PPC Help Thread - Ask us anything about Google Adwords!

[Lutherblissett]

I notice that adwords constantly tries to make me bid more. I see it often giving me outrageous bid rates to get on the first page, then after bidding they come down the next day. I also notice it telling me i need to bid more to get on the front page, but then still giving quite a few impressions when i don't raise the bid.

My question is, what is a good strategy for getting the lowest possible price on your keywords. I swear i don't think my keywords are even being bid on anyone else. Thanks in advance.

 

[mediocre]

Hey, thanks for offering your help on BHW.

Do you have a workaround to run mobile only search campaigns with Enhanced Campaigns ?
Would also be happy about a great idea how to minimize the traffic which goes to desktop and tablets.

 

[AlreadyBanned]

Hey guys. i am looking for an adwords expert who can help me in my new account set up.

 

[Nomad63]

Thanks for reaching out to provide assistance on tweaking our Adwords account. Just wondered if you can recommend any services/software that allows us to review our Adwords campaigns/ad groups/keywords and makes recommendations for improvements to optimise the ROI. I like Wordtracker services but they are too expensive for my small investment in Adwords to generate my traffic so any free alternates that you know of would be great.

Regards Nomad

 

[Grunge]

2 questions:

What would be the most effective way to get an ROI with Adwords for video? Especially since we can't direct people to a lead capture page nor have a video that promotes an affiliate marketing product.

When you do Adwords for video, what CTA do you generally go for? Go to a certain site, like a FaceBook page or just subscribe? Trying to identify what works best.

One last question actually. Can I also connect with you on Skype? I'm good in the realm of online videos, specifically building channel authority but I very much like to focus more on Adwords for videos since I've got a taste of success traffic wise

 

[shellhackx]

1. Most profitable CPA sales funnel you can think of with PPC

2. How much have you made over the years in SE PPC

3. Highest ROI in a niche, what niche?

 

[proxified]

what is the best way to advertise in a highly competetive niche where we need to generate inbound calls as we're no more allowed to use phone numbers within the advertisements. The costs have gone high and the performance have grounded. Even the call extensions are not of much help as the userbase being targetted is the one with computers and to rank high, it costs alot. Usually we're able to generate calls normally but at times there are alot of clicks but less calls leading to lesser click to call conversion ratio. Still the costing is one major concern, what do you suggest should be the strategy in order to generate inbound calls for such highly targetted niches?

 

[YoungCeaser]

Have you had campaigns with 300 clicks and leads? What is your lowest/highest leads and CTR from AdSense? I've tried to target synonims and latent semantics of different languages for the same keywords to lower the CPC.

 

[proxified]

Earlier

Initially when we were allowed to use phone numbers within the ad text i was working with display network and it was performing quite well. the CTR used to be as low as 0.1-0.2% and click to call conversion was like 75%. I used to get about 600 clicks and about 450 calls per day. The bid in display network used to be somewhere around $1.5-$2 for different campaigns.

Network - Display
Total cost - $800
Total clicks - 600
Total calls - 450
Bid - $1.5-$2
Avg Position - 2-3

Network - Search
Total Cost - $800
Total Clicks - 100
Total Calls - 250
Bid - $10-$16
Avg Position - 1.2-2.1

NOW

As we are no more allowed to use phone numbers within the ad text i have stopped using display network and using search network only with call extensions.

Network - Display
Total cost - $800
Total clicks - 600
Total calls - 100
Bid - $1.5-$2
Avg Position - 2-3

Network - Search
Total Cost - $800
Total Clicks - 150
Total Calls - 100
Bid - $10-$16
Avg Position - 1.2-2.1

Whereas we used to have around 700 calls within a budget of $1600 per day now we are only having about 200 calls within the same budget. The only difference being the phone numbers have been removed from ad text and call extensions are used in lieu of it. The target market is USA/CA and we only advertise in working hours i.e. 9am-5pm EST

Have you had campaigns with 300 clicks and leads? What is your lowest/highest leads and CTR from AdSense? I've tried to target synonims and latent semantics of different languages for the same keywords to lower the CPC.

 

[shellhackx]

Way to not follow up pss

 

[aleclarson]

I always seem to have problems spending my daily budget, even with a higher bid. If I want to spend my $10 daily budget the only way I can actually get it to spend is to set the budget extremely high, sometimes $1000. Is this a normal practice or do I just suck?

 

[beazt]

@lutherblissett: I understand where you are coming from. Minimum first page and top of the page bid estimates are increased almost every other day. Different PPC Managers use their own different strategies to tackle this. My usual recommendation is as follows:

1. Don't go by what Google Adwords suggests first, but know how much you can pay for a keyword. As an example, let's say you have historical data showing that a keyword converts after every 20 clicks, and the resultant sale generates you $30 as return. So you can pay upto 1.5 USD Per Click and still break-even. Now every time you pay less than 1.5 usd for this keyword, you are making profit. So it now becomes a sort of "Profit-Per-Click" scenario for you where every click less than 1.5 is making you money (provided that variables like Conversion rate & daily number of clicks remains the same.)

The strategy to get the lowest possible price in this case is to first ensure you are not already paying more than the Max CPC calculated above. Then look at your QS. If it's less than 6 or less, don't raise your bid. It's just Adwords system's way of telling you that they don't see your Ad as relevant enough. So the estimated bid will keep in increasing/decreasing.

Instead, try increasing the relevancy, CTR and QS as a result. Then start lowering your bids manually, while making sure your Ad Position, daily # of conversions or conversion rate are not dropping simultaneously. The result will be your sweet spot - the Ad Position which generates you the best Conversion rate, # of daily conversion at lowest CPA/CPC possible.

Lot of work I know but definitely worth it in the long run

I notice that adwords constantly tries to make me bid more. I see it often giving me outrageous bid rates to get on the first page, then after bidding they come down the next day. I also notice it telling me i need to bid more to get on the front page, but then still giving quite a few impressions when i don't raise the bid.

My question is, what is a good strategy for getting the lowest possible price on your keywords. I swear i don't think my keywords are even being bid on anyone else. Thanks in advance.

 

[beazt]

Hey, thanks for offering your help on BHW.

Do you have a workaround to run mobile only search campaigns with Enhanced Campaigns ?
Would also be happy about a great idea how to minimize the traffic which goes to desktop and tablets.

Wish I had but alas, there exists none as of now. Not being able to run Mobile only campaigns is one of the worst introductions by Google in recent times, with "Not Provided' in analytics post secure search being the other significant one.

Anyway, the best that can be done as of now is to select the "Mobile Devices" as preference below all Ads. Secondly, decide how much you want to bid on Mobile devices. If it's 5 USD, then bid 1.7 USD for Desktop/default bid. Next, raise your Mobile Devices bid by 300% to get to $5 CPC.

If $1.7 turns out to be too low for your Ad to show on Desktop search, your Ads won't show or have too low an ad rank to generate impressions/clicks - but your Mobile campaign should.

So that's the best that can be done as of now, as per my knowledge at least.

Will you still continue to generate impressions & clicks from Desktop even after using the above settings? And will this strategy for Desktop affect your overall Quality Score down? Most likely it would, but there are no other choices

 

[beazt]

Have discussed this already on Skype.

Hey guys. i am looking for an adwords expert who can help me in my new account set up.

 

[beazt]

Not sure if any such free software exists. There are a lot of good softwares like WordTracker but none for free and understandably so.

Thanks for reaching out to provide assistance on tweaking our Adwords account. Just wondered if you can recommend any services/software that allows us to review our Adwords campaigns/ad groups/keywords and makes recommendations for improvements to optimise the ROI. I like Wordtracker services but they are too expensive for my small investment in Adwords to generate my traffic so any free alternates that you know of would be great.

Regards Nomad

 

[beazt]

Sure, just sent you my Skype ID.

And I will learn some non-paid Video promotion/traffic generation tips from you in general

2 questions:

What would be the most effective way to get an ROI with Adwords for video? Especially since we can't direct people to a lead capture page nor have a video that promotes an affiliate marketing product.

When you do Adwords for video, what CTA do you generally go for? Go to a certain site, like a FaceBook page or just subscribe? Trying to identify what works best.

One last question actually. Can I also connect with you on Skype? I'm good in the realm of online videos, specifically building channel authority but I very much like to focus more on Adwords for videos since I've got a taste of success traffic wise

 

[beazt]

1. Most profitable CPA sales funnel you can think of with PPC

If you are asking about CPA offers than I havn't run those so can't say.

2. How much have you made over the years in SE PPC

Why are you interested in knowing that mate?

3. Highest ROI in a niche, what niche?

Best was over a B2B niche, and the ROI was over 5000%. This was possible because the leads were being generated at very low cost, and the final sale value was high. So this was the final ROI after calculating all expenses, revenues and final profit from the business model overall and not just the Adwords ROI.

 

[beazt]

Depends on the industry/niche. Tech Support is one niche affected by this rule change by Adwords a few months ago.

So I'll have to look at the actual campaign/business in general to give any recommendations.

what is the best way to advertise in a highly competetive niche where we need to generate inbound calls as we're no more allowed to use phone numbers within the advertisements. The costs have gone high and the performance have grounded. Even the call extensions are not of much help as the userbase being targetted is the one with computers and to rank high, it costs alot. Usually we're able to generate calls normally but at times there are alot of clicks but less calls leading to lesser click to call conversion ratio. Still the costing is one major concern, what do you suggest should be the strategy in order to generate inbound calls for such highly targetted niches?

 

[beazt]

Replied above, lots of industries are now paying higher CostPerCall because of this rule change. I don't see how this affects the "user experience" or "transparency" specified by Google as the reason behind this change. Except by making them more money and less to the Advertisers affected by this.

Earlier

Initially when we were allowed to use phone numbers within the ad text i was working with display network and it was performing quite well. the CTR used to be as low as 0.1-0.2% and click to call conversion was like 75%. I used to get about 600 clicks and about 450 calls per day. The bid in display network used to be somewhere around $1.5-$2 for different campaigns.

Network - Display
Total cost - $800
Total clicks - 600
Total calls - 450
Bid - $1.5-$2
Avg Position - 2-3

Network - Search
Total Cost - $800
Total Clicks - 100
Total Calls - 250
Bid - $10-$16
Avg Position - 1.2-2.1

NOW

As we are no more allowed to use phone numbers within the ad text i have stopped using display network and using search network only with call extensions.

Network - Display
Total cost - $800
Total clicks - 600
Total calls - 100
Bid - $1.5-$2
Avg Position - 2-3

Network - Search
Total Cost - $800
Total Clicks - 150
Total Calls - 100
Bid - $10-$16
Avg Position - 1.2-2.1

Whereas we used to have around 700 calls within a budget of $1600 per day now we are only having about 200 calls within the same budget. The only difference being the phone numbers have been removed from ad text and call extensions are used in lieu of it. The target market is USA/CA and we only advertise in working hours i.e. 9am-5pm EST

 

[beazt]

Way to not follow up pss

:nono:
Replied above