Adwords Trial & Error.. and error

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LemonAden

LemonAden

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Jan 29, 2007
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I have a few questions that i am hoping someone can answer. I have read and practiced and tried everything and have been for months but i am still experiencing the same shitty results with google adwords.. no matter what i do. I read Chrislingle's thread: Lets learn how to run an affiliate campain with PPC shall we kids? SEVERAL times, and read 30 pages deep into this forum for ideas but i am still having problems.

I bought a domain so that i could use it for an affiliate campaign. The affiliate campaign is simple, they put in their email address and i get paid. Not a CC offer or anything like that.

I used specific keywords, targeted and relevant to my site and campaign. I built a little bit of relevant content for the site and spiders.

I masked my affiliate links as instructed by Chris's thread (great piece of info).

I did everything as instructed over the last few months on other forums and still i cannot get my ad's listed for a decent price. Half of the keywords wont even show. I dont know what the hell i am doing wrong and i lost 2 grand over the last year trying to figure out what i am doing wrong.

Any more info will be greatly appreciated. If anyone cares to look closer, i can give you the links to my landing pages, just PM.

Thanks!
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Just posting an update..

Since i posted this, i managed to get the adwords campaign for this particular site at the #1 and 2 spot for the keyword search.. BUT, the cost is still high. I have to set it at $1 per click to even get adwords to display it.

Also, i bought another domain and made another landing page for an aff campaign with NO keyword competiton.

I set up the adwords to the landing page i made (pretty nice looking page) and i set the 2 keywords for the site in place and WTF they want it set at $1 to even be displayed.. with no competition.

What is goin on?
 
Chances are that your landing page didn't pass Google's quality score. Try improving your landing page if you can.
 
What aspects of a landing page makes your quality score pass? My landing pages are pretty good i think. I have content, info, links, site map.. etc.
 
Aside from the stuff that you've mentioned you're doing (content, links, sitemap etc), the following can help:

1) Keywords within ad copy or domain - make separate ad groups to make the ads highly-targeted. If the keyword appears in your ad copy then that boosts your QS

2) Privacy policy / Terms & Conditions on your page can help



The thing to realise is that the quality score is at a keyword level. If you have a site about widgets (heh, those again..) and have, oh I don't know, thongs, say, as a keyword then the quality score for THAT keyword will be really low and will probably be inactive. So, make sure your keywords are relevant and increase their relevancy by having them as headers (h1 tag in html), emphasise them, give them a good density and don't forget to include them in your ad copy.
 
I have terms and conditions, contact, privacy policy, etc. Just so the site looks like it has some sections and is not just one page.

I have all of the keywords i am using written several times in the ad, and the headers.

I have anchor links to certain parts of wikipedia for the links i am using.

I have the affiliate link masked with a pho jump link..

My graphic is AWESOME and inviting

One particular ad has absolutly NO competition so i cannot look at other competitors landing pages. I dont know what the hell is wrong with google!! haha.

This is a learning experience that once i nail it down, i am not going to stop. I need to be self employed by the summer or my head is going to explode!! ;)
 
adwords is too competitive and $oogle is not helping new publishers with new accounts because you have to have "account history" to really compete with big spenders.

I've never been able to turn profit with adwords so far. Either next to no impressions or costs through the roof.
 
thats what i hear about adwords.. but everyone else seems to get past that part! heh


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well it sounds like you did everything right. then again something must be wrong for you to have horrible results like that :) it MIGHT be from a shitty history report(I'm just pulling stuff from my ass). When you first start out, google should make you rank in the top 10/first page results. During this time period, if you turn a greater profit for google vs other competitors(% wise) you may get a higher ranking. If not, your rankings will slowly drop until you get slapped with a very high minimum bid. This is why I think people say a higher CTR% will get you a better QS. Don't take what I say for fact though...

also, what is the CPC that you are setting?
 
I am setting a dollar CPC because they wont show my ads otherwise..

And also, i thought of what you said already about a shitty history with google... I thought of that 2 weeks ago, so i opened a new account for a new site that i never touched with the old account and am getting the SAME results.
 
Time for more content I bet....add as many 'articles' as you can (20 or more seems to do the trick, 300-400 words each)....just general info stuff related to the niche.

Outgoing links to "trusted" sites that are not affiliate links helps too....up to 10 of those if you can.

Stuff the 'article' internal links and the 'resources' section where your outgoing external links live into the bottom of your landing page, preferably horizontally.

This should give the QS bot something to chew on while not distracting your visitors too much. It's now a trade off between 'acceptable' leakage and high QS/Low bids.
 
Thanks for this thread. I have learned a lot. I went back and tweaked my first adwords campaign based on these suggestions. I mainly added H1 tags with my keywords and made sure my ads also had the keywords and I am now hitting 1-3 for most of the important categories without raising my limits.
 
I'm sure you are using long tail, targeted keywords to stay clear of some of the more expensive general terms. Also use "" and [] for exact and match phrase. But i'm sure you've got that covered as well. :)

I'm actually having a bit of the same problem so far with Adwords. I'm not able to get the ppc volume I would like for a decent price. Not giving up though. I know it's a matter of research + trial and error.

Have you considered getting additional traffic from MSN Adcenter?
 
I am using Adcenter as well. The problem I ran into there is with all the free coupons that are out for them, CPC seems be higher than Google. I had one keyword that was $18 a click on adcenter and .30 a click on Google. The Affiliate payout was $17, so I figure it has to be the direct merchant paying that amount.

And the traffic has been almost non-existant. :(
 
You guys. Thanks for all of the help. Here is my update

I took everyones advice and i redesigned the landing pages with the info i have learned from you guys.

I deleted the campaign, then started a new one from scratch.. BUT, the price was still so fucking high. Then i realized that even though i deleted the campaign after redoing the landing page, google's bot was not going back to look at the page.. even in a new campaign. So i moved all of the data that i redid into a subdomain, submit that to google and what do you know.. cheap fucking clicks.

I am going to fuck around with this and make some different campaigns and get this down. Once i do that, i need to learn about how to get decent leads from the clicks!
 
You might find that just creating a new adgroup and changing the url is enough to get the bot to go back and look again. I have one campaign where I sent the traffic directly to the merchant, had my best keyword at position 2 for 25-cent clicks. I created a new adgroup with identical ads and keywords and pointed it to my own landing page (pausing the first adgroup), and for the same price clicks I was in position 22.
 
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