Google Adwords

[Vic Davis]

I've been having an infuriating time with google's adword system. If I get one more message on a key word that has a 1.5% CR that I need to improve the quality or raise the bid to "reactivate" the key word, I am going to go insane. I finally got a good ad working with some reasonably priced cost per clicks and they go and ruin it. First they tell me I can increase traffic immensely by increasing my daily budget. Then the next day they deactivate the one key word that is driving all the traffic and has a 1.5% CR. I'm about to just give up on them. Yahoo is no prize either. Your ad get stuck in the middle of a gaggle of giant mega corps all with the exact same sounding ad. Anybody have any good strategies for doing this?

[cliffski]

whole books have been written on the topic, and tons of online articles. you are not alone, sometimes it seems the google ad stuff is run by chimpanzees on LSD. And don't get me started on their gmail spam filters.
I'm no expert on adwords, but after a LOT of tinkering, you can get sensible results that google leave alone and don't monkey with the minimum costs on. takes a while though.

[Vic Davis]

sometimes it seems the google ad stuff is run by chimpanzees on LSD.

Ha. That is a perfect description. Guess I will just start experimenting. They seem to be forcing me to mimic the key word in my ad text or pay out the nose for each click. The result is that my ad looks just the same as everybody elses. I've got BMT micro but not the premium plan so I can't get the conversion tracking going. At least that would give me an idea about whether it was even worth it doing the adwords. Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not crazy.

[cliffski]

I have a buy page that redirects to the bmt site, and I put the google conversion code on the redirect page. try that.

[ChrisP]

You could ask BMT Micro to put your Google Analytics code on all the checkout pages as part of your order form customisation. They did it for me, and I'm just on the standard plan. I brought it up when they were customising the form and they didn't have a problem with it. Just ask them to customise your order form, and email them the relevant Javascript snippet (make sure you use the HTTPS version since the checkout pages are HTTPS).

[jon0231]

Hi Vic,

I've been working with Adwords for years. Here's some tips that'll help you increase CR and decrease CPC:

1) don't bid on broad terms
2) implement conversion tracking (free with Google Analytics)
3) don't go for the top two ad positions
4) expand your negative keywords

I hope this helps

Jonathan

[Vic Davis]

Hey, Sorry I missed this reply. Thanks for the tips. Right now google and I are in a Mexican standoff. They want minimum bids of 0.40/0.50 cents on any of the keywords that have pulled any traffic in for me. I was getting a 1.0 to 2.0 percent click through rate usually. But that wasn't good enough for google. I'd always come back and the minimum bid was higher and half my keywords were inactive. I implemented the tracking thanks to BMT being so approachable and fast but the results while they lasted were really dissapointing. I just can't justify spending a dollar to get three people to take a look at my products page. Oh well. I'll keep looking elsewhere.

[oldschool]

You might want to try microsoft and yahoos advertizing. I had the same problems with adwords wanting more cash but I found out that when there was a major release of that type of game the big boys would eat my lunch for a few days then back off. yahoo's offering $50 and I got $25 from adcenter. However, I've never seen my ad on adcenter only companies like target that don't sell the games I'm advertising for. Go figure.

Good luck

[Vic Davis]

Yeah I've got accounts with Yahoo and Adcenter as well. My general impression so far with Yahoo is that it is cheaper but the results for key words are almost laughably overrun with target, circuit city, shopzilla, insert generic large webseller here. Adcenter for microsoft seems to just not have much traffic for the keywords I'm interested in. I'm beginning to think this whole internet marketing through search engines is a bit of a racket or suckers game.

[Vic Davis]

Anybody know if the minimum bid to activate an adword for google is affected by how big a single competitor is bidding. I want to bid on a key word and right now there is only one other company advertising for it. The mininimum bid is 0.50 and that's just silly. My add description is for the same type of product. It's not like I'm advertising lady's lingerie for a mens underwear keyword. I'm getting the feeling I should just give up on Google. I would really like to see somebody else come in and knock them down a few pegs.

[oldschool]

Here's my experience:

4 companies were advertising for the same keyword phrase then I stepped in and the cost was .10 cents for a week or two. Then Bigfish released a game in the genre and boom the price shoots up for all the keyword phrases to about .80 cents and now the cost is back down to .10 and .05 cents and there are over 14 advertisers now.

[cliffski]

lots of discussion here:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/

[Danimal]

Sometimes it's better to buy links from somewhere like text-links-ads.com instead of ads. Make your site go to the top of the search results and get many more visitors than if you had paid 10 cents for each ad click.

[Vic Davis]

Hey, thanks guys. Cliffski's link was interesting just to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that something is rotten in Denmark. My site must be flaged for low quality. The whole quality of the keywords thing seems like an excuse to run a rigged show. You are bidding on placement but Google uses a handicaping system to force your bids up. For all we know everybody's quality sucks. Certainly my puny intellect doesn't see a big difference in the "quality" of the adds I am competing with.

When I asked google for an explanation, the google email response that I got suggested I be more specific like "Post-apocalyptic strategy games." I think that will probably have 10 searches this month:)

I'm going to put this channel on the backburner. Set my bids low and just wait and try and find other ways to reach customers.

[Lostlogic]

Hey, thanks guys. Cliffski's link was interesting just to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that something is rotten in Denmark. My site must be flaged for low quality. The whole quality of the keywords thing seems like an excuse to run a rigged show. You are bidding on placement but Google uses a handicaping system to force your bids up. For all we know everybody's quality sucks. Certainly my puny intellect doesn't see a big difference in the "quality" of the adds I am competing with.

When I asked google for an explanation, the google email response that I got suggested I be more specific like "Post-apocalyptic strategy games." I think that will probably have 10 searches this month:)

I'm going to put this channel on the backburner. Set my bids low and just wait and try and find other ways to reach customers.

Strange you are seeing that problem, or it's strange that I don't! I have a lot of words I can get away with a 0.10 bid on. Are you using brackets or double quotes on your keywords to narrow?

[Davaris]

My game is hardcore and over the years I've found search engine traffic and download site traffic gets me few if any sales. However when my game is mentioned in a news item at a related hardcore games site, I get a good number of sales for about a month or so. So my advice (for what its worth), is to forget Google and pay for adds at the larger sites that got you sales in the past.

[Vic Davis]

Are you using brackets or double quotes on your keywords to narrow?

No, I'll check into this


So my advice (for what its worth), is to forget Google and pay for adds at the larger sites that got you sales in the past.

Yes, this is what I think I will be doing. Even during the short period I had with tracking working the results were poor. Maybe it was just my lack of expertise with the system. They basically want 0.40 to 0.50 per click for a key word like "Strategy Games." Sorry but homey don't play that game.