When to give up on PPC advertising?

[stormy3000]

Good afternoon.

Over the past 6 months we paid to have a PPC expert work on our Google ads campaign for us. Paying them £200 a month... which I realise may not get us the best in the business, but it's not the worst pay ever with an agreed 6 month contract.

The work carried out has been disappointing... not complete rubbish.. but it's generated less leads than my own messy attempt at adwords before it.

After the initial setup, the promised refinements, never took place.

The promised inclusion of a campaign targetting the US as well as the UK resulted in a simply copied and pasted version of the UK campaign (still including the terms 'UK', 'Devon', 'London', being left in some of the keywords) .

They'd agreed to setup our Bing ads campaign as well, which in the end, I did myself linking it to Google ads to at least mirror it. I've realised today (when going in to disconnect them from the account) that they never even accepted the invitation to connect to Bing.

- We never got the promised feedback on our website, including suggestions for landing pages. To help ensure our website was deemed relevant for targeted keywords.

The end result was a Google Ads campaign that admittedly looked better structured. With at most 10 keywords for each adgroup.

We're a small business and so our monthly adwords spend is low... £250 ... Though after a month we'd agreed to up it to £400.

Still the number of leads generated was very very low...

I appreciate this is'nt purely the fault of the adwords campaign PPC expert. Our website design can course always be improved further, with appropriate landing pages and sales funnel approach..


My question:
Should we give up on PPC advertising, at least with Google. Should we instead invest somewhere else, i.e. targeted advertising at the corporate clients we'd like to win.

 

[Nochexman]

Still the number of leads generated was very low.

This is what matters. Are the leads you are getting turning into sales and is the value of those sales greater than the cost of the advertising?

 

[fisicx]

The work carried out has been disappointing... not complete rubbish.. but it's generated less work than my own messy attempt at adwords before it.

Remember this thread: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/t...ious-pay-per-click-expert-work-normal.372592/

People told you this wasn't going to end well.

But to answer your question:

A good PPC campaign with GREAT LANDING PAGES can be very lucrative. So don't give up on it yet. Fix the site (which still has loads of issues), create some storming landing pages and start again.

 

[AllUpHere]

I vaguely remeber telling you ages ago that the company you were going to use wasn't going to work out, and that you needed to base your PPC efforts on a proper strategic marketing plan.

As with all things marketing, it would work, you have just been doing it wrong. In answer to your question, either give up or do it properly.

 

[AllUpHere]

The thread @fisicx linked to wasn't the one I was thinking of, but does lead to the same conclusion.

 

[stormy3000]

@fisicx .. I know ... I know... "I told you so..." .... and you were right.

Based on that previous conversation they did wave the buy out fee. So what work has been done, is 100% mine plus I've had access to it throughout.

I still think it's tricky. You have to pay someone to do the work and if they under deliver it's just plain annoying. At the time I appreciated having the option to pay for a monthly fee, rather than a high setup fee. Either way, if they don't do the work it's still super frustrating.

 

[stormy3000]

@fisicx ... out of interest... When you say the site still 'has loads of issues'. I'd honestly appreciate knowing what, many thanks.

 

[fisicx]

Website reviews are only for full members. But look critically at your homepage. Show it to a complete stranger and ask them to work out what it is you are offering.

 

[Alan]

I was just about to write the same as ^

An Adwords 'click' has been attracted by an advert - hopefully the advert was very specific and said something like ' get something specific, now!" and then they should land on a page that says - you wanted something specific, take this action now!

I went to your website and I had to look at it half a dozen times before I even started to understand you.

Landing pages are specific that is why the best campaigns have specifically designed landing pages per ad group.

If you can't do that ( and to be frank there are lots of affordable non techy tools out there for around £40 / month that you can use ) then at least build your website to answer, very quickly what you do, and ask for them (the visitor) to do a specific action.

 

[fisicx]

^What he said.

The landing page is crucial to the whole PPC thing. Doesn't matter how good your keyword selections or your adwords or even your target demographic, if the landing page is wrong all you are doing is wasting your money.

But you know this now...

 

[Peter Bowen]

When PPC doesn't work it's usually because it's a poor fit for the business or because it's been executed poorly. It's important to figure out which it is.

- If it's a poor fit then it's not worth carrying on. (I've written about this in the context of AdWords PPC here http://pete-bowen.com/will-adwords-work).

- If it's poor execution then it might be salvageable.

You've got 6 months worth of data/learning in your account. That's gold in the right hands.

How big is the gap between the ad spend and the profit from the resulting sales?

 

[Markus Brundisteg]

Hello, probably most important thing of digital marketing is Return on investment (ROI) Once it is negative for a while than it is an indicator that something is wrong and probably something has to be changed.

 

[stormy3000]

Thank you for the various replies.

I think we struggle a bit with adwords in that our budget even at £400 a month is low. As the big ticket keywords quickly go above £6.00 a click which of course quickly ads up. I realise, if they deliver enquiries which lead to work it makes for a worthwhile investment. It's still a balancing act that we need to find. Or put a pin in to revisit at a later date, when we can focus our marketing efforts on the site deisgn, more landing pages etc. Plus focus our offering more than just animation production to a particular area.

We do have a few landing pages for specific keyword based ads, which you won't find simply by navigating the site. Though again no doubt these can always be improved.

Also thanks for the straight talk about our site design. I do try and get unbiased opinions where I can, we've paid for site feedback in the past, maybe I'll sign up to UKBF in full.

My immediate action has been to at least improve the opening copy of our homepage so it's 100% clear what it is we do from the get go . Something so simple... that's be tested and changed a 100 times.. but still so tricky (and vital) to get right.

 

[fisicx]

As the big ticket keywords quickly go above £6.00 a click which of course quickly ads up.

Maybe you are targeting the wrong keywords. Go more longtail and the cost will got down and you have a greater chance of conversion.

My immediate action has been to at least improve the opening copy of our homepage so it's 100% clear what it is we do from the get go . Something so simple... that's be tested and changed a 100 times.. but still so tricky (and vital) to get right.

Before you do that - you need to be 100% clear about the aim of the site. Is it for example a showcase or is a lead generator? You then need to consider what marketing strategy you will adopt to meet the aim of the website. You can then sort out the site structure, the content, navigation, calls to action, trust makes and so on to achieve the aim. Only once this is done to you need to think about the layout and general design of the site.

What you seem to have done (and I may be wrong) is designed the site and then thought about the content. This may be why it's all gone pear shaped.

If your main marketing thrust is PPC - the homepage becomes the least important page on the site.

 

[Alan]

I think we struggle a bit with adwords in that our budget even at £400 a month is low.

probably most important thing of digital marketing is Return on investment (ROI)

Here is a problem too, thinking in terms of budget. Adwords spend shouldn't be driven by budget it should be driven by ROI.

Lets say it is £6 per click and 3% of clicks sell, then the cost of sale is £200. Assuming you know your net contribution per customer and say it is £201, then cost of sale - net return = £1 ( divide by cost of sale and it comes out at 0.5% but that is +ve = good )

Ok you set your budget at £400 / month so 66.66 sales - so your adwords will contribute £66.66 net per month.

OK but I decide to spend as much as I can and it turns out to be £6million ( oK extreme example ) - so my adwords will contribute £1million net per month.

Obviously cash flow plays a part, and there are limits to what the market will bear etc. it is to illustrate that budget is the wrong way of thinking and ROI is the right way.

Get the concept budget is the wrong metric on an Adwords campaign - in my opinion budget only applies whilst you are testing / optimising and your ROI likely to be -ve. And in my experience, if you spend less than £1,000 a month when setting /up / initial testing & optimisation it is very difficult to accumulate enough test data to optimise.

If you have +ve ROI pump it to the limit.

 

[fisicx]

Good stuff Alan.

But you need that positive ROI to begin with. And finding the sweet spot often means losing money to begin with until you get the keywords > advert > landing page all lined up.

@stormy3000 - see those magic words again: landing pages. You need all three components for adwords to work.

 

[AllUpHere]

Here is a problem too, thinking in terms of budget. Adwords spend shouldn't be driven by budget it should be driven by ROI.

Lets say it is £6 per click and 3% of clicks sell, then the cost of sale is £200. Assuming you know your net contribution per customer and say it is £201, then cost of sale - net return = £1 ( divide by cost of sale and it comes out at 0.5% but that is +ve = good )

Ok you set your budget at £400 / month so 66.66 sales - so your adwords will contribute £66.66 net per month.

OK but I decide to spend as much as I can and it turns out to be £6million ( oK extreme example ) - so my adwords will contribute £1million net per month.

Obviously cash flow plays a part, and there are limits to what the market will bear etc. it is to illustrate that budget is the wrong way of thinking and ROI is the right way.

Get the concept budget is the wrong metric on an Adwords campaign - in my opinion budget only applies whilst you are testing / optimising and your ROI likely to be -ve. And in my experience, if you spend less than £1,000 a month when setting /up / initial testing & optimisation it is very difficult to accumulate enough test data to optimise.

If you have +ve ROI pump it to the limit.

That's all very well if you are selling a product of which you have a near infinite supply, but the OP needs to be a lot more fussy selling a service. A positive ROI simply isn't enough as he'll be looking to maximise the profit made selling a finite service.

With a service based business like the OP's, any idiot could fill his diary with work that just about puts him above break even. The skill is in filling his diary with the very best type of work for his business ; the work that gives him the highest possible ROI.

 

[webgeek]

@stormy3000 - if you'd ever like a hand, just shout.

For the £200, I'd audit your existing PPC and landing pages, determine what's worked and what hasn't, tweak the heck out of your US & UK campaigns, review the landing pages and basically overhaul what you have so that it becomes something that works.

I'm not talking thousands of campaigns - but rather a select few that have a history of success.

No contract. No commit. No hijacked accounts or cancellation fees. No BS.

If, after that, you'd like ongoing expansion and improvements, website reviews, etc - we could discuss, but it would be well within your prior budget.

I'm doing this to give you a hand, not make myself rich.

 

[Andreas75]

You should consult a expert like above (webgeek). One-off fee will pay itself in the long term. I am not quite fan of PPC, SEO is the investment and ownership and PPC is like renting.
Of course, you need PPC at the beginning.
Quite difficult for the startups but this is the way business works online.

 

[Peter Bowen]

I'm doing this to give you a hand, not make myself rich.

That's true. We charge around that number that just for an audit. Very generous.

 

[fisicx]

I'd audit your existing PPC and landing pages.

I think this is half the problem: they don't have any landing pages.

 

[webgeek]

That'll be easy then

 

[Alan]

That's all very well if you are selling a product of which you have a near infinite supply, but the OP needs to be a lot more fussy selling a service. A positive ROI simply isn't enough as he'll be looking to maximise the profit made selling a finite service.

With a service based business like the OP's, any idiot could fill his diary with work that just about puts him above break even. The skill is in filling his diary with the very best type of work for his business ; the work that gives him the highest possible ROI

Well that was my point, it is ROI you need to look at.

limits to what the market will bear etc. it is to illustrate that budget is the wrong way of thinking and ROI is the right way.

Yes it is more complex with a service business, things such as calculating lifetime value of a client can be tricky, depth of supply, depth of market, and indeed are the buyers actually on Adwords, Adwords is very effective when buyers are deep in the funnel, but for services they may never be deep enough to convert from one advert / landing page - but it doesn't mean that it can't be part of an overall marketing strategy that perhaps collecting data higher in the funnel for subsequent marketing etc etc

In the lyrics of cold play
"Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard.."

 

[fisicx]

I know someone who used PPC as a data collecting tool. They got really cheap longtail keywords and a landing page designed to collect email address in return for a free survey. Because this was now a warm lead they could do some targeted and personalised marketing which was highly converting.

PPC doesn't always have to be the hard sell.

As the Toy Dolls said in 1982:
"Off she went with a trumpety-trump Trump, trump, trump"

 

[Pat Walsh]

Just a brief post to say that I also work in a fairly specialist area - testing - and I'm now finding all my clients through word of mouth, recommendations and repeat business, hence I switched off Google ads earlier in the year, saving myself about a grand so far (was around a £120-£200 per month spend)

Maybe your money spent on Google ads could be better spent on things like attending events and/or conferences in your specialist area (animations) and building relationships that way?