Adwords is SO expensive

[mg1000]

How the heck do people make money with it?
I did it years ago and stopped because i lost my shirt and went into debt from using it.

Last night I decided to give it another go, and I made 2 campaigns and set each campaign at 35 cents a click. I wake up today and nothing. Not even a page impression.
One of them is a very small niche with little competition.
I cant believe I didnt get 1 impression even.
Do you have to bid $1 a click just to get anywhere?

[Heman Patel]

whats the search volume on your keywords?

[LegitIncomes]

Take some notes from this page:
Affiliate Help Page

[mg1000]

Originally Posted by Heman Patel

whats the search volume on your keywords?

1 niche is guinea pigs and the other is abs exercises.
I dont mind saying them since theyre not making me anything lol

[Lucid]

You can buy live guinea pigs off the Internet? Google's tool says about one million searches per month in US for "guinea pig(s)". $0.35 should get you on the first page. Maybe your ad hasn't been approved yet. Remember that CTR is king.

Ad for abs exercises, there's not as many searches. Be more specific with your keywords. Is is a book, exercise ball?

[Steven Carl Kelly]

There's a lot to it. You can really reduce your per-click costs if you know what you're doing. It takes time to learn how to make it happen.

[dream-builder]

I am having much the same problems, I had a couple ads up there and they were doing great and I really noticed a big draw of traffic to my site but then they tappered off and now nothing, no impressions, nothing for a few days!! I have changed all of my campaines and ads and everything has been approved but nothing is being shown at all......... its starting to frustrate me!!

[dburk]

Hi mg1000,

Setting up an AdWords campaign is deceptively simple. It is relatively easy to setup a campaign, but much more difficult to learn how to setup properly and for optimal results.

Have you looked at your Quality Scores? this will give you an indication of how well you have setup your campaign. If you quality scores are Great then you are on the right track, however if you have OK or poor QS you need to fix some issues.

@dream-builder,

I suspect that your Quality Scores dropped due to lower than average CTRs for your keywords. You must cull the poor performing keywords or they will drag your entire account down.

[dream-builder]

Just about every keyword is rated at a 7/10 or higher some are even 10/10 this is what confuses me the most!

[Kurt Henninger]

I've found that unless you are really really a "google scientist", the best way to afford clicks is to use opt-in pages and market a low cost offer on the front end which self-liquidates the leads you generate.

On the back end, market a higher priced product and this is where you get your money from.

This way, you can make $$ multiple times off of one lead you create.

At least in this way, if you can get to the point where the front end product pays for the clicks and leads, you are set in terms of your entire business funnel.

This works for any niche....guinea pigs, internet marketing, dating, etc.

[Roman8389]

I am having the same problem. I set up a campaign over a week ago and I haven't had a single impression. My max bid was $0.30 for keywords that were mostly under 20,000/month searches, but Campaign Management says that I would need $8.00/click to get on the first page!! I made sure that the keywords were exact-match only, and the quality score for all of them was 7/10. I just changed the keywords (and ads accordingly) to ones that have less than 1,000 monthly searches, but it still says that I need $5.50/click to get on the first page! Quality score is still 7/10...

Am I doing something wrong here?

[Zach Booker]

That is weird, that's usually a sign Google just doesn't like your site.
For whatever reason. Sometimes mine go from 0.40 to 9.00, for no reason at all.

All I do is copy and paste the campaign over to a new one and BAM back to 0.40.

Try that out.

BTW, if your targeting something like 'make money online' than expect to pay high results like that.

Zach

[Roman8389]

Zach -

I just copied it all to a new campaign and it still says that I need from $5.50-$8.00/click to get on the first page. The destination URL is a .info that just redirects to the affiliate page, with URL masked. The niche has a lot of competition, but my long-tail keywords have 1,000 or less monthly searches.

[Zach Booker]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong...

But the big G hates redirects(Unless it's iFramed?). And that might be why their making you pay so much.

Another thought is that the keyword might just be very expensive.

Another thing is often times it says you need to pay 5-8 dollars too but when you set it that high for a click it usually ends up costing much less.

Just some ideas...this has never happened to me (because I don't redirect) so they may not be 100% correct

Zach

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by Roman8389

The destination URL is a .info that just redirects to the affiliate page, with URL masked.

I think you've uncovered your problem. Google will seriously slap a site like that.

[Roman8389]

Thanks for the input Zach and Steven. I took out the redirect and just iframed the affiliate page. The first page bids have gone down, but they still want $3.00-$4.25/click for the first page.

[aihamshujaa]

I agree Adwords can be a real nightmare. You might wanna try this:

When bidding on keywords, start high if you can afford it (even go as high as $1) so that you get top page placement. This means more clicks and a high CTR. This usually takes about 10 days.
Once you have top placement reduce your bid by $0.05 per keyword or phrase. Hold for 48 hours to see if this effects your page and position rankings. If it does then instantly return to your former bid for that keyword or phrase.

If there’s no change in the form of lowering either or both your ad’s position on any given page then remain for about 4-5 days; then repeat shaving $0.05 per keyword and phrase per bid. Continue in this way until you are paying way less, but still maintaining a top choice position (i.e. first 1-3 pages).

[Roman8389]

Update -

I took out the iframe and just put up a skeleton site: a homepage with a little blurb about the niche, linked to Privacy policy, About us, and Contact page. Because of the keywords in the landing page text, the quality score went up to 10/10 for all ads, but the $3.00-$4.25 cost for first page placement is still there. The affiliate link isn't even on the page.

I guess at this point I can say that I'm going for the auto insurance quote niche. I know it's competitive, but $3/click just doesn't seem right, no matter what the niche is.

[rojo]

Adwords its not that hard If you know what you are doing. And you can learn it easy. If you want success with adwords the fastest way is using good competitive intelligence tools, and a good adwords course. Right now gcdetective has a special $1 trial (which was free last week), and you get the Google Cash 4 course along with the adwords spytool, so you can start cloning successful campaigns with it. I recommend this approach to anyone interested on adwords.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Roman8389

I guess at this point I can say that I'm going for the auto insurance quote niche. I know it's competitive, but $3/click just doesn't seem right, no matter what the niche is.

Hi Roman8389,

That CPC does sound about right. The average CPC for your niche is typically between $10-$20. The reason it is so high is due to competition and the way lead generation companies resell the same lead many times over to recoup the cost.

They will sell the lead as an exclusive for about $25 per qualified lead to the first buyer. After 2 weeks they will then resell the same lead several times again to agents for somewhere between $9-$15 each. They will continue to resell that same lead an infinite number of times with the price dropping slightly until it reaches the current market price for generic leads.

You happen to be targeting one of the most competitive industries in PPC marketing. The lead companies can generate nearly $200 per lead, so a $10 CPC is very profitable for them if they have a decent conversion rate.

I pity the poor souls that get slammed with all those sales calls.

[Roman8389]

Thanks for the response Don. Yeah, I was beginning to figure that since the niche is so crowded and competitive, $3 - $4/click was just the way that it is. But other niches that aren't so competitive should be under $1/click for first page, right?

[FredericoVilaVerde]

Originally Posted by Kurt Henninger

I've found that unless you are really really a "google scientist", the best way to afford clicks is to use opt-in pages and market a low cost offer on the front end which self-liquidates the leads you generate.

On the back end, market a higher priced product and this is where you get your money from.

Kurt I agree 100%. And this is where the game is heading.
Google wants "serious players" with "serious marketing skills"
so they can both (you and Google) make "serious money".

I will never say that Google Cash strategies "don't work".
They do work for many people!

I just personally think they just create less reliable,
less steady and less predictable income... versus when
developing your sales funnel for information products.

Originally Posted by Kurt Henninger

This way, you can make $$ multiple times off of one lead you create.

This is more reliable, more steady and more predictable income.

Originally Posted by Kurt Henninger

At least in this way, if you can get to the point where the front end product pays for the clicks and leads, you are set in terms of your entire business funnel.

And now you have "less competition" ... usually just
"more serious" competitors (those who split-test ads,
landing pages and keep testing all the sales funnel)
which is what Google wants in the long term:

- MORE advertising cash per advertiser/keyword!

Frederico Vila Verde

P.S. Yes, this requires MORE work! Ugly truth just said!

[JosephSegal]

You need to make a good landing page to get your money's worth for clicks.

[rojo]

@Roman8389

Yes there are tons of hot niches with a lot of keywords under $1 and plenty of keywords you can get 3rd spots for under .50 c... Ive got many good converting keywords which I started with at like $1.50/$6 at first position and now I've got them from .25c to .90c in 3rd (a great position, converting better that the first spot.). If you are paying that kind of money for your keywords you should definitively get the Google Cash Detective... I mean, I have never paid for keywords that expensive and still I would not gamble my money on adwords... I think these days the right way to go about adwords and ppc in general is using the right competitive intelligence tools to track and emulate the leaders.

my .25c hahaha

[masbudz]

We can lose money on Adwords very quickly if We not master in it..

[ramone_johnny]

There are so many different layers to this question its just not funny! However Ill say what I do know.

Seriously, you should be paying no more than .10c a click, probably less for guinea pigs -- .35c are you serious???

What exactly are you selling? At .35c a click, it had better be a product of at least $47-$57 dollars, which in that marketplace, I just cant see happening.

Unless you know what you are doing with Adwords, you really are just "gambling" your money. Either learn how to use it correctly, or look at alternative options.

Hope this helps,

John

[ramone_johnny]

Lets look at it this way....

1% conversion rate
.35c a click
500 clicks a day
Selling a $27 ebook on guinea pigs....

Your cost per day will be $175
And your sales will generate $135

LOSS - $40 per day.

Even at a 1% conversion rate, which I've found hard to achieve, you'll be losing $40 a day.

Based on those figures, you would need to be making %1.3 percent sales conversion, or selling almost 7 copies of whatever it is youre selling out of every 500 visitors to walk away with fifty cents.

Hardly seems worth it huh?

I wont go into it here, but work it out based on .10c a click.

Best of luck.

[Lucid]

> Lets look at it this way....

And that's the way you should look at it.

In Ramone's example, and I suspect all those that have used PPC, the problem is a poorly converting landing page. Don't just look at the PPC side and how to bring more traffic. Look at your page and try to improve the conversion. Of course, it could also be poorly chosen keywords. This applies not only to PPC but SEO as well. Don't write for the search engines, write for the humans that will read your page. Humans are the ones with money.

Also, don't think of what you pay for a click. Think of what you can make with that click. I don't have a problem paying $5 a click if my conversion is 5% for a $300 product or the lifetime value of a customer is in the thousands of dollars. It's all relative.

[new guy]

Well, see there are only 3 ways to build a business. Traffic is one way (usually the most expensive), conversions is #2 and backend is #3. These principles work in any business. Online or off. If you take the above example and convert more people, it would make money. So that is a result of a better landing page and likely a good follow-up system. Then you can look and see if there is something else you can sell those same leads. First, is there an up-sell you can offer right away at time of purchase. Simply bundling some more products or options on purchase (a supplimentary video, the ebook in audio format delivered on cd, etc), maybe you could offer an upsell to $47 or $67. That, again would change your numbers.

That is marketing

Enjoy.

What about if you increased the value of each

[InternetMarketingIQ]

It's market driven. And some people make money and some people do not. And the people who do are leveraging some very tight margins. They push high margin products and test test test.

[webpromoterservice]

Originally Posted by mg1000

How the heck do people make money with it?
I did it years ago and stopped because i lost my shirt and went into debt from using it.

Last night I decided to give it another go, and I made 2 campaigns and set each campaign at 35 cents a click. I wake up today and nothing. Not even a page impression.
One of them is a very small niche with little competition.
I cant believe I didnt get 1 impression even.
Do you have to bid $1 a click just to get anywhere?

you sound like someone who gives up easily.
You have to test,test and test with google adwords.start small and build up your campaigns and keep testing.

If adwords was easy,then i guess everyone would be a master at it.

[kimothy777]

I suggest while you are learning you start off with an extremely low budget (like $5.00 per day. Use only exact match, NOT broad match. When you know what you are doing, then you can broaden but for now you want the most targeted traffic. You should be getting on the front page so you are doing something wrong here and you need to find out what it is.
Look at your quality score and create a landing page for each keyword. Put one keyword in each keyword group. it might take you a few hours but you will get high quality scores by doing this. And a high QS will bring down yoru cost per click.