Do Adwords PPC actually ever pay?

smo · Mar 5, 2013

We've run a few campaigns in the past with limited success, we have one running currently but all I see is "huge" bills from Google with very limited clicks and almost non-existant conversions.

With old school marketing and advertising I know exactly how much an advert will cost (in the Telegraph for example) and even with changing trends and buying habits I can predict what sort of response and return we will get.

With adwords I have no idea whats going to happen, I cant understand why clicks are high and conversions are low, or why costs are high and results are very low. Is it a case of keeping the campaign running and the results will come, or am I right to pull it before too much money poors down the drain?

So, does PPC ever actually genuinely pay and see real dividends on spend, and if so at what level do you have to take it? Is £100 a month enough, or £1000 or £10000?

OldWelshGuy · Mar 5, 2013

There are so many variables it is impossible to answer your questions or know where to start, but lets try.

how are you setting your match of the terms?
What search expectancy terms are you generally using? (buy xxx is 100 times better than xxx for example as they are lookign to buy)
What landing page are you using?
Are you using negative terms?
Is your offer matched by the landing page content?
Are you setting individual bids?
Are you using the content network?
If yes have you got lower bids for content sites?

Those a re a couple of the cuff

smo · Mar 5, 2013

OldWelshGuy said:
There are so many variables it is impossible to answer your questions or know where to start, but lets try.

how are you setting your match of the terms?
What search expectancy terms are you generally using? (buy xxx is 100 times better than xxx for example as they are lookign to buy)
What landing page are you using?
Are you using negative terms?
Is your offer matched by the landing page content?
Are you setting individual bids?
Are you using the content network?
If yes have you got lower bids for content sites?

Those a re a couple of the cuff

1) We think them up and use some google suggestions
2) ?
3) We are directing them directly to the product category of the site
4) No
5) Yes, mothers day offer to a mothers day products page
6) One one ad yes, on the other no
7) The what?
8)....

Bah, that clearly shows we (myself and my colleague doing this) know squat about PPC!

So that goes back to the how much should we spend and are we ever going to get it back. I'd happily spend £1000 a month if we got that++ back in increased turnover and profit, but if its just "throwing it away" or of low return my budget quickly becomes £0

Faevilangel · Mar 5, 2013

AdWords can be a good revenue stream but it does need constant investment of time. You have 3 real options, company

1) pay a company to set up properly and train you on how to use it
2) let a company run the whole account
3) do some training and do it all yourself

For an investment of a few hundred, I would do #1 as you're intending to spend thousands, you will get this cost back in lower cost per clicks and better conversions.

Sent from my HTC One SV using UK Business Forums

Ola1 · Mar 5, 2013

PPC improperly set up is one off the quickest roads to disaster available .I know

I think its important to learn the interface , and then experiment. However, one also needs deep pockets to get it right unless you buy the expertise

The content network is made up of non google sites running adsense,

directmarketingadvice · Mar 5, 2013

smo said:
So, does PPC ever actually genuinely pay and see real dividends on spend

If it didn't, that would mean hundreds of thousands of businesses using it - even though every single one of them is making a loss.

How likely is that?

I cant understand why clicks are high and conversions are low, or why costs are high and results are very low. Is it a case of keeping the campaign running and the results will come

If it's losing money, it'll probably continue to lose money.

The question is 'why'?

For example, based on your cost per click, what % of clickers need to buy in order for you to break even? What % are buying?

Hope this helps,

Steve

Websitehandyman · Mar 5, 2013

I think the term is "Bucket Advertising"

If your chasing keywords on there and getting no results then simply stop. You would pay someone to post leaflets in empty house would you ?

Adwords can work for everyone but most people should at first just use it for more exposure at little cost while filtering and honing the way they want it to work.

JMRidley · Mar 5, 2013

smo said:
We've run a few campaigns in the past with limited success, we have one running currently but all I see is "huge" bills from Google with very limited clicks and almost non-existant conversions.

With old school marketing and advertising I know exactly how much an advert will cost (in the Telegraph for example) and even with changing trends and buying habits I can predict what sort of response and return we will get.

With adwords I have no idea whats going to happen, I cant understand why clicks are high and conversions are low, or why costs are high and results are very low. Is it a case of keeping the campaign running and the results will come, or am I right to pull it before too much money poors down the drain?

So, does PPC ever actually genuinely pay and see real dividends on spend, and if so at what level do you have to take it? Is £100 a month enough, or £1000 or £10000?

We have tried offline advertising and have had exactly the opposite experience. We have found it extremely difficult to measure the impact of any of our offline ads and have stopped doing them for now. Whereas with PPC, if you set up conversion tracking you know exactly what return you are getting for your spend which I think is great. As others have said though, it does require a lot of effort - you can't just set up your ads and leave them.

simon field · Mar 5, 2013

We're running two campaigns at £100/month each and our phones have never been busier - it's certainly more than paying for itself because calls are definitely translating to firm orders and we also have a good few solid industry quotes out there at the moment which before we started our ppc, wouldn't have happened.

But the truth is - I don't really know how. We set up initially just using a few keywords obvious to us / our potential clients, tweaked it after a month or so when it became obvious what wasn't working and homed in on what was, chucked in a few negative keywords and bingo!

We are fairly niche though, so maybe it's just a combination of luck and blundering on our part.

(Our website really needs doing again but it doesn't seem to be putting anyone off)

Elliottc26 · Mar 5, 2013

There are a few other variables that can influence results:

1. Landing Page - Is there a form and/or links to one? Is there a way to buy on the page? Is the copy selling? Does it look professional? Are your pages all about the service/products? Does your copy and design speak to your targets or are they all about you?

2. The ads themselves - Are they targeting the right keywords? How are they written? Who gets to see them?

As others have said, you can get them to work for you, but there are many factors that influence results.

What pages do they land on?

Esk247 · Mar 5, 2013

simon field said:
We're running two campaigns at £100/month each and our phones have never been busier - it's certainly more than paying for itself because calls are definitely translating to firm orders and we also have a good few solid industry quotes out there at the moment which before we started our ppc, wouldn't have happened.

But the truth is - I don't really know how. We set up initially just using a few keywords obvious to us / our potential clients, tweaked it after a month or so when it became obvious what wasn't working and homed in on what was, chucked in a few negative keywords and bingo!

We are fairly niche though, so maybe it's just a combination of luck and blundering on our part.

(Our website really needs doing again but it doesn't seem to be putting anyone off)

I think your's is fairly niche and uncompetitive on adwords. I rarely get sales through PPC for our mainstream products because anyone clicking on the ads is just price comparing with amazon or they're browsing. Even when we have it all set to exact match for action words such as 'Buy xxx' or 'where can i buy xxx' it still yields no results.

Yet for our niche products we do get sales or enquiries using exactly the same set of exact matches just within the niche.

degadar · Mar 5, 2013

Yes.

I spent £1.5m with Google last year and will do about the same this year.

It can work and work very well, but if you're going to do it you need to learn the ropes. It's far easier to lose money doing PPC than it is to make it. If you're going to do it, find a friendly person who can do it successfully and take them out for a slap-up meal at a very nice restaurant armed with a tape recorder and notepad

smo · Mar 5, 2013

Faevilangel said:
AdWords can be a good revenue stream but it does need constant investment of time. You have 3 real options, company

1) pay a company to set up properly and train you on how to use it
2) let a company run the whole account
3) do some training and do it all yourself

For an investment of a few hundred, I would do #1 as you're intending to spend thousands, you will get this cost back in lower cost per clicks and better conversions.

Sent from my HTC One SV using UK Business Forums

We are now considering all 3 of your options but I would agree that #1 is definately the most appealing so we get off to the right footing and understand what is going on and why.

directmarketingadvice said:
If it didn't, that would mean hundreds of thousands of businesses using it - even though every single one of them is making a loss.

How likely is that?

Hundreds of thousands of businesses p*ss money down the drain on a daily basis on all sorts of things, I wouldn't like to say all PPC campaigns make a loss but I should think a good deal of them do.

directmarketingadvice said:
For example, based on your cost per click, what % of clickers need to buy in order for you to break even? What % are buying?

Hope this helps,

Steve

It does help, I'l look at some numbers. I've been reading or websites and papers too Steve, wil most likely be in touch when we decide what we are going to do about this going forward

JMRidley said:
We have tried offline advertising and have had exactly the opposite experience. We have found it extremely difficult to measure the impact of any of our offline ads and have stopped doing them for now. Whereas with PPC, if you set up conversion tracking you know exactly what return you are getting for your spend which I think is great. As others have said though, it does require a lot of effort - you can't just set up your ads and leave them.

We have a very sucessful past with print advertising in national papers and big magazines and have made hundreds of thousands (probably milions) more than they cost us or our partners in the past 20 years. We know what we are doing in that market, clearly with PPC we dont have a clue!

Elliottc26 said:
There are a few other variables that can influence results:

1. Landing Page - Is there a form and/or links to one? Is there a way to buy on the page? Is the copy selling? Does it look professional? Are your pages all about the service/products? Does your copy and design speak to your targets or are they all about you?

2. The ads themselves - Are they targeting the right keywords? How are they written? Who gets to see them?

As others have said, you can get them to work for you, but there are many factors that influence results.

What pages do they land on?

They land on the specific section of the website for that advert, so mothersday advert lands on the mothersday products section. Its an online store so the pages are all about the products and they do sell - just not from PPC leads it seems.

Alastair Brian said:
It totally depend on the they keywords you are using in PPC campaign. While targeting do you consider the conversion intent of the customer against that keyword? Like if you use buy with some keyword then surely the conversion intent will be high as compare to simple keyword like black shirt.

Second thing is that do consider the on Page content. Is it appealing? The payment gateway? Is it popular among the online shoppers?

We sell from other organic search traffic so the site works. This particular site uses paypal instead of our normal gateway until it is transferred across to our new magento platform.

degadar said:
Yes.

I spent £1.5m with Google last year and will do about the same this year.

It can work and work very well, but if you're going to do it you need to learn the ropes. It's far easier to lose money doing PPC than it is to make it. If you're going to do it, find a friendly person who can do it successfully and take them out for a slap-up meal at a very nice restaurant armed with a tape recorder and notepad

But that 1.5m wasnt YOUR money though was it, it was spend of clients money as you work in online marketing it seems - fancy a slap up meal?

smo · Mar 5, 2013

I would just like to say at this point thank you all for your input and advice, it is very much appreciated and why this community is so great

degadar · Mar 5, 2013

smo said:
But that 1.5m wasnt YOUR money though was it, it was spend of clients money as you work in online marketing it seems - fancy a slap up meal?

Nope, my money, every penny of it. If you're ever in the Midlands you'd be more than welcome to come and chat.

smo · Mar 5, 2013

degadar said:
Nope, my money, every penny of it. If youre ever in the Midlands youd be more than welcome to come and chat.

WOW, that is one seriously large budget. I dont doubt it pays (or you are daft and very rich!) but does a good working PPC campaign scale from say £1500 to £15000 and on to £1.5m?

degadar · Mar 5, 2013

The spend amount does matter but doesnt matter a huge amount compared to the difference it makes properly setting up and managing the account.

It takes a fair bit of time to manage an account properly so I suppose you need a certain spend and return to justify that. I have another small business that spends £500 every couple of months and that gets the clicks it needs at about 30p - even at that level of spend.

If you want a quick list of my process to compare against what youve done so far Im quite happy to do that.

Ola1 · Mar 5, 2013

If I may ask, How much did you spend before you got confident of your system

degadar · Mar 6, 2013

FinchleyBusinessSystems said:
If I may ask, How much did you spend before you got confident of your system

Not really sure. I've done Adwords for as long as Google has. There have been times when I've torn my hair out over it and jumped on a plane to Dublin to see the bu****s face to face to get answers about their system.

I've tried 3 or 4 different strategies but have mostly stuck to the same one for the past few years.

It's like SEO. Google keeps changing stuff to constantly improve its revenue. Google doesn't give two hoots for its customers and will empty your credit card and laugh at you given half a chance.

directmarketingadvice · Mar 6, 2013

smo said:
Hundreds of thousands of businesses p*ss money down the drain on a daily basis on all sorts of things, I wouldn't like to say all PPC campaigns make a loss but I should think a good deal of them do.

Given it's so easy to measure ROI (assuming your conversions are done online), what's in it for the advertiser?

What's their reason for continuing to run an ad campaign they know is losing them money?

Steve

Curious · Mar 6, 2013

SMO My first attempt at a campaign was in a similar vein to yours in that it ended up being quite expensive and being a bit hit and miss as to whether it showed a return or not. I ended up speaking to and using Andy Baker from these forums who turned it all around and ever since then it's been nicely profitable.

Steve2507 · Mar 6, 2013

directmarketingadvice said:
Given it's so easy to measure ROI (assuming your conversions are done online), what's in it for the advertiser?

What's their reason for continuing to run an ad campaign they know is losing them money?

Some campaigns may be run as loss leaders to get a companies name out there. I'm thinking here about campaigns against competitors brand names.

Going back to the scaling option we currently spend about 10 times the amount we did 2 years ago and looking forward we envisage doubling our spend by Christmas, so scaling it can be done. However it does depend on the market you are in.

Going over the previous posts the one thing no one has latched on to (and if they have I apologise for missing it) is the landing site itself. I've seen many forum posts about adwords not working when the real problem is the landing site itself. If your website doesn't convert anyway then it doesn't matter how much ad spend you throw at it you still won't get any orders.

Make sure everything is working perfectly and converting well on your site before you embark on paying too much for ppc.

degadar · Mar 6, 2013

Steve2507 said:
Some campaigns may be run as loss leaders to get a companies name out there. I'm thinking here about campaigns against competitors brand names.

Going back to the scaling option we currently spend about 10 times the amount we did 2 years ago and looking forward we envisage doubling our spend by Christmas, so scaling it can be done. However it does depend on the market you are in.

Going over the previous posts the one thing no one has latched on to (and if they have I apologise for missing it) is the landing site itself. I've seen many forum posts about adwords not working when the real problem is the landing site itself. If your website doesn't convert anyway then it doesn't matter how much ad spend you throw at it you still won't get any orders.

Make sure everything is working perfectly and converting well on your site before you embark on paying too much for ppc.

Yes, the landing page is crucial, and what works for SEO will probably not work for PPC. These are high-intentent buyers. They want to find what they want, buy it and be gone. Pages full of text and links simply will not work.

atladasmedia · Mar 8, 2013

degadar said:
Yes, the landing page is crucial, and what works for SEO will probably not work for PPC. These are high-intentent buyers. They want to find what they want, buy it and be gone. Pages full of text and links simply will not work.

Couldn't agree more with this. Also while speaking about PPC let us not forget re-targeting google ads (especially if you run an online shop where you sell products) and Display Network ads. You mentioned somewhere (unless I am wrong) that you used print advertising in the past that worked really well. We used to spend around £50,000 a month for PPC ads (targeting international markets as well) and I can safely say that around 20% of this budget was always on display networks such as Guardian newspaper forums, the Metro etc etc (ofcourse our target group was there).

Also before you run your PPC campaigns make sure that Google Analytics (or any data collection system) is installed on your web site. Few years down the line you will feel blessed. not only you will be able to reach solid conclusions in how your web site performs (in regards with your marketing activities wether it is seo, social media, email or PPC) but most importantly make improvements and forecasting that will have a true impact in your business performance and marketing spendings.

Karimbo · Mar 9, 2013

smo said:
We've run a few campaigns in the past with limited success, we have one running currently but all I see is "huge" bills from Google with very limited clicks and almost non-existant conversions.

With old school marketing and advertising I know exactly how much an advert will cost (in the Telegraph for example) and even with changing trends and buying habits I can predict what sort of response and return we will get.

With adwords I have no idea whats going to happen, I cant understand why clicks are high and conversions are low, or why costs are high and results are very low. Is it a case of keeping the campaign running and the results will come, or am I right to pull it before too much money poors down the drain?

So, does PPC ever actually genuinely pay and see real dividends on spend, and if so at what level do you have to take it? Is £100 a month enough, or £1000 or £10000?

it depends on the market, some markets are very competitive and small businesses can easily get priced out. larger businesses tend to still capitalise from expensive click with better onpage conversion optimisation and playing the long game through lead gen.

Assuming of course that you're bidding on the right keywords that is - if not then that's a fundamental that you need to get professional help for.

Peter Bowen · Mar 9, 2013

Can I suggest that it might be easier to consider your question in 2 parts.

Is Adwords a good fit for my kind of business?

- In some cases Google won't advertise your product.
- In some markets there is insufficient interest (traffic).
- Other markets are so competitive that only the best businesses will be able to make more money than they spend.
- etc...

Will I be able to implement it properly?

Here we're talking about how much skill, time and money you have for this. You can acquire the skills by learning it yourself (time and money) or hiring in someone who already has the expertise (money). A poor implementation in a good market will still fail.

I don't think a single DIY advertiser can really be successful with this anymore. I'm sure there are exceptions but you might find my thoughts here worth looking at:

http://www.pete-bowen.com/google-adwords/google-adwords-not-diy-anymore/

Scott-Copywriter · Mar 11, 2013

I receive a large chunk of business from Adwords. Sadly, it isn't very "newbie friendly", so it's very easy to spent a boatload of money without any worthwhile results.

However, if you get the Adwords campaign AND the landing page right (extremely important), then it can be a great source of highly targeted traffic.

degadar · Mar 11, 2013

Adwords will fleece anyone who signs up and accepts all the default options for everything.

Google has a legion of hungry 'affiliates' and 'search partners' queuing up to strip your card of every penny possible if you make a few simple errors. Google knows it's click fraud but they really don't care because as far as they're concerned it's a free market and you're in charge of your settings.

Just take it slowly and steadily and if you're really nervous turn everything off - display advertising, search partners, only activate your keyword during the hours of daylight, restrict your targeting to 20 miles around your office and have just one exact match keyword.

Do something, increase your bids pennies at a time and not pounds at a time, introduce new keywords slowly so you know what works, and if you venture away from [exact exact] matching then make sure your negative keywords grow 10 times faster than your positive ones.

What can go wrong?

myindiatours · Mar 12, 2013

Thanks for sharing, nice tips.

kalooki · Mar 13, 2013

Hey All,

I do well off of Adwords I only spend £200 a month and always earn off of it and have been doing it a few years, I was quite lucky in that on my first day with a free voucher it I got a very good job off the back of it so all worked out well then and has done since, but my keywords to get to the top are around 70p to get number 1-3.

I suppose it all comes down to how much you can get ya keywords for and trying to test with a £100 voucher is a good help if there not to expensive and if they are go for long tails and get the price down and get the most out of ya free voucher to try out landing pages.

If your keywords arent that expensive I'd say go for it yourself and try it out if there into the pounds get an expert in try it out for a few months and only play with what you can afford to lose and as long as your tracking everything to know what money came in from the campaign it should be an interesting few months.

Had a look over your site degadar very interesting and was looking at signing up for the affiliate program have you any offers for UKBF forum members?

Tom

degadar · Mar 14, 2013

kalooki said:
Had a look over your site degadar very interesting and was looking at signing up for the affiliate program have you any offers for UKBF forum members?

Tom

Of course Tom. If you go to http://priceengines.co.uk/signup as if you are signing up to buy leads and then select 'affiliate only' from the account type drop down menu - you'll be in the system as an affiliate without the fee.

We put that on there to try and discourage the dozens of affiates signing up every day but then never delivering any leads.

If you're interested I'm also wanting 10 or so customers to act as guinea pigs for my new esp business ( www.pe-leadmanager.co.uk ) its still being polished And debugged but working well. First 10 takers can have it free for a year as long as they can send at least a few thousand emails every week. normally will be 38 - 250 per month.

Carboy · Mar 14, 2013

degadar said:
Adwords will fleece anyone who signs up and accepts all the default options for everything.

Google has a legion of hungry affiliates and search partners queuing up to strip your card of every penny possible if you make a few simple errors. Google knows its click fraud but they really dont care because as far as theyre concerned its a free market and youre in charge of your settings.

Just take it slowly and steadily and if youre really nervous turn everything off - display advertising, search partners, only activate your keyword during the hours of daylight, restrict your targeting to 20 miles around your office and have just one exact match keyword.

Do something, increase your bids pennies at a time and not pounds at a time, introduce new keywords slowly so you know what works, and if you venture away from [exact exact] matching then make sure your negative keywords grow 10 times faster than your positive ones.

What can go wrong?

How accurate is Geo marketing these days with PPC ? i tried it before and it was all over the shop ?

degadar · Mar 14, 2013

Carboy said:
How accurate is Geo marketing these days with PPC ? i tried it before and it was all over the shop ?

Not much better to be honest. Google tries its best, and it's marginally better than it was 5 years ago but not a great deal. The volume reduces seriously and Google has a hidden setting to watch for (one of many!) - that by default will supply people within your target area [or searching about it]. So if you circle Derby and supply Horse Feed expect all the visitors searching for the Kentucky Derby - wherever they live.

If you go with it - keep logs of all the gclid values that come along side the IP address and be sure to send a list off to google every week for investigation that you think are wrong. Have to keep them on their toes.

Chris Ashdown · Mar 14, 2013

Thats why you should have a few hundred negative keywords list to stop google wasting your money

Salt & Paper · Apr 10, 2013

Yes it can and does pay very well if used correctly. You need to spend a fair amount of time setting it up, experimenting, tweaking, and evaluating your results to date.

Two things:

1) I have found some niches are all but impossible to profit from. This is mainly due to product mix and the fact that competitors seem to be willing to pay a fortune.

2) Having a good landing page is absolutely key, and make sure your negative keywords are working for you.

I would say even modest spends of £100-£200 PM can turn very nice profits in the right niches, and I would hope for a minimum 5x ROI on adwords spend.

DPOM · Apr 12, 2013

Of course it pays - if it is managed properly. This has been done to death now but AdWords (and PPC in general) is one of the most accountable advertising systems in existence. You can measure where every penny goes accurately and scale your advertising..

It all hinges on if the account is managed well. If you are not seeing acceptable returns then it might be worth getting in touch with a specialist - although they cost you'll likely see much better returns.

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