Please tell me what's going on here...

There could be a lot going on here, however your ctr is really low, especially for the search network. I could help you out. PM for some private ppc coaching (free) and I can help you fix up your campaign.

Oh, and 13 clicks isnt enough to really go on. We need more info.

Mary

Hi Razorblade,

Without seeing your sales-pitch and the product it's hard to tell.

It also depends on whether these clicks were generated by content sites or by search results - the conversion rates differ greatly between those two!

Another thing - some products will not convert using simple forms of advertising.

You just have to go out there on forums and make contact with people and convince them you're really an expert in that particular market.

just by looking at your stats.

well, the quality score is quite good.
the cpc...you can't tell, we don't know what your niche is.
if you are 100% sure that your keywords are well targeted, i suggest you play around with the ad text, as your ctr is awful.
make your ads more appealing. make people click on them.

then we don't know what your product is. but you can't judge a product after only 13 hops.

A sale after only 13 visits is pretty unlikely.

Depends on what you're selling and what your LP is like but many would consider 1 sale for every 100 visitors pretty good. Some products/niches could require 300+ visitors.

That's what this isn't a "drop dead" easy game.

Have you also tried "placements" My adwords campaigns went crazy after I heard how to do that. Also there are some tricks to adwords that I never knew about but it's like sneaking in the back door stuff. I can't tell you much because I am getting private coaching and this guy is really just straight forward if you want to check it out..see sig

Hi razorblade,

One of the simplest way to increase your CTR is to use the keyword that you are bidding on as the title of your ad. The reason your CTR will increase is because when someone search for your keyword and your keyword is used on the title of your ad, Google will bold your title so it will stand out and catch the visitor's attention.

I hope you get what I am trying to say..

Keeping things simple. If you've received 13 clicks, then you would need to ask yourself two questions:-

1. What are these 13 people seeing ? Is your ad providing the correct info for your product (sometimes people are clicking, but they are expecting to see something else entirely).
2. Is the cost of the product or service too high ?

Hope this helps.

First up, good job! I love seeing people throwing themselves in willing to get their hands a little dirty

It's true, 13 clicks isn't enough to tell but I don't feel that is your problem. Your problem is the low CTR. I would hope for nothing less than 2%

The worse your CTR, the worse your quality score (of course its one of the many factors). You really need to work on getting that CTR up before you can start to analyze your campaign.

Have you altered the add content? You need to play around with this and make it more enticing for the searcher. Think things like, what would you like to click on. As an example a friend and I were selling physical goods recently, the original ad wen something like this:

'Check out our bargain <product> with free delivery'

The CTR was horrible so we changed the ad to

'Discount <Product>! Check out our exclusive hand made range'

The CTR went through the roof... Play around with your ads and see what yields the best results.

In short though, as I said above, you need to get that CTR up to 1 or 2 percent before you can make any accurate conclusions about the product itself.

Good Luck

Razorblade,

Don't worry about not making any sales now. Worry about learning from your experience. Have you tried changing the different ads. How about title or the message? Also, try to make sure that the keyword is not general but super targeted. You may not get the massive traffic buy you get the hungry buyers. Remember, if you try to sell to everyone, you will not make a sale.

Don't give up just because you've only got 13 clicks so far.

Jeff

There are 2 issues here..

1. Click Thru Rate - you can get a much better CTR than that and you can learn it really quickly & easily.

2. Conversion - once you get people to click on your ads you need to be able to convert them to buyers.

I tried PPC a couple of times - I did much the same thing - just gave it a go and got much the same results as you did - can I recommend you get a copy of Double Digit CTR by James Schramko.

I used his methods & they are really simple to implement - I ended up with between 10% - 25% CTR. It made a HUGE difference.

I can't recommend his product enough - it's just brilliant.

If you only have a CTR of 0.16% then you need to re-evaluate your ads.
Reasons for a poor CTR include

• Placement of your ad too low on the page or not on page one
• Poor ad copy

Personally I don't have very many keywords in each of my Ad groups.
Use only phrase match and exact match while experimenting with your words. Broad match could bring in too many wasted clicks. If you have several different keyword words then you will end up with several ad groups

Make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your pages (if you can - or some similar tracking)
I see you are sending direct to the landing page via an affiliate link so you can't put analytics on their page but there is software out there that can get.
You need to know which keywords convert for you when they do start converting.

My ad groups get a minimum of 3% and an average of 9% CTR. Some of them get 25% and 33% CTR - so strive to get as high as you can.
Lower than 2% and its a waste of time and money as Google will charge you more per click if you have a poor CTR

As for your keywords:
Make sure they are appropriate for the product and the ad contains a relevant feature and benefit. Don't be afraid to go after long tail keywords. There will be fewer impressions but the CTR should be better.

13 clicks isn't enough. You really need to get your CTR higher so you can at least feel confident that the clicks you are getting are from interested people. 13 clicks off a CTR of 0.16% is not a true indicator.

Here's what you need to do:

• Organize your keywords into small tight groups - you might only have 2 or 4 words in the group (plural and singular forms & exact & Phrase match)
• get rid of the broad match (for now)
• fine tune your ads to match the product and the keyword for that ad group
• work on getting your CTR higher
• strive for position 3-5. Higher positions just attract click happy searchers

When you work on your ads, don't change existing ones, make new ones so you keep your stats.
Run only 2 ads at the same time. Run it for a day or two and then pause the poor converting ad and write a new ad to run against the better performing ad. Always try to beat the better performing ad by creating a new one to challenge it.
Remember you are trying to get your CTR up. Keep those old ads around so you can see what you used before and what the stats were.

Hope this helps

Not sure you will want to play the Myspace PPC deal with their MyAds then if you have not solved this yet. Thye start at .25 a click and I lost loads of money while beta testing them.