Keyword Planner not accurate? And Further Adwords Tests

9 years ago

Alright I have just run this for a day with no bad results at all except on sales. Seems that CB product does not sell very well.

Anyway this is what I'm getting with the adwords campaign:
Clicks: 151
Impr: 943
CTR: 16.01%
Avg. CPC: €0.11
Cost: €16.97
Avg. Pos: 1.8

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Prosper202 has different results:
Clicks: 68
Click Throughs: 48
LP CTR: 64.71% (not bad I'd say?)

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Now the trouble bit:
ClickBank analytics:
Sales: ZERO.
Hops: 109
Order Form Impr: 11

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My Notes:
Seems that while the campaign is doing well, the LP is working well, etc the Offer is not converting.
Also I can see massive differences between what I get from Adwords, Prosper202 and Clickbank.

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My questions to the community..

What would you do? Ditch this? or wait a couple of days to see how it fares? I may get some sales yet. The pay out for the offer is $27 and so far I have spent in adwords $19.22 (€17).

Any ideas? I'm pretty new to adwords and this is a trial. So any insights would be welcome!

Thanks

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LucidWebMarketing

9 years ago

The reasons for the differences between the number of PPC clicks and reporting by analytics software is well documented. What it mostly boils down to is that Adwords reports clicks but analytic software reports visits, usually unique visits within a specified period. They are just not the same. They are other reasons too such as cookie settings which may skew the numbers in analytics.

From the little information you give, looks like you are doing well on the campaign side. I'd still like to see your QS but 16% CTR is great and I assume your QS is 7-10. That would suggest you are using focused keywords to the offer and great ads that obviously appeal to searchers. So a great start. Congratulations if this is your first ever campaign, very few do this well the first time.

The problem is therefore that the LP is not doing its job at closing the sale. Maybe your visitors are just finding a better deal at a competitor's. It may be that in that niche, people don't buy right away. Is it a high priced item? Something that is not needed right away? Typically, you would have wanted at least one sale in 150 clicks but maybe you just need more in your case. But I'd take a serious look at that LP, maybe check out competitors and try to figure out why you have not had the sales.

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edumira

9 years ago

thanks for the answer. Yes the QS is around 7.

The offer is for a CB product. The landing page the user lands in after clicking in the advert is mine. It is not exactly a straight bridge page although the user is then taken to the CB page.

My LP converts (according to Prosper202) at around 67%. So that is the percentage of users that end up in the CB vendor page.

Thanks

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LucidWebMarketing

9 years ago

If the visitor is taken straight from your sales page to the CB sales page, that's a bridge page. I advise changing it because Google will sooner or later, probably sooner.

The issue here seems to be exactly what Google doesn't want you to do: have a bridge page. Part of the reason for the bridge page policy is not to make things hard on affiliates. It's to help you out too. They know conversion on bridge page is poor.

Think of it this way. I go to a store and talk to a salesperson to get information about a product I'm interested in. He convinces me and I say I'll buy it. He turns around and says to talk to another salesperson who gives me the same sales pitch. I don't want another sales pitch, I want to pay and get out with my purchase. In essence, that's what your bridge page is doing and you have a large percentage of drop-outs, potential lost sales. You are putting an unnecessary step to the checkout which is turning people off.

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edumira

9 years ago

good stuff thanks. I'll change that. But can I add my on sales letter then and link directly to the CB checkout with my aff link? is that ok with CB TOS? and with Google?

Thanks
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dburk

9 years ago

Originally Posted by edumira

good stuff thanks. I'll change that. But can I add my on sales letter then and link directly to the CB checkout with my aff link? is that ok with CB TOS? and with Google?

Hi edmumira,

Yes that is the way to do it, take them straight from your offer page to the CB checkout orderform page. This eliminates the Bridge page issue that violates AdWords policy, and it is within CB terms. It might not be okay with the merchant, but most don't complain as long as you are selling through without complaints.

Now to you issue about poor conversions, it could very well be an issue with your targeting within your AdWords campaign. You said:

In Keyword Planner, the keyword has low competition, high traffic (22k a month) and a suggested bid of $0.08.

Keywords that register "low competition" in the Keyword Planner usually do so because they are problematic keywords. Typically they are too general, too ambiguous, or top of the funnel informations search terms, which are usually a very bad idea for a clickbank product.

As an affiliate marketer you only get paid for clickbank offers when you are the last click referrer. Targeting the top of the funnel (buyers in the early stages of the buying cycle) will dilute your marking efforts a great deal. A lot of your competitors will profit from your efforts. Instead Focus on lastclick (bottom of the sales funnel keywords. They tend to always be high competition keywords, because that is where almost all profits are made by affiliate marketers.

As ar as Keyword Planner accuracy, it cannot tell you in advance what your Quality Score will be and your Quality Score is what decides to the greatest extent what you need to pay for your CPC. That is not a problem with the tool, but an issue with your keyword selection, account structure, and ad copywriting skills.

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edumira

9 years ago

Hi Don,

thanks for this. Yes you may be right about the keywords being top of the funnel. I suppose I need to research more first and then come up with a good sales page. I believe I'm ok with copywriting and site design (I'm a graphic designer for 15 years).

Is there any information on what distinguishes top of the funnel to the bottom in terms of keywords? I have a clue that something like "buy [keyword]" would be pretty much the very bottom and highest converter, but there are situations in which that may not be feasible.

EDIT:
let me elaborate: would you consider "how to cure [keyword] quick" a top of the funnel or bottom of the funnel? I don't have much advertising experience and therefore I'm not too sure about the psychology behind high converting keywords that don't shout out "I want to buy this"

Thanks
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dburk

9 years ago

Originally Posted by edumira

Hi Don,

thanks for this. Yes you may be right about the keywords being top of the funnel. I suppose I need to research more first and then come up with a good sales page. I believe I'm ok with copywriting and site design (I'm a graphic designer for 15 years).

Is there any information on what distinguishes top of the funnel to the bottom in terms of keywords? I have a clue that something like "buy [keyword]" would be pretty much the very bottom and highest converter, but there are situations in which that may not be feasible.

EDIT:
let me elaborate: would you consider "how to cure [keyword] quick" a top of the funnel or bottom of the funnel? I don't have much advertising experience and therefore I'm not too sure about the psychology behind high converting keywords that don't shout out "I want to buy this"

Hi edumira,

Search terms that include "how to" are generally used by people in the research phase and typically in the top of the funnel (early buying stage). Search terms that include "reviews", are typically in the top or middle of the funnel, and branded searches that include the product name and phrases like "where to buy", "where to purchase", etc. are in the bottom of the funnel (purchase phase of buying cycle).