i have trouble imagining how adwords would work

i am not even talking about all the tricks like cloaking and affiliate. i am talking about straightforward selling goods.

i deposited $25, got 14 clicks and after spending $18, i do not see anything in my zencart admin.

1, i use kw planner, find the keywords with some 25k searches. say the kw is 'something slick fashionable'
2, create an ad copy containing the exact kw in title and 1st-line of description.
3, destination url is the category page displaying 10 items of similar products
4, to make things simple, i have only 2 keywords: [something slick fashionable] and "something slick fashionable"
5, QS is 6.
6, made the 1st page bid. G raised the bid, i say fuck it and keep/lower the bid to $0.8/$0.6.
7, average position 3.3/5.2 so my ads are showing. obviously also, i got clicks.

i am out $18 and cannot see any sign that i am going to sell anything? i thought i am doing the ad correctly? am i not?

can experts here give me some pointers?

3) "destination url is the category page display 10 items of similar products"

So do you have the actual product or only "similar products"? If you only have similar products and not the actual product, I'm not surprised you don't have any conversions given your extremely small spend level.

Also, keep in mind that PPC helps bring traffic to your site - it does NOT guarantee conversion rate. That mainly has to do with your landing page. Re-evaluate that to see if you have opportunities for improvement.

tinataylor said:

3) "destination url is the category page display 10 items of similar products"

So do you have the actual product or only "similar products"? If you only have similar products and not the actual product, I'm not surprised you don't have any conversions given your extremely small spend level.

Also, keep in mind that PPC helps bring traffic to your site - it does NOT guarantee conversion rate. That mainly has to do with your landing page. Re-evaluate that to see if you have opportunities for improvement.

Click to expand...

the category page displays 10 items that have 'something slick fashionable' either in title or item description. it takes 1 more click to go to the item description page. so the category page is like a showroom. and yes, those are actual products.

the reason i advertise the category page instead of an actual product page is:
1, the items are similar, for example, iphone 4s, iphone 4x, iphone 5a, iphone 5b. so i advertise for 'iphone' and when people get to the category page, they can see all the selections and choose to go to a specific item page.
2, the ad copy has limited characters anyway, and the products i sell is not a famous brand like iphone. so it will take quite a bit of description to distinguish one product from another.

i understand the spending is small and 14 clicks is probably nowhere close to statistical significance. however, given the expensive clicks, it's going to cost an amount that is 'significant' to me, just to get a statistically significant conclusion. so i perhaps have to spend like $100 just to conclude that the ad is not going to work? it can become expensive if i am to test multiple ads.

You can't really draw any conclusions after just 14 clicks. Once you get 14k clicks and get no sales then surely you're doing something wrong.

When I run ads I usually ask myself honestly if I would buy fro myself, so if you think your set up is good then you should give it a bit more time.

praetserge said:

You can't really draw any conclusions after just 14 clicks. Once you get 14k clicks and get no sales then surely you're doing something wrong.

When I run ads I usually ask myself honestly if I would buy fro myself, so if you think your set up is good then you should give it a bit more time.

Click to expand...

well, if i had $20k to burn on testing just 1 ad, i would prolly just buy a new lambourghini and take a long vacation. that sounds like mission impossible.

14 clicks is nothing, you need at least a few hundred before you can make any adjustments on whether or not your ads/products are converting.

If you only plan on spending <$100 PPC is not for you.

Hi, not only adwords, take any advertising method,
it takes time to recognize its actual audience, for that you need to have patience and need to observe trend of sales keenly,
rightly brought out if your budget is too low then its not the right method for you.

I would suggest getting some vouchers. That way you get a little more for your money. Deposit your $25 and will get a further $75 once that has been spent. Once you have used that setup another account and do the same again. This is a good way of testing what works and what doesn't without spending a lot. I would also setup more than one campaign. Test a few different ones targeting specific products maybe and see how well they convert.
In the past when I have ran PPC campaigns I normally install some software like mouseflow that enables me to track what the visitor does when they come from Google or any other website. I can see what they click, what holds their attention and so on.

67MAD54 said:

I would suggest getting some vouchers. That way you get a little more for your money. Deposit your $25 and will get a further $75 once that has been spent. Once you have used that setup another account and do the same again. This is a good way of testing what works and what doesn't without spending a lot. I would also setup more than one campaign. Test a few different ones targeting specific products maybe and see how well they convert.
In the past when I have ran PPC campaigns I normally install some software like mouseflow that enables me to track what the visitor does when they come from Google or any other website. I can see what they click, what holds their attention and so on.

Click to expand...

yes, i got a voucher. i also read a lot on bhw that people had very hard times getting new accounts once suspended. so i am kinda afraid to jeopardize my account by getting multiple accounts. plus i dont have a lot of ph# and cc to to make accounts...

i think i'll try specific products pages as targets.
thanks

As someone mentioned, you can't conclude anything from just 14 clicks.

I see this all the time. Here's how it generally goes:

Business owner knows they have to advertise. Seems having a website that PPC such as Adwords would be a good thing. They are right of course. What they don't realize is that it's not as easy as it is or that it sounds.

They fail to learn about the system. In your first point, you used the keyword planner. Nothing wrong with that but if you sell iphone 4s, it should not be rocket science. But what you don't seem to realize are the different types of match types there is and how they work. Do you know there are five different kinds of keyword match types? The tools by default use the broad match which is the worst thing to do.

Point 2, it's not really about having the keyword in your ad, particularly repeating it in each line. It's about showing something of value in your ad to get people to click on it. The ad is the carrot to get visitors so you can sell to them.

I don't know if you actually sell iphones but usually, having ten products on your LP is not the best way to go. You should experiment of course but bring clickers exactly (or as close as possible) to your page that best describes what they searched for.

Your QS is 6 so that's at least a reasonable start. You are above average, meaning your ads are better than maybe 60% of your competitors. But there too you must experiment more to get it higher and 14 clicks is just nothing.

What you pay is dependent on your QS and bid and those of your competitors. Don't think it's Google raising the bid. It's an auction and prices based on the market. You should never blame Google. Instead, see it as a competition and trying to beat the other guys because they are the reason behind what you pay and influence your position. Google's software is just reacting to those market forces.

Finally, all the clicks in the world mean nothing if you can't close the sale. Remember I said your ad is the carrot to get them through the door. You must then be able to close the sale. You have to test there too.

PPC is all about testing. Everything. All the time.

You don't test one ad at a time. You test two. After say about 25-30 clicks each, pause the lesser performer and replace with another and repeat. That's for click rate which gets you traffic. You need more to gauge whether the ad also is influencing conversions, which is mainly your landing page's job.

Don't keep opening accounts with vouchers. You'll just get in trouble.

Hope all this helps.

Hi,
I think you are too much exact about your keywords. In starting you should use some more no. Of keywords and see their result. After some time do keyword optimisation and remove all those keywords which are not working.
Second thing you should work your landing page. Because you are not getting conversion it means that people are not getting what are you showing in your AD.

txholdem said:

i am not even talking about all the tricks like cloaking and affiliate. i am talking about straightforward selling goods.

i deposited $25, got 14 clicks and after spending $18, i do not see anything in my zencart admin.

1, i use kw planner, find the keywords with some 25k searches. say the kw is 'something slick fashionable'
2, create an ad copy containing the exact kw in title and 1st-line of description.
3, destination url is the category page displaying 10 items of similar products
4, to make things simple, i have only 2 keywords: [something slick fashionable] and "something slick fashionable"
5, QS is 6.
6, made the 1st page bid. G raised the bid, i say fuck it and keep/lower the bid to $0.8/$0.6.
7, average position 3.3/5.2 so my ads are showing. obviously also, i got clicks.

i am out $18 and cannot see any sign that i am going to sell anything? i thought i am doing the ad correctly? am i not?

can experts here give me some pointers?

Click to expand...

At $25 and 14 clicks you don't really have enough data to get any meaningful insights from.

1. 25000 searches (per what?) sounds like a fairly healthy market.
2. What you're doing with targetting KW-->Ad Text-->Landing page is the right way of doing things.
3. See above. Relevance relevance relevance. If they're searching for a kitten, show them kittens, not killer guard dogs.
4. 2 keywords is insanity and nowhere near enough. For anything.
4a. Make your [bids for this term] lower than your "bids for this term".
5. QS6 for a new account/ads etc is decent, all things considered.
From what you've described, you should be getting QS 8-9 from an adgroup that is so tightly targetted.
6. Google is telling you you're not eligible for first page bidding.
The highest bid doesn't necessarily get the #1 spot. It's complicated.
7. 3.3/5.2 is OK... I personally like higher placements, however, it's about campaign performance as a whole.
Generally you want to be up the top, but it's black and white.

i am out $18 and cannot see any sign that i am going to sell anything? i thought i am doing the ad correctly? am i not?

Click to expand...

In isolation the $18/14 figures are meaningless.
Assuming your store page is relevant and converts, you'll sell things.

Do you have click, shopping cart, conversion, tracking on your store site ?
You need it.

Overall I'd say you're doing alright for a beginner.
Call the phone number in your adwords admin page and ask "Can you have a look at my account and offer some suggestions ?".

txholdem said:

i am not even talking about all the tricks like cloaking and affiliate. i am talking about straightforward selling goods.

i deposited $25, got 14 clicks and after spending $18, i do not see anything in my zencart admin.

1, i use kw planner, find the keywords with some 25k searches. say the kw is 'something slick fashionable'
2, create an ad copy containing the exact kw in title and 1st-line of description.
3, destination url is the category page displaying 10 items of similar products
4, to make things simple, i have only 2 keywords: [something slick fashionable] and "something slick fashionable"
5, QS is 6.
6, made the 1st page bid. G raised the bid, i say fuck it and keep/lower the bid to $0.8/$0.6.
7, average position 3.3/5.2 so my ads are showing. obviously also, i got clicks.

i am out $18 and cannot see any sign that i am going to sell anything? i thought i am doing the ad correctly? am i not?

can experts here give me some pointers?

Click to expand...

As I mentioned before, it's too early to draw the conclusions.
Having read your post again, I'd like to add:
2. Why use keyword so much? it's too repetitive. Try to make your advert stand out from the rest (or at least make it sound natural and attractive... something you'd personally consider checking).
4. You definitely need to increase the number of keywords you use, the more keywords you have the more searches you get.
6. If you get more keywords then for the same 14 clicks you can pay much less as you're covering more searches. So make sure you change your bids.

Overall, try to play around with bids/adverts and target audience.
And don't forget to use the vouchers.