NY Times: Has Google AdWords Stopped Working?

11 years ago

I love this quote
"The increased demand for unpaid, or organic, search results has given rise to an entire industry specializing in search engine optimization, or S.E.O., with countless professed experts who promise to improve a Web site’s search ranking."

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

What's funny is you can still get $0.01 PPC Ads on Youtube, which is basically the same traffic as regular SERPs, well, anything that can be presented in a video format. Example the guy paying $140,000 a year on regular SERP traffic, good grief the guy could most likely dominate vacation cabin keywords on Youtube PPC (Adwords) with $140k a year ($383 per day).

Some people have more money than sense, probably more credit than sense (lol).

The guy with 45 cabins should be tracking his customers home locations (zip codes/cities) then checking to see If any of those zips are generating more leads than most other zips. Then target the hell out of those zip codes on Youtube, I have no doubts he would be getting very low CPC (ex: $0.01 CPC).

Guys like that cabin guy are cash cows for anyone they deal with, they get stuck in a pattern & rarely ask "Can I do better?".

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PerformanceMan

11 years ago

I think that article in the NY Times is interesting. They linked to the cabin rental website using "fishing holes" as the anchor text. It's a direct to a deep page dofollow link. I wonder who paid what to make that happen?

The article ends up being an ad for 'marketing automation' as the alternative to PPC. They misquote Hubspot's prices in there. HubSpot has no plans under $1,500 a month. So they're not exactly a low-cost alternative to PPC.

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Nelapsi

11 years ago

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

I think that article in the NY Times is interesting. They linked to the cabin rental website using "fishing holes" as the anchor text. It's a direct to a deep page dofollow link. I wonder who paid what to make that happen?

The article ends up being an ad for 'marketing automation' as the alternative to PPC. They misquote Hubspot's prices in there. HubSpot has no plans under $1,500 a month. So they're not exactly a low-cost alternative to PPC.

I honestly did not read the article for any education or business interest, I just thought it was funny how it made fun of professed seo experts. It did make me wonder if the writer has spent time on this forum

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36burrows 11 years ago

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

They misquote Hubspot's prices in there. HubSpot has no plans under $1,500 a month. So they're not exactly a low-cost alternative to PPC.

Wait I'm confused, am I looking at something else here?

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paulgl

11 years ago

It's a crazy article.

Of course adwords stops working. For anybody. Who can't
afford it. Supply and demand. If you can't afford it, don't
use it.

That's like saying,
"Super Bowl ads no longer work for small business."

Well, gee, ya think? At million$ per minute, of course!

But Super Bowl ads do not go unfilled. Just like adwords.

BTW: Google ad revenue rose 16% year over year, but
the cost per click went down!! (Google is heading this
off by thinking "mobile.")

That's like saying that Mercedes Benz has stopped working
for Walmart employees....gee, ya think? If you can't afford
something, don't buy it.

Here's the funny part. NY Times ad revenue fell 9 percent.

Looks like NY Times has stopped working for small business too!!!
(ROTFLMAO!)

Paul

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Becker13

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

That's like saying that Mercedes Benz has stopped working
for Walmart employees....gee, ya think? If you can't afford
something, don't buy it.

Here's the funny part. NY Times ad revenue fell 9 percent.

Looks like NY Times has stopped working for small business too!!!
(ROTFLMAO!)

Paul

lol good post paul

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Mike Anthony

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

What's funny is you can still get $0.01 PPC Ads on Youtube, which is basically the same traffic as regular SERPs, well, anything that can be presented in a video format.

Don't know how you come to that conclusion. The traffic watching videos is a substantially different market (yes with some overlaps) than regular SERPS. When you get ready to buy you are not watching videos. You do that when you are still in the decision mode. More real sales and conversions are made in the regular serps.

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

I think that article in the NY Times is interesting. They linked to the cabin rental website using "fishing holes" as the anchor text. It's a direct to a deep page dofollow link. I wonder who paid what to make that happen?

Same thing I thought. You and I put in some keywords like that and people would be screaming bought links. As a matter of fact you see an extraordinary amount of keyword links on that section of the New York times.

The article ends up being an ad for 'marketing automation' as the alternative to PPC. They misquote Hubspot's prices in there. HubSpot has no plans under $1,500 a month. So they're not exactly a low-cost alternative to PPC.

A writer that clearly favors big company answers. the second part could have be written for a advertisng piece for those companies.

Originally Posted by Nelapsi

I honestly did not read the article for any education or business interest, I just thought it was funny how it made fun of professed seo experts.

It reads that way but the link is actually to an article where they promote a SEO guru so I don't think that was its intention.

The Cabin guy is kind of daft though. He's dropping a $140,000 a year on adwords, not seeing good results but was afraid of hiring a SEO company for positioning in organic results?

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yukon

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Don't know how you come to that conclusion. The traffic watching videos is a substantially different market (yes with some overlaps) than regular SERPS. When you get ready to buy you are not watching videos. You do that when you are still in the decision mode. More real sales and conversions are made in the regular serps.

Lol, you ever wonder why TV infomercials keep running the same Ads month after month, because they make massive money. They make the sale with a phone number in the video.

If you read that article in OP you'll see the guy was blowing $140k with no results. The guy was barely breaking even (fail).

I personally look at Youtube videos for vacation info., I'm sure millions more do the same. It's better to see a video on a travel destination than to read some boring sales pitch.

It's stupid to pay $3 per click in SERPs when you can get the same traffic/buyers for pennies (YT).

Heck, on YT you can target the highest traffic videos with PPC, you don't even have to mess with SERPs, or do both with multiple campaigns & go with the best ROI.

Acting like the SERPs is the best you can do is just doing the same as the cabin guy, not testing anything, that's just wasting money & time. At least the cabin guy finally broke down & started looking at his options, instead of blowing another $140k year after year, with crappy results.

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Mike Anthony

11 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Lol, you ever wonder why TV infomercials keep running the same Ads month after month, because they make massive money. They make the sale with a phone number in the video.

Apples and oranges. TV is not the web. People are not watching TV to see the ads. They are watching other programs and the ads have them as a captive audience. Entirely different scenario

I personally look at Youtube videos for vacation info., I'm sure millions more do the same. It's better to see a video on a travel destination than to read some boring sales pitch.

People watch videos to see the locations etc. Like I said its part of the decision making process but you have got to be dreaming if you think people go on youtube when they are in the money spending phase of booking rooms, reserving flights and renting cars. that major spending step comes overwhelmingly on the regulars serps.

Acting like the SERPs is the best you can do is just doing the same as the cabin guy, not testing anything, that's just wasting money & time.

Cabin guy wasted money by not ranking in the same serps he was paying for not because he didn't use your Youtube strategy with its relatively lower conversion. Simple and elementary. No matter what you claim bookings (Where the money is actually collected) happen overwhelming in the regular serps not on youtube.

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bagusp

11 years ago

i think if adwords dead, adsense will dead as well

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36burrows

11 years ago

So just because this dude sucks with Adwords and is losing money must mean that all small business owners are in the same boat RIGHT?

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Paul Gram

11 years ago

Adwords definitely still works VERY well for small biz. While click costs have gone up, its also not all about CPC. Relevancy and ad/landing page quality can actually lower your CPC while raising your ad position.

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Oswald Joshua

11 years ago

I do not agree with this article at all. Adwords works very well for lot of business and Google is putting efforts to help advertisers.

Adwords rocks specially for small businesses

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NY Times: Has Google AdWords Stopped Working?

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