What's a good # of keywords for PPC advertising?

[oksk89]

I paid for erect's KW service (really helpful and kickass guy, btw, thanks josh!) and I've made around 16 adgroups based on similar keywords, and this amounts to 902 keywords in total.

I went through the entire list and got rid of around 300-400 unrelated keywords and have a lottttttt of low volume/ 5 cent keywords, and around 100-200 or so 'expensive' keywords ($2-3).

Since the majority of my keywords are very very cheap and longtail, but at the same time, very low volume, I was planning on setting my max CPC to $1 or $1.50.

Now is this overkill with 900 keywords? I'm thinking of experimenting with different AdCopies as well based on the different adgroups.

Thoughts?

 

[papajohn56]

yes, this is way too many keywords. I made this mistake at first too. Start Small! Track with more basic keywords but broad match, then go exact match on more as you see them coming in through your tracking software

 

[oksk89]

yes, this is way too many keywords. I made this mistake at first too. Start Small! Track with more basic keywords but broad match, then go exact match on more as you see them coming in through your tracking software

Prior to using this KW service, I ran my PPC campaign for a few days to test it with some general keywords that I came up with on my own, like 'work at home' and they cost around $1-2 CPC, but my conversions werent so great (only made 1 sale).

Ugh... I dunno. I think I'm going to try these 900 keywords. about 90% of them are extremely low volume and cheap (5 cents). The other 10% include the more generic, basic keywords that are more expensive that I've ran before.

My plan is to set the max CPC to around $1 and see where that takes me.

 

[zimok]

Follow Papa's advice on starting small, and you didn't mention it but you do have prosper202 or something set up for tracking right?

 

[thekaine]

From a pov of a new in this field i would suggest you when you do not have enough money. Go and check the keywords you are bidding on if they are really worth the money.
Just keep in mind that it is unlikely that there are keywords not bid on in most of the niches. So when no one is bidding on a keyword it most likely does not convert or gives no volume or w/e.
So go and study all the keywords (atleast search for then on google 1 time and check the amount of advertisments etc etc). And then start bidding on keywords that have been working for others. This will not guarantee you anything but will give you something nice to start with.

Later on when you have enough money to spend for a campaign, i would just go and test them all since it takes normaly over 1 week to get all the data together to make decisiouns where to bid and where not...

 

[Drake]

It's not necessarily too many keywords.

It is too many keywords for 16 ad groups though.

Or if you don't have a way to deal with 900 low volume keywords quickly. speedppc, dereks tool, script, campaign snipte etc.

 

[oksk89]

Yeah, I have the self-hosted prosper202 set up for tracking.

In the end, I think I'm going to fine-tune these into 10 AdGroups. Some of them will have around 10 KWs, some will have like 50, others might have 100, 200, or 300.

Wow, this is going to take a looooooooong time

 

[pocketrockets]

Prior to using this KW service, I ran my PPC campaign for a few days to test it with some general keywords that I came up with on my own, like 'work at home' and they cost around $1-2 CPC, but my conversions werent so great (only made 1 sale).

How many impressions/clicks did you let it run for? You might not have enough significant data to even know if they are consistent converting keywords.

Also, is the offer or product you are promoting to the people that are typing in 'work at home' really what they are looking for? For ex., someone who is using those keywords is in the very basic stages of research.

 

[oksk89]

How many impressions/clicks did you let it run for? You might not have enough significant data to even know if they are consistent converting keywords.

Also, is the offer or product you are promoting to the people that are typing in 'work at home' really what they are looking for? For ex., someone who is using those keywords is in the very basic stages of research.

Well, I'm pretty sure my conversion rate was piss poor due to bad keywords and a horrible landing page.

I had around 70 keywords and they all had Poor QS so I updated my LP to include more of the keywords, and about 10 of them jumped up to OKAY. Point is, on AdWords, I got like several thousand impressions and 12 clicks and had a CTR less than 1%.

On AdCenter, I had around 30-40 clicks using the same keywords and didn't make any money either. All in all, I had spent around $60 on PPC and made 1 sale for $32.

That's when I revamped my LP and bought Erect's KW service, and now I have 900 KWs in 16 AdGroups. As I said, 85% of them have very low volume and are very specific, while the rest are the more general KWs, like 'work online at home' that cost around $1-2.

I really dont know how to choose keywords that are specific to people looking to buy BizOps stuff, cuz unlike physical products like Acai pills where people may search for 'cheapest acai pills' when they're in buying mode, the google keywords tool shows not enough data for KWs like 'discount work online' etc.

I'm sort of unsure of what to think of keywords like 'best work at home' because tecnically, these people are in the research/comparison stage, but I see a lot of BizOps LP's rating different products, hence the 'Top 10' or 'Best' possibly being applicable.

Argh.. I dunno.