£16 per click

[Mystro]

Wow has adwords gone mad since when has this industry been that profitable

The keyword "Security alarm companies" first page bid estimate £16

are they having a laugh

 

[Ian J]

"factoring" is over £40 per click

 

[The Byre]

As the old German saying goes - "Against stupidity, the gods themselves do battle in vain!"

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Highest I've seen is 'cloud computing provider' - £110 per click.

It's all relative though, if you get tens of thousands of pounds of business out of it, it's a small price to pay really.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

gents, why do you think Google are swamping the market with 'free' vouchers?

if an auction house gave out free money to certain individuals bidding with the aim to increase bids on their items, they would be hauled in front of the courts for illegal practice.

Google on the other hand act with impunity.

I have tried to raise this question via the trade and industry department, I have tried to raise it with trading standards and No one is interested in what HAS to be illegal market manipulation.

 

[Mystro]

Guess £16 is not that bad then really compared to some others, none the less those ads wont be running but i thought unless the bids are there the prices start low? which means some fool is paying those figures

Even with a voucher say £75 they wont last long at those rates

It's all relative though, if you get tens of thousands of pounds of business out of it, it's a small price to pay really.

Profit margin in the alarm industry is not that great so its quite a high price to pay just to get them to the site

 

[Shopclicks]

I've often found that these first page bid estimates are over-inflated and unrealistic.

Example of a keyword I've been using for years:

Always shows 'below first page bid' 'first page bid estimate $0.51'
Max. CPC $0.28
Avg. Pos. 1.0

I see 4 paid ads on page 1 of that keyword search.

 

[Mystro]

The bids will reduce with quality score, so agreed you wont always pay the figure shown, that said its a ball point figure of what it can go to...... and yes people on that page now fighting for that keyword

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I have tried to raise it with trading standards and No one is interested in what HAS to be illegal market manipulation.

Welcome to the UK regulations industry. I'm not going to call them a ball-less set of pussies...

As for estimates, they're fairly unreliable. You really need to bid (based on your own visitor value) and see where your ads end up.

(Assuming you've a decent quality score - oh, and BTW, what Adwords says your QS is, it's wrong.)

Markets will typically trend towards breakeven. So, in a competitive market, the bid level tends to be a reasonable reflection of what the typical advertiser is making from a visitor.

Steve

 

[Chelios]

I'd echo the thoughts of @Shopclicks and Steve above - these estimated bids are unreliable at best, and wildly crazy at worst. We've often delivered consistently high ad positions for 90% less than the "estimated bid" - the only way to find out what your real costs are going to be is to plug in those keywords, get your quality score calculated and see it's going to be sustainable advertising via that keyword for your business.

 

[HazelC]

We used to work with an annuities company - they were higher than that and their budget of clicks was used up by their competitors who just 'clicked for fun'

 

[Aqueous]

It's fairly simple, just look at Google's annual report and you can see where this is going. They make their money from PPC and over time have been crowding out the organic listings to the point where for some high ticket items most of the first result page is full of their adverts.

Google want EVERY business in the UK to spend money on their advertising platform and as OldWelshGuy points out this behaviour is at times reprehensible when they give away these 'freebies' to people who have no ideas what to do.

Despite their assurances, PPC is NOT easy to run. A bit like gambling; anyone can do it but there are very few real winners other than the bookie.

To be clear however I have no issues with Google charging people for PPC, after all in the 'old days' newspapers, magazines and directories charged you to advertise so why would this be any different? The issue is that unlike the 'old days' there really is no competition any more. Google are a de facto monopoly and...

Welcome to the UK regulations industry. I'm not going to call them a ball-less set of pussies...

 

[Ste Hughes]

Check out insurance, I've seen over £250 a click for car insurance keywords.

 

[Shopclicks]

Check out insurance, I've seen over £250 a click for car insurance keywords.

I'm struggling with that figure. TV commercials would offer a better ROI.

 

[Aqueous]

I'm struggling with that figure. TV commercials would offer a better ROI.

I'm struggling too. Not only have I never seen or heard of a figure this high before but more importantly with the current average premium value it's a negative ROI before you start.

 

[Chelios]

£250 a click is wild. Insurance clients I'm working with have seen some CPCs rise to £10+, but as @Aqueous says, negative ROI would be a strange place to start!

 

[RedEvo]

Time to get #useadblocker going viral and shut Google down

 

[Aqueous]

Time to get #useadblocker going viral and shut Google down

Wow. I can remember time before Google but I'm struggling to imagine life after Google. Probably says more about me and my imagination than anything else

 

[AndyMorley]

Wow has adwords gone mad since when has this industry been that profitable

The keyword "Security alarm companies" first page bid estimate £16

are they having a laugh

Is that what your seeing in Keyword Planner? Ive seen mis-matched data with real campaigns not matching what keyword planner says... Also the campaign quality score goes part of the way to reducing cost per click, if your campaign / keyword quality score is 10/10 than usually costs are cheaper.

 

[AndyMorley]

"factoring" is over £40 per click

Odd, im seeing is as £11 per click ish... Also factoring is a really broad term, possibly not the best to target, likely to drive a lot of non-relevant traffic through (unless you ram your campaigns full of negative keywords) I certainly wouldn't add it to a clients campaign as "broad matched"...

 

[Timoxendale]

I have seen variations of online casino on a Friday night go above £300 a click!

 

[NickGrogan]

They make their money from PPC and over time have been crowding out the organic listings to the point where for some high ticket items most of the first result page is full of their adverts.

Could you give an example searches where this happens? I've never seen it.

PPC is seen as the cure all for many businesses, just look at the forums here, PPC is everyones first and last stop.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Time to get #useadblocker going viral and shut Google down

If that caught on, Google would probably just block those users from accessing Google. Bing and Yahoo would do likewise.

Search engines will find a way to earn money from providing their service.

Steve

 

[The Byre]

That which comes quickly, will also go quickly. Everything passes.

 

[Mystro]

Is that what your seeing in Keyword Planner? Ive seen mis-matched data with real campaigns not matching what keyword planner says... Also the campaign quality score goes part of the way to reducing cost per click, if your campaign / keyword quality score is 10/10 than usually costs are cheaper.

Its was in the actual campaign when i set it live, to be honest its not been touched for over a year and only turned it on this morning to optimise it, quality score could be better sitting @7/10 at the mo but when i see those prices i did not bother

I know the better quality score the cheaper the click but showing £16 i would need a quality score of 18/10 to get that at a figure i would be willing to pay

 

[Mystro]

That which comes quickly, will also go quickly. Everything passes.

Google is not going any where any time soon, nothing nowhere even close just yet ... maybe another 5 years or so

 

[GoldenLeads]

I've written thesis on a PPC topic and did quite a lot of research, all I can say that everything ends up of how good your website converts. Example: if it shows lets say £20 a click, then that £20 is if you want to take first position out of 3, and it usually costs 30%-60% less in most cases, so that's lets say around £14 in reality, if you want to be the guy who gets most of the clicks.

Now imagine this: 3 competitors in the same niche are selling the exact same service and all 3 set around the same price of ~£14 per click. The only problem is those 2 websites have a bounce rate of 70%, the third one of 30%, and the third website converts 50% better than the first 2.

What does that mean ? It means that the first 2 guys will be eliminated pretty soon, because they have to spend x2 more money to get 1 sale then the third guy. If the third guy is smart he will rise the price of the clicks even further and thus eliminate his competitors.

 

[Aqueous]

Could you give an example searches where this happens? I've never seen it.

Check out this slideshare from Dr Pete from Moz entitled 'beyond 10 blue links'; it's quite an eye opener...

 

[UKSBD]

Now imagine this: 3 competitors in the same niche are selling the exact same service and all 3 set around the same price of ~£14 per click. The only problem is those 2 websites have a bounce rate of 70%, the third one of 30%, and the third website converts 50% better than the first 2.

What does that mean ? It means that the first 2 guys will be eliminated pretty soon, because they have to spend x2 more money to get 1 sale then the third guy. If the third guy is smart he will rise the price of the clicks even further and thus eliminate his competitors.

And a new batch of free vouchers is released, thus keeping the cycle going, creating more competitors and falsely inflating the price.
(Maybe not in the £14 click range, but down in the £1 a click range)

 

[GoldenLeads]

And a new batch of free vouchers is released, thus keeping the cycle going, creating more competitors and falsely inflating the price.
(Maybe not in the £14 click range, but down in the £1 a click range)

Yes. Still, for many small industries and business that provides local / city services, the price per click is very low (up to 5 times), in comparison to USA.

 

[PIers Ede]

As mentioned, £16 is nothing. And don't forget CPC rises due to the level of competition. So if it wasn't profitable, no one would be doing it!

 

[Shopclicks]

If the third guy is smart he will rise the price of the clicks even further and thus eliminate his competitors.

I'd really like to hear how that works.

 

[GoldenLeads]

I'd really like to hear how that works.

You bid higher until your competitors can't compete with you.

 

[Shopclicks]

You bid higher until your competitors can't compete with you.

But if you already have claim to the top spot, raising your bid won't change the price #2 & #3 are paying.

An example:

For a particular keyword (highest conversion rate), I consistently hold 2nd spot (Av. 2.1). Quality score 10/10.

The competitor who has the top spot has a maximum bid of $1.50 (tested). I see no reason that they wouldn't have a quality score of 10/10.

My max bid is 58 cents. My average cost per click is 31 cents.

What you are saying is that if the guy in the top spot changed their max bid to $3.00, I would have to pay more for the #2 spot?

 

[GoldenLeads]

But if you already have claim to the top spot, raising your bid won't change the price #2 & #3 are paying.

An example:

For a particular keyword (highest conversion rate), I consistently hold 2nd spot (Av. 2.1). Quality score 10/10.

The competitor who has the top spot has a maximum bid of $1.50 (tested). I see no reason that they wouldn't have a quality score of 10/10.

My max bid is 58 cents. My average cost per click is 31 cents.

What you are saying is that if the guy in the top spot changed their max bid to $3.00, I would have to pay more for the #2 spot?

You wouldn't, maybe the example wasn't that good, but usually there are more than 3 competitors, and the ones with lower conversion rates gets eliminated.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I
Now imagine this: 3 competitors in the same niche are selling the exact same service and all 3 set around the same price of ~£14 per click. The only problem is those 2 websites have a bounce rate of 70%, the third one of 30%, and the third website converts 50% better than the first 2.

What does that mean ? It means that the first 2 guys will be eliminated pretty soon, because they have to spend x2 more money to get 1 sale then the third guy. If the third guy is smart he will rise the price of the clicks even further and thus eliminate his competitors.

They'd be spending 50% more to get a sale, not 2x.

If the 3rd guy raised his bids, he'd become the first advertiser (assuming equal QS), then the 1st and 2nd advertisers will be 2nd and 3rd. They won't be "eliminated", just leapfrogged.

Steve

 

[GoldenLeads]

They'd be spending 50% more to get a sale, not 2x.

If the 3rd guy raised his bids, he'd become the first advertiser (assuming equal QS), then the 1st and 2nd advertisers will be 2nd and 3rd. They won't be "eliminated", just leapfrogged.

Steve

You are correct in this case. There are some niches with tens or even hundreds of people paying for same keywords, then even 10% difference in conversion can eliminate you from top 3.

 

[NickGrogan]

You might want to rework that thesis, you've made some massive assumptions, that just don't stack up.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

There are some niches with tens or even hundreds of people paying for same keywords, then even 10% difference in conversion can eliminate you from top 3.

As I've said countless times, visitor value (how much you make from a visitor) is the most important thing in adwords. (Or, indeed, in any form of paid advertising.)

Steve

 

[Shopclicks]

Got your quotes a bit mixed up there Steve