Confession : "$11,935.21 in Google Adwords" :(

[simaurile]

Hey Warriors,

Whats going?

I just wanted to make this thread, because I wanted to confess.

2 Weeks ago, I saw a video series on Google Adwords. I was very convinced that this is it, I can be more profitable.

Long story short, last week, I started a Google Adwords campaign.

The guide showed me to keep a high budget in order to get lower costs per click. And so I did.

3 Days ago, I checked my Clickbank account, and I see

$28.11

I thought, "hmmm, I didn't get many clicks, did I?"

So I went to my Google Adwords account, and saw

$11,935.21
Yea, I had lost that much!

I contacted Google, and then realised my mistake.

I copied all the keywords from the Google Keyword tool, even the ones that included "free" and "pdf download" and "torrent".

I thought I'd share my experience here, and let me advise you,

Don't Risk It With Adwords!

Save your life :P

That was all my online savings.

The money I made with WSO's, Niche Websites, Product Launches, JV Brokering, Solo Ads and some other stuff too.

I can make up that money, but, time!


Anyway, just wanted to share.

Thanks
Sim Aurile
The Adwords Idiot

P.S I think I was also greedy, wasn't I?

[tryinhere]

? um i find it a tall story ?, what the heck did you have your daily spend on and not many clicks ? what were you bidding per click because at say even .25 a click thats 4 to the dolllar * 11K = 44K clicks and what one sale ? even the worst marketer on the planet could not pull that low of a conversion rate could they ? the adwords machine must have been clicking over like it was on steroids to push those $

and to boot seeing that most cb stuff falls foul of adwords i'M guessing they are letting you spend the 11K before they ban you ?

and and, what sort of pre pay or credit limit are they giving away to new players these days ?

[rich8169]

Sorry to hear that, it's quite a huge price to pay!

Hope you can recoup your lost soonest...

Cheers

[Joshyybaxx]

If you limit your daily spend, and apply it properly you can make some nice profit from it, I use adwords with brick n mortar companies and it works great... setting a daily limit as well as some smart choices with headlines and messages in the ads you can get real results.

I'd suggest next time looking through adwords properly before smashing up a campaign and trying to wing it without applying safety nets.

[mrgee]

Sounds like BS to me.. From my limited experience with adwords you need to prepay.. So how do you accumulate such a bill..? surely you had to pay in advance like everybody else..?

[faysal9]

Lolx. thats why i never give them my credit card details.
never save it

[sonic74]

but.....didn't you set up a daily budget ?

$11,900 spent in Google Adwords without any profit.... it's a huge amount

[Defunct]

So you set a high budget and didn't check the account? How many clicks did you get and over how many days?

High budget doesn't give lower CPC, that is totally retarded.

Don't risk it with Adwords is stupid advice just because you don't know how to use it?

Do you give someone your credit card and say here use this, i'll be back in a few days?

Surprised your credit card company didn't call you since it must have looked irregular to have like 50 Adwords charges come off in a few days?

[dburk]

Hi Sim,

So you set a really high daily ad budget (which is a sound practice in a closely monitored account) and paid no attention to it for a couple weeks. Hmm... And you were using untested keywords in a new account with untested account structure pointing to untested landing pages and using untested bids in an untested bidding strategy? I'm sure you couldn't be too surprised by your results.

I hope you realize that if you had optimized the account structure and monitored the account and made timely adjustments to your bids you could have came here to report a very different story.

An AdWords account is not a toy, it is a serious business tool. It is an advertising platform like any other, it needs to be managed.

I have a local client who spent $30,000 on a direct mail piece that went to all the homes in a 5 mile radius. Guess how many sales he got. Nada! He didn't even get one customer to walk through the door from that ad spend. After it was over he said to me "I wish I had spent that same amount on AdWords" because he knew his AdWords campaigns were very profitable.

At least with adWords you only pay for the visitors you get to your website and you can monitor you campaigns and make adjustments in near real time.

[paulgl]

The guide showed me to keep a high budget in order to get lower costs per click.

What, that guy work for google? Stay away from him

You get lower CPC by getting a high QS and being rewarded from
google.

It might sound crazy, but their business model is based on giving
searchers what they need, not necessarily the biggest spender's
ad.

Still, sounds a litte farfetched for a loss of $12k. I can't imagine google
getting a new campaign that many useless clicks. Seems to me they would
have paused you in a hurry. Google has a disdain for useless clicks.

Paul

[Derek S]

Talk about learning the hard way I guess LOL.

It happens, I set up a campaign once while tired and ready for bed. Got up the next day only to see I had spent hundreds more over night than thought possible in that market... Long story short, I was so tired I forgot to turn off the content network before having my campaign go live.

What puzzles me is how you could set up an AdWords campaign, make it live and not check it for days? LOL

[Aussie_Al]

Originally Posted by Derek S

What puzzles me is how you could set up an AdWords campaign, make it live and not check it for days? LOL

To a click bank product or landing page?

Unless your landing page is configured right I am sure google would have not even approved this campaign

I have used adwords for the last 2 years and have always got great results.

[Derek S]

Originally Posted by Aussie_Al

To a click bank product or landing page?

Was talking about launching an AdWords Campaign and not check it for days.

[cooler1]

It sounds like a wind up. Not sure why your posting this crap.

If you've made money with so many different methods, why would you not even bother checking your AdWords account. Sounds like a newbie mistake.

[Kikos]

that's an insane story

[babybird]

wow that really blows i gotta be careful around adwords

[Stephen Gilbert]

Originally Posted by mrgee

Sounds like BS to me.. From my limited experience with adwords you need to prepay.. So how do you accumulate such a bill..? surely you had to pay in advance like everybody else..?

You can manually ad a payment, or be billed automatically when your balance runs out.