Google Adwords Any Good?

[Lease4wheels]

I'm thinking of advertising my Business through Google Adwords. Does anybody other there also advertise using this method, if so please let me know of your thoughts.

Is there a cheaper alternative?

Thanks

 

[holidayinyourpocket]

From my (admittedly limited) knowledge of this subject, they can be very powerful. There are alternatives, but Google has 70%+ of the market in searches so they will give you the biggest potential audience.

It obviously depends upon your business model as well.

The trick is to manage things carefully and budget in advance. It can get like an auction for some people, with them getting carried away!

I never tried to do it myself, I always prefer to outsource. In fact, I am at the early stages of speaking to a new Pay Per Click (PPC) consultant as the moment.

 

[nass]

It's good for lead generation and sales (not all products and services though) but you do have to know what you're doing. Otherwise it's fairly easy to get the setup wrong and waste a lot of money on it. I would suggest that you get someone who is a Google Adwords Professional to set it up and start it for you if you're considering spending a lot of money on it. Google Adwords Professionals are people who have taken Google's exam and tend to know what they're doing.

I would suggest searching this forum to see who has a history of good understanding and giving out good advice on PPC, and drop them a mail with budgets. What I used to do was suggest doing a £500 trial run to see what you get out of it. If you find it brings you leads and/or sales cheaper than your other methods, then up the budget.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I'm thinking of advertising my Business through Google Adwords. Does anybody other there also advertise using this method, if so please let me know of your thoughts.

Is there a cheaper alternative?

Hmmm... overture can produce conversions at a lower cost. However, you won't get anywhere near the number of clicks (approx 90% of UK searches are done on Google) and the interface is a piece of crap.

Adwords is more competitive - though not by a huge margin - but is simpler to use and far more flexible.

As for the question "does Adwords work", the answer is "probably not, unless you know what you're doing"

(most adwords advertisers don't last more than a month)

But, if you take the time to learn it, it's one of the best forms of advertising around.

But, remember this:

Google aren't idiots and they're not a charity. They know the value of a click and they're not going to give it away for a fraction of the cost. They'll give you a fair price. It's up to you to turn that into a profit.

(though, you can say the same for any "in demand" - i.e. worthwhile - paid advertising)

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

[Will@clicksuccess]

Hi there Lease4wheels

Whether or not AdWords works depends on a few things:

- The set up of your campaign: If you get one of a few things wrong (target location, content or search, keywords, negative keywords), it can leak wasted clicks (or lose potentially valuable clicks). Its highly recommended that you at least outsource the set up of your campaign - many people make the mistake of thinking "I'll set it up myself, then get someone else to manage it later if need be". When it all goes wrong they then blame the whole adwords system without realising their mistakes.

- The competition: some markets are quite saturated and therefore bid prices for clicks are high. In our company, we have use various techniques and strategies within campaigns to utilise less competitive niches and reduce click prices.

- Your landing pages: you may get the clicks, but its up to you to then be able to convert. Again this is an area that lots of businesses screw up on. Its NEVER all in the hands of a PPC agency, because you control your site at the end of the day, which is where the customer buys. We work closely with our clients to ensure their landing pages convert as well as possible - sometimes this has involved getting in touch with their web developers directly to make a lot of (relatively simple) positive changes.

- Your business mindset: Another important point to consider. We find companies either have the confidence in their service or product to outsource, invest in expertise and reap the rewards, or they don't. Its surprising how many sole-traders or small businesses pump a huge amount of time into learning and doing tasks like PPC themselves when they could really be focussing on other areas of the business. 'Saving a buck' in this context is counterproductive as you could be wasting more potential revenue through the time wasted.

Hope this is useful to you.

Kind regards,

Will Williams

 

[astoller]

The cheapest way to advertise in google is firstly to establish what words deliver customers to your site.
When you know these (and you should consider paying for them to get started) then you can optimise your site site on those words so that your site eventaully appears in the free organic listings in google.

Then you can stop paying google for adwords and know for certain you will get traffic on your top words.

You could also try this weekly online seminar next monday

 

[Will@clicksuccess]

The cheapest way to advertise in google is firstly to establish what words deliver customers to your site.
When you know these (and you should consider paying for them to get started) then you can optimise your site site on those words so that your site eventaully appears in the free organic listings in google.

Then you can stop paying google for adwords and know for certain you will get traffic on your top words.

Astroller, I don't agree with that, and comparing PPC to SEO really misses the point. SEO may be the cheapest way to advertise a few pages on Google (being that its free) but its not necessarily the most effective way to increase your revenue through increased sales.

Here's why:

- If all depends on what the business is, and what it is selling. If you have many different products for example, with SEO you miss out on driving instant and relevant traffic to your product pages.

- PPC offers far more control - allowing you to continually change the message that browsers see, the landing page, the areas or towns the ads are displayed to.

- PPC also offers you to steer traffic from keywords that may be unrelated to your site. If you were selling exercise equipment for example, your PPC campaign could utilise many different groups of keywords such as weight loss or health related. It would be nigh on impossible to factor all these keywords into your content for natural listings.

- The whole concept of 'cheaper' can be counterproductive. It irritates me when companies starting out print their own business cards because they think its 'cheaper', then wonder why their potential clients go elsewhere. If a PPC campaign is streamlined and effective - its not just cheap - its making you money!

At the end of the day it all depends on what kind of business you have, the traffic you want, and whether you are of a 'saving money' or 'making money' mentality.

Kind regards,
Will Williams

 

[OldWelshGuy]

If your PPC is costing you money, then you are doing it wrong! It REALLY is as simple as that. PPC is a great way to get instant ROI (in most cases as it depends on your time to conversion/payment).

Just as people print their own cards, there are those who seem to think it is OK for them to up against seasons PPC professionals and somehow beat them at their own game?? I never could work that one out.

there are certain things a business owner can do themselves, and somethings they simply shouldn't attempt. PPC in anything like a competitive market is one of them.

 

[astoller]

I think it is perfectly valid to compare SEO to PPC. I am using them together to answer the original question.

I accept you can capture traffic on completely different search terms but an alternative strategy would be to use WT to find such terms that, together with favourable low competition, can be used to make an effective organic campaign

Depending on the market, there may ony be 2 or 3 really effective words, and in that scenario, organics are very cost effective.
Original question asked if there was a cheaper alternative to using PPC.(adwords)

 

[directmarketingadvice]

If your PPC is costing you money, then you are doing it wrong! It REALLY is as simple as that. PPC is a great way to get instant ROI (in most cases as it depends on your time to conversion/payment).

Just as people print their own cards, there are those who seem to think it is OK for them to up against seasons PPC professionals and somehow beat them at their own game?? I never could work that one out.

there are certain things a business owner can do themselves, and somethings they simply shouldn't attempt. PPC in anything like a competitive market is one of them.

Agree 100%.

I'm amazed when I read comments like "and once you're on page 1 of the organic listings, you stop using PPC".

What sort of thinking is that?

Once you're on page 1 of the organic listings, you use the tracking systems you already have in place - and you do track you visitors and ROI properly, don't you? - to find out which of these makes you more profit:

(1) organic listings on their own

(2) organic listings and PPC combined where PPC is lower than the organic listings (if possible)

(3) organic listings and PPC combined where PPC is lower on the pages than the organic listings (if possible)

(you can also test having similar sales messages between the 2 listings v having completely different messages)

The idea of just choosing (1) based on... on what? supposition?... is crazy when these things are so easy to test.

Steve