahoo seems like a more honest CPC campaign.

I could imagine, Google practicing some guerrilla tactics, being noone is really there to "police" them. As I mentioned, I can easily see where thier "software" manipulates the clicks to bring them extra revenue. With probably millions of people using it, and extra $.50 a day per user, going unoticed to the user, could make them millions. After not being happy with the service a month later and spending $150, well to us it seems like a petty loss, but I would bet that there are 10s of 1000s that have dont the same thing.... so the numbers add up quickly. I think "if" they were practicing this way, its obvious they would make more revenue off of clicks not generating purchases to the adwords customer, to keep the customer "experimenting" and spending money finding what words work. Remember that this IS the business model that made Google the billion dollar company they are today.

There is a reason the Google stock is +$500 a share!


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## jboitcet (Oct 7, 2006)

tshirtpimpz said:


> I did get quite a bit of traffic for a particular shirt I was advertising (a parody of Britney Spears). My average cost per click was around .09, Google wants $1.00+! I got between 200 - 600 hits from it a day depending on which day of the week and if Britney did anything crazy that day.


Tshirtpimpz, may I ask what your profit was on a single Britney Spears shirt?


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

I spend about $120,000 a week on Google Adwords in my day job. We have a turnover of about $25 million a week through SEM. 

Yes. It works.

But it isn't fire and forget. It's a marketing tool like any other, and requires a good lot of common sense and a little bit of marketing knowledge (things like managing budgets at the marginals etc)


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## outrageoustees (Feb 25, 2010)

I know this is an old thread, but I am getting ready to create a small adword campaign for my ClimbAddict shop. The sweet thing is that I signed up and then delayed creating a campaign, and now Google has offered me a free $100 worth credit.

I know that can get eaten up really quickly, of course.... At any rate, I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for me. Here's what I am thinking:
- My ad would read Climb On With ClimbAddict! Rock Climbing T-Shirts, Stickers Sigg Bottles and More(and then the URL)

I haven't looked into creating ads much, but understand about the cost adding up quickly(yikes!). I sort of feel that, with the $100 credit, maybe I could afford a quick 2 weeks to 1-month campaign where I spend another hundred($200 total). 

But I surely can't make that a regular expense. And perhaps that isn't enough to even create a return. 

I don't think I want to go the cost-per-click way as well, but pay for the impressions(as I believe climbers would remember the ClimbAddict name, and brand recognition is what I am also working to build).

Any suggestions on what limits I should be considering, to help keep the cost within budget? Or even "That'll never work(so long as you tell me why!).

Thanks.


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## eljeffe77 (Aug 1, 2010)

The thing with Google adwords is, the ads only get a TOTAL 2-5% of the search results, while the #1 NATURAL result gets between 40-45%.

For example, if somebody searches for a phrase 100 times - ALL of the ads combined will just get 5 clicks, while the #1 organic (or natural) result will get 40-45 of those clicks.

So yes, you WILL get some traffic, but it's best to get an SEO guy to get you ranked up highly for your phrase and market

Let me know if you have any questions - I'm an SEO guy and would be HAPPY to answer any questions. 

Jeff


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