Google Ads - good results or not?

JasperKat

Hello, apologies if this is in the wrong place Mods, not sure exactly where to post it....

We have a website which sells a software product, people can purchase online if they wish, but sales haven't been great so we had the site content re-designed. We were then quoted a huge amount (thousands) for a SEO campaign which we can't afford so we thought we'd try doing something ourselves.

So..... We've set up a basic Google Adwords PPC campaign & it's been running just over a month. Up to today we've had 2080 impressions & 20 click-thru's but we don't know if thats a good rate or not? can anyone tell us some kind of ball-park figure or click-thru rate we should be getting?

Thanks in advance of any suggestions, ideas etc..

Jasper

Seohelp

Hi Jasper,

0.96% of a CTR is quite low for an Adwords account. It is actually dangerously close to being disabled. There is a very good book out there to help you learn loads about PPC with Adwords. It's called "Winning Results with Google Adwords" written by Andrew Goodman. Some sections are a little out of date, but overall it's a great read. You should be able to find it on Amazon for around €15 incl. p&p. The new ebook that you could get on his site... think it's pagezero.com is available for around €60. I'd recommend getting the old one to start, save money with what you learn, and then use that cash to buy the new e-book.

Advice that I could give you would be to keep testing different Adcopy and make sure you try to put the keywords that you are targetting in the title of the Adcopy. It really helps for both targetted clicks and CTR. Saving you money and keeping the CTR up.

We were then quoted a huge amount (thousands) for a SEO campaign which we can't afford so we thought we'd try doing something ourselves.

The price quoted for your SEO campaign seems quite high. It's tough to really know without seeing you site and what the company is offering. However, by doing some of the basics right (which no person should think is going to require the knowledge of a technical genius) will help your website out considerably.

If you would like to send me a private message with your website link in it I'll take a look and give you some advice.

Get ready for a shameless plug (sorry )... I have a website that allows people to learn the basics of SEO for free.
Click on my profile and have a look if you want.
The articles are very straight-forward.
It might help you out.

JasperKat

Thanks for the reply, SEO, sending PM now.

Jasperkat

Seohelp

Hi Jasper,

Did a audit on the site.


Let me know if you received the email whenever you get a chance to check your PMs.

Hope it helps.

JasperKat

Hi Seo, saw your PM - thanks for all the info, very helpful - & replied.

Didn't get an email unless Mailwasher blocked it & I didn't recognise it as a friend.
Jasper

m_stan

Seems like your click through rate is very low here, which is either down to the keywords you are advertising with being irrelevant or the ad copy you are using being unsuitable or just not attractive for the keywords you are advertising.

So first you need to get the CTR sorted out.

Unfortunatly that's only part of the picture in getting PPC advertising working for you. You then need to ensure your clicks are converting to leads for your business. This is a whole other area and is equally important if you are to get a return for your € spent.

After this you also need to ensure that you can follow-up on those leads you are generating in an effective way.

You also need to ensure that all of this is very measureable so you can see what keywords and ad groups are converting more than others. This will help you invest more in the ones that give you more return and ditch the non performing ones.

As you can see, this can get quite complex but you can also run this quite easily with some simple rules.

As the previous poster said, I'd recommend buying a good book like "Winning results with Google AdWords" or "Search Engine Marketing Inc." by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt.

I run the paid search campaign for the company I work for with a monthly budget of almost 50k, so I'm used to running a tight ship )

Best of luck with it. This stuff is great fun when it starts to yield results.

leftofcentre

**sign**

can we have some kind of sticky that tells posters to include there site address in posts?

How are we meant to give you advice when you do not tell us the site?

pande

Hi, I'm not an expert, but have been at a course recently discussing these features. I thought it was a genius idea to mis-spell some keywords for both meta tags and also adwords. For example as well as Amazon you would have smazon, amzon.

Sure this is probably common knowledge but i thought it was ingenius.

Seohelp

can we have some kind of sticky that tells posters to include there site address in posts?

Brian I'm not sure that this should be a pre-requisite when someone wants a bit of information. The questions by JasperCat were simply an enquiry on his campaigns performance.

How are we meant to give you advice when you do not tell us the site?

If he were to include his website address then competitors could simply follow and implement the advice offered up by people within this thread. Keywords/keyphrases that someone offered up that he never thought of before would simply be copied by anyone else in the industry.

Also, some people come to forums to find answers to questions that their boss probably assumes they know already

You then need to ensure your clicks are converting to leads for your business. This is a whole other area and is equally important if you are to get a return for your € spent.

After this you also need to ensure that you can follow-up on those leads you are generating in an effective way.

You also need to ensure that all of this is very measureable so you can see what keywords and ad groups are converting more than others. This will help you invest more in the ones that give you more return and ditch the non performing ones.

Some great advice by m_stan. Should be followed by all.

JasperKat

M_stan & SEOHelp, I'm acting on the excellent advice given by you both, in particular SEOhelp has gone 'the extra mile' helping & advising us & we appreciate it.

If he were to include his website address then competitors could simply follow and implement the advice offered up by people within this thread. Keywords/keyphrases that someone offered up that he never thought of before would simply be copied by anyone else in the industry.

I didn't want to post my website 'cos it could be seen as advertising also, I wasn't asking for advice on the site itself but posed the questions because it's my 1st time doing google campaigns & I didn't know what kinda results to expect & consequently didn't know if the results we're getting were good, bad or par-for-the-course so far.

M_Stan: I'd kill for your budget, or even a quarter of it !!:D

Pande, excellent idea about spelling mistakes - thanks

Jasperkat

m_stan

JasperKat wrote:

M_Stan: I'd kill for your budget, or even a quarter of it !!:D

My budget is for a complex software solution and it covers a lot of coutries in Europe and further afield in EMEA and in multiple languages - that's why it's on the large side. Also, it can be a curse since the results are watched from on high very closely, so I need to be on top of things. As soon as the results dip I have senior peeps breathing down my neck. But. It's fun

leftofcentre

My point is you can not comment on a campaign unless you know what its for.

I have some clients who work on a 10% conversion rate, where as others are delighted with a 2% rate.

You need to know the context.

Seohelp

My point is you can not comment on a campaign unless you know what its for.

I have some clients who work on a 10% conversion rate, where as others are delighted with a 2% rate.

You need to know the context.

I wonder if you mean whether 10% or 2% conversion rate with respect to purchase, sign-up, or whatever the desired action is once a visitor arrives at a site. Or, are these figures a Click-Through-Rate percentage.

Really, the only advice that is needed to be given to a person is whether there site is performing well enough to avoid campaigns being disabled. ROI is another vital statistic. The benefits of a higher CTR (such as 10%) is that the advertiser can lower their bids on keywords and still hold a high position within the results.

However, I still don't understand why anyone that isn't picking campaign keywords needs to know exactly what the name of the website or industry it is competiting within to make a comment that would provide good guidance.

leftofcentre

Well its up to the person. Its just that if we know the site we can give advice on the landing pages, product etc.

I sell software, and do a lot of google adwords campaigns. So i know this market well.