GoogleAds does it work for you?

[Mollified]

I'm just starting up on my own as a one man band. The guy who helped me with my website suggested I use GoogleAds as a promotional tool and following a long chat with the man from Google I think I understand how it works. I'm put off because when I search for a Mollified in my area up pop my competitors from the other side of the country on GoogleAds which is no use to me or my potential clients (its a very local business).
I was wondering if anyone has any experience using GoogleAds that they might want to share?

Mollified
IMHO - anywhere on the first screen. Below that and it will NEVER get seen.
Paying to be in the top 1 or 2 when 7 are showing is a waste of money.

And remember that google is the king of remembering search terms so you HAVE to test your ads on clean computers.
At this time of year I visit 6 offices a week and they are now used to me testing my ads on their computers to see where they come up really!
And REMEMBER when testing, do not click on your own ad!

Also, impressions V clicks
I stopped worrying about that after a couple of years when people would see the ad, not click on it but click on the organic search - you can check that in your web stats
and organic searches are the king.

Thank you for you answer and all your help Talkin. I don't think I could have done this without everyones help and support from this and other threads.

I seem to be getting 50% repeat visits at the moment so perhaps they are still making up their mind!

150 impressions is fabulous Alpine I think talkin is right though; its the organic clicks that are free, have you checked analytics to see how many of those you are getting?

I have had 39 organic clicks and only one through the ad, so running along very cheaply atm :)

Hi,
I will pose my query here, rather than starting a new thread, as it seems to me that it is quite useful to have adwords related stuff in one place?

I am trying to work out adwords and google analytics, I want to see the direct relation between a click from an ad, to query placed on the website.

I cant work out how to get google analytics to show me adwords results. I have had several hundred thousand impressions of my ads, a couple of hundred clicks through to website so far, and I have results from organic searches intermingled with adwords results, a few thousand visits. (Seo optimized as far as I have managed to get it, need to tweak some more)

Adwords tell me I have clicks, but google analytics does not report anything from adwords. I have had a number of queries through my "Contact us" form - I dont sell online. And cant seem to tally the two together?

Any idea?

Quint
Short answer - not really!

DH's site that I manage is information only; to encourage people to book him.
So the delay between a page view and a booking, let alone doing the actual work, can be up to two years!
We always ask new people where they heard about him and that can be revealing
but having had the website live for over 10 years I've given up tracing back actual clicks.

My chums from the ebay boards on the other hand - who sell tangible goods from their websites - are mightily aware of how the clicks work.
Soapycauldron started out on ebay, then did the website and adwords and now look at her (still loopy though, bless her)
Laughing bear toys ditto

The main thing is to use the adwords to drive searches and ensure the page info picks up the same words to boost the organic

Cheers. I am under pressure to show ROI.
I need to prove the worth of google adwords spend.

Which of course means I need to catalogue both the clicks, the enquirers, and then match them up against future sales.

They do not want a box to tick saying "where did you hear of us" on our inquiry form.

Hmmmm
They clearly do not understand adwords.
Have you started to use Linkedin and Facebook ?
as those might help them realise that in services its a multichannel delayed reaction system.

Compare old days: paying for the ad in the Yellow Pages and waiting for the phone calls to come in
people might say that they saw you in the yellow pages but they might not
and it could take months .....

We are not using them yet. I am personally on linked in. The company has no profile there yet. It is a one thing at the time approach. We have just relaunched the website and need to ensure we focus on that first. Have started a blog, but not link to it from anywhere yet. We are also on twitter, but not tweeting.

quint the only way I can think of unless you have specific server access at your ISP, would be to configure your "landing page" from the ad to be slightly different to that from an organic search. Therefore you could drill down in analytics to see where they went/did from the landing page.

I cant actually seem to be able to link my google analytics up to my adwords, though!
I can only see stats when clicking the referral from doubleclick button in analytics. Do you know how I can actually link the accounts?

If you're using them both with the same email address they should already be linked?

quint I'm probably giving you info you already have, but looking at the analytics page right now, there's a tab on the left:

E-commerce

which it seems is offering tracking code which you can insert on to your site to give you lots of info.

quint I'm back - OK, finally read the pages in English and came across under the Adwords tool: Tools & Analysis --> Conversions

"Determine the value of your ad
Your ads will receive perhaps many clicks. But until you know which clicks lead to valuable actions on your website, you are missing effective ways you can optimize your campaigns.
With conversion tracking allows you to track which keywords and clicks lead to certain actions: registrations for newsletters, downloads and purchases. So you can find the most effective keywords.
Conversion Tracking Set:
Find out which Web users reach after completing a valuable action on your website (like the thank you page that users see after making a purchase).
Paste the HTML code generated by us in the Web (you can do this yourself or a webmaster for help).
Click on the button above "New Conversion" to get started."

I hope that helps put you on the right track!

Can anyone tell me how to change my cpc?

When I preview my ad it tells me that it doesn't show because none of the search terms feature in my keywords - except they do, word for word. I am quite baffled. Help! I have a new competitor in town who is all over the first page of google and I can't get near there.

in google adwords open the campaigns tab (at the top in green on my screen), then click on keywords (just below the top row of tabs in blue on my screen) a list of your keywords should appear with a column labelled Max CPC. Each word has an amount next to it e.g £1.20, if you click on that you can change the bid.

HTH

Ok, it suggested 50p CPC to get onto the first page. I have amended it and when I preview my ad it says I have a low ad rank & no recent impressions.

Do I just need to call Google?

Thank you Mollified

I'm not really sure, I have a few keywords that are ranked as having very few impressions because few people search the terms I leave them there because they are very specific to my business, they have no impressions yet but I have a feeling that if they do there will be a high click through rate.

It wont show impressions or CTR until the next day any way, so if you amend it today you wont see the results until tomorrow at the earliest.

Kelly
DO NOT let google bounce you into paying more.
Check your key words by running a search. How many ads come up?
Are they who you want to be in with?
see how low an amount you can pay to stay on the first page - adjust your cpc up by 5p a time
BUT if ALL the users of a word hold firm on their CPC then the successful rate will drop
that is certainly what happened in DH's industry once we started swapping notes !!

pay MINIMAL amounts for terms that are part of your business name
eg I'd pay a penny for "talkinpeace" or even the mis spelling of "talkingpeace" but 10p for "bean counting"

do not worry about the new competitor - they are going to blow their voucher / budget VERY fast : adwords is for the long haul.

If I search my key words exactly still nothing comes up, no ads at all. My competitors don't seem to use adwords but their webpage comes on the first page and mine doesn't so I need to work on that.

My business has pretty much one strong search term. So I have the equivalent keywords as "maths tutor Glasgow" for my business & location but if I type that in it still doesn't display my ad.

I must be doing something wrong.

No ads - OK, you are up against their organic searches.
You need to look at your website rather than your adwords

have you used your daily budget?
remember there is often a 24 hour delay
what times of day is your campaign switched on?

feel free to PM me your website and I'll do a bit of testing and then put anonymised answers onto the board so that you and others can get answers.

Thanks TP I will do that actually. I think there are few issues around my website which I'm thinking of ways around. I haven't checked Adwords today but will (kids calling!).

I've been reading the very helpful posts on here about adwords for a couple of years (thanks talkinpeace) and have been procrastinating. So yesterday I took the plunge!

Results - 400+ impressions and 3 clicks. Still to see how that translates into business in the longer term, but it feels much more direct than other forms of passive advertising. And although my current site is mainly to increase awareness of my services, I am planning some product links later in the year and I can see how adwords could be part of the marketing for that. So it's all very exciting and I'm back to tinkering with the pages on my site so that the landing page is more 'punchy'.

So now I have a question:
In the campaign management area for each keyword there is an estimated bid to get on the first page. When I first set up these varied from 20p to 65p, and when I had lower bids my ads were not appearing (even though some of the google search pages only had one or two ads (or sometimes none at all). So I increased the CPC to the estimate, and my ads started appearing. I then reduced the CPC to about half, and the ads are still appearing for all keywords except one (so now my CPC bids vary from 10p to 35p). Is this the kind of thing that I have to keep on playing around with to see what happens?