Question about AdWords results

Is my product idea viable based on these results?

I've got an idea for an e-book so I set up a fairly crappy 1-page site and ran an AdWords campaign to test the market for the e-book. The users fill out name and address, then hit a 'continue purchase' button which then shows an error, so no cc info is actually taken. I consider this a "conversion" when it happens.

My $39.99 e-book would be breaking even, i.e., just enough revenue to cover the AdWords campaign right now. On the one hand my product viability looks bad. On the other hand, with a real website, some AdWords optimization, and some SEO work, it seems like it would be doing a lot better. So my question: Is my e-book idea worth pursuing? (I realize it's hard to answer without a lot more background.)

I won't into the product details but here are some of the AdWords numbers. Again, my cost per conversion is about equal to the cost of the AdWords. I'm getting about 3% CTR on my search campaign and 0.07% on my display campaign. Sample size is *really* small now-- 120 total click-throughs. My AdWords are pricey, about $1.30 apiece. I'm getting about 4 purchases for every 120 click-throughs.

I'm a newbie so any comments appreciated.

Thats pretty good man - keep it up and improve and scale up..

First, instead of doing a crappy site as you call it, why not build the best selling landing page you can and actually SELL your book? If by your own admission you have a crappy message, and not actually selling it, any conversion rates are basically meaningless.

Next, any CTRs are also meaningless without more info. You can improve that and your Quality Score which is the real measure of your success against competitors. QS is also normalized to position. So saying "I'm getting a 3% CTR" doesn't mean too much. If your QS is 10, that's better information to know. Knowing your position would be useful too.

As you said, sample size of 4 "sales" is too small. But a good start actually as that's a 3% conversion rate. And you say it's a crappy site so it seems you are doing a half-way decent job on your sales pitch. You may find however that some people don't actually complete the purchase. You don't know as you are showing them an error.

I think it's a good start. You "broke even" on your first try. With improvements you'll bring your QS up which will drive your costs down and you should be making a profit. You need to learn much more about PPC however for that to happen. For one thing, keep search and display campaigns separate.

Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't build a more professional site and invest a lot more in AdWords because I'm doing a market test to see if my product is viable first. The question is whether the test results I have mean anything and if they do, whether they indicate that further investment is in order.

I've had 10 "sales" in 8 days with a ctr sample size of 340 CTRs. $400 in imaginary profit cost me $470. I didn't know about the quality score metric. I don't have any quality scores of 1,2, 8, 9, or 10. My keywords break down with these QSs:
QS of 3: seven keywords
Qs of 4: nineteen keywords
QS of 5: six keywords
QS of 6: nine keywords
QS of 7: six keywords

Should I trim out the keywords with the lower quality scores?

I've got a lot to learn about PPC and SEO. Any book (or source material) recommendations?

Thanks.

QS of 3 probably irrelevant keywords. I'd get rid of them. Although, if your CTR is so low compared to the mean, you may get an irrelevant keyword status which would mean your ads are really bad.

The mean QS is 5 so you are not doing well at all except for those at 7. You average is below 5. You'll find your QS7 keywords are costing you less.

I can't post links yet but search for "lucid adwords faq" and you'll see my site where I explain QS in details in a free document. I also have a book there that I sell. There are others you can buy that may help. Perry Marshall is well-known and has one but I wasn't impressed with the 2004 copy I have, that's why I wrote mine. Brad Geddes has one too, never read his but you can find it in bookstores. There's of course free resources, starting with Google itself that covers the basics and forums such as Warrior and Digital Point. Google also has one with very knowledgeable people, including some Google employees.