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greenoak
02-20-2011, 06:49 AM
weve gotten a couple of 100$$ coupons for google ad words.... and havent really even considered using google...... do you think it would be worth looking into? we are local and dont sell on line.... we know people find us thru our website a lot....

billbenson
02-20-2011, 10:14 AM
I wouldn't get into it just because of the coupons. Its a lot of work and takes an ongoing effort to do it right. If you have the time you could play around with it a bit with the coupons. Promoting particular hard to find objects or maybe just your store, but if you do well in the local SERPS for antiques, the local store doesn't make that much sense to me.

You could also use the coupons to put some add up that would help find keywords for your site that you may not have thought of.

J from Michigan
02-20-2011, 04:36 PM
I would definitely use it. Especially for some keywords that you may not have strong search results with.

Example: You site is number one for "antiques Indiana." But not in the first 5 pages for "rehabbed furniture Indiana."

Adwords would be perfect for those keywords.

Plus, you have nothing to lose... it's free! :)

Steve B
02-20-2011, 07:03 PM
I think you should definitely take advantage of it. I can't understand why anyone would think it's a lot of work. I go several months at a time without even looking at it. I consistently get more business from Adwords than any other source. I also only sell locally and don't sell over the internet.

PM me if you want more details on how to use it. For one thing, there is a way to specify that your ad only shows to local people. You can list zip codes, or you can literally draw a map of where you want to cover.

huggytree
02-20-2011, 08:06 PM
i tried AdWords a few different times...i stuck with it for months at a time....tried different idea's...even tried using my competitors names as keywords...

how much business did i get from it? 0
even if i wasnt perfect in selecting key words if it had any value wouldnt i have gotten a call for all those hits i got...

maybe it will be different w/ antiques....im sure it works for someone....it sure doesnt work for me...

i have noticed an increase in business from my website since the redesign a year ago, but over all the internet doesnt do much for my business

greenoak
02-20-2011, 11:36 PM
thanks....its interesting..
..ive got a whole lot going on all the time...and not looking for more work unless it really looks tempting....but i sure dont mind work.;... its hard when you dont even know what a good key word is ...unfortunatley it isnt antiques...and we are first page in the state on that.......
guess i shold think about it some more...and maybe the right key word would come to me.... for the adventurous home owning shopper....
maybe i will save the next coupon and just throw something out there....

Steve B
02-21-2011, 07:06 AM
I'm sure it also depends on the type of business you have. Since I sell a relatively high tech product and my customers are typically under 45 years old - they all go to the internet (and mostly Google) to find my kind of business. I imagine that finding a plumber isn't necessarily that way and I would doubt antiques would be either. Since you already land on the first page for the obvious key word (antiques) you would possibly have less benefit. BUT, it wouldn't hurt to be on the first page TWICE. Once with your organic landing and once with your adwords listing.

Incidentally, when I Google "Antiques Indiana" or "Antique Store Indiana" you come up third on the list both times. In each case there is only one company in the Adwords section so it would only cost you a penny or two per hit to show up on the screen in the adwords section. That's a lot of hits for your $100 coupon. In my case I have LOTS of competitors bidding on the obvious key words - so instead of pennies - I have to pay dollars for a hit.

This seems like a no-brainer to me for you to try it out.

greenoak
02-21-2011, 08:50 AM
really!!! i guess most of the antiquers in indiana arent on the web like we have been for so long....
dang...i threw it out...thanks steve...
my customers are young too but they dont really buy my kind of stuff on line.... but they do cyber searches before they come to us..... so that would be good too...is it always keyed to key words?
im keeping the next one..or just spending a 100$$ to see what happens.....and guess i better read up on this...maybe its a new opportunity...
we are so different...i have hardly any competition, our mix is pretty rare or maybe even unique,,, and you have tons.... but i dont have any obvious search words either...but they have to find me first..thats the hard part...

Spider
02-21-2011, 09:00 AM
Ask your customers. "If you were searching for us on the web, what one searchword would you expect to find us under?"

Make a contest of it - "We will test the first 15 searchwords and the person who gave us the word that returned the best response will get $500 to spend in the store."

vangogh
02-21-2011, 11:13 AM
Ann don't worry about tossing out the coupon. Google sends them out all the time. I think I get one every couple of months or so in the mail. I'm sure they'll send you another.

As far as being local you can set up AdWords so it only shows your ad if someone lives within "x" miles of your location. You set "x" though it won't be perfect as the searchers location will be based on their IP address, which isn't perfectly accurate. However you can be sure you aren't serving ads to people in California or in other countries.

When it comes to choosing keywords I think the best way to go is to start by brainstorm a list. You can also as customers like Frederick suggests, though be aware people typically won't remember exactly what they searched for. They'll probably remember the most common word or two they used, but not necessarily other words they added. When you have a brainstormed list you want to take it to a keyword tool. Google AdWords has a nice one. The tools show you what people are actually searching for.

Also it's a good idea to read up a little on how AdWords works as there are many subtleties with the system that can greatly affect your success with it.

Steve B
02-21-2011, 11:38 AM
Funny, they never send me a coupon! I guess they know they don't need to since I've been using them for many years.

You don't have to be perfect on choosing your key words. They have an option where they will show your ad for similar words and misc. combinations. You can fine tune it once you get started, but just selecting "antique" and "furniture" will get you more traffic than you had yesterday. Where you can really shine is in picking key words for all the little special items that you sell.

vangogh
02-21-2011, 12:14 PM
Yes, but using a general term like antique or furniture will also have you throwing away money. It'll be more traffic, but it's likely too wide a net. Furniture doesn't distinguish new from antique at all. It doesn't separate out people wanting to know more about the history of furniture making or those looking for ideas on how to build their own.

Sure you can tweak things, but your $100 coupon might very well be gone before you have a chance to. I'm not saying you can't test those keywords, but even a little time doing some research before you set up the account can save you money and lead to more sales.

J from Michigan
02-21-2011, 03:14 PM
Funny, they never send me a coupon! I guess they know they don't need to since I've been using them for many years.

There was actually one for current users, it was hard to find, but it exists.
If you are/were currently using Conversion Tracking (or signed up before December 31st) and spent $100 before February 15th... you get a credit for $100.

J from Michigan
02-21-2011, 03:18 PM
its hard when you dont even know what a good key word is ...unfortunatley it isnt antiques...and we are first page in the state on that.......
My suggestion was "rehabbed furniture indiana."

Which, incidentally, the top result is my original post on this thread. :D

greenoak
02-21-2011, 05:15 PM
thanks...i guess i will try to use their ad word finder....and brainstorm....we can see what people used to search for us on our stat counter....but they are all over the place.........
i might try something real specific.... like kitchen island...
j..thats funny...if you get any leads send them over!!!..indiana rehabbed furniture os totally accurate....but i dont think folks use it....obviously no store does or they would have popped up i guess.....

Steve B
02-21-2011, 07:40 PM
For one or two cents a hit - I would think it would be wise for her to get hits from people that were only searching for "furniture". The name of her business will prevent some people from clicking on her if they only want new stuff. And for 2 cents, it might be worth trying to convince a few people who were originally looking for new to go with antiqu'e instead. With the limited geography that she would specify and with only 1 or 2 others on the Adwords list, it would literally cost per a couple cents per hit. It depends on the profit on her average sale, but if she converts one person to a customer and makes $300 profit - that would pay for an awful lot of wasted hits at 2 cents each.

vangogh
02-21-2011, 10:36 PM
You're assuming the ads will only cost 2 cents a click. For something as generic as furniture I suspect they'll cost more. I used Google's Ad preview tool (https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/), which lets you run a search as though you were anywhere in the world to see what ads will show in Google's results. For Ann I searched South Bend Indiana, which I think was the closest region I could select near her and I searched on furniture. I see 11 ads, mostly from big name stores.

People also tend to click on the first result without really reading what they're clicking. Plenty of studies have shown people do that. They'll click right back once they land on the page, but by then the advertiser has paid for the click. This might not be a big deal if there are 11 ads on the results page as Ann might not big to be #1.

I'm not saying Ann can't bid on the word, though I suspect there are far more targeted words. Mostly though I think it makes sense to at least spend a few nights reading up on how AdWords works before jumping in. It is possible to run through $100 in a day or two without a useful return.

billbenson
02-21-2011, 11:10 PM
One or two cents a hit is pretty rare from my experience. I have max prices of 50 cents for a lot of my ads, some lower some higher. I pay about 25 cents on average. As VG said, Antiques is far to broad other than for a local search. I'd go to product specific ads personally.

vangogh
02-22-2011, 12:47 AM
And Steve I do realize you were basing the 2 cent thing on what Ann had said about how many ads she sees. If there aren't any ads then yes, you wouldn't be paying much for yours. I figured there would be more than just one or two ads though and from what I can see there are.

greenoak
02-22-2011, 07:05 AM
i wouldnt be using the word antique..... but kitchen island is probably as broad...
..not sure what you meant about how many ads i see....
it will be interesting to leaarn how the process works and what the nuances are..... what t o avoid etc etc....any hints on that?

billbenson
02-22-2011, 09:58 AM
Ideally Ann, you want keywords that support an ad, keywords in the ad, and an ad that points to a page on your site that is about keyword phrase. I sell products as well. I start with 100 or so keywords that might be applicable, write an ad that is optimized for those keywords, and point to a page that is optimized for those keywords. After about a month I come back and delete the keywords that delete keywords that haven't had any impressions. Obviously this takes time, but its worth it. I have about 100 ads each optimized for one specific page and keywords.

An easier approach would be to take a page you already had and optimize the ad and keywords around that page and use it as the landing page. I don't recommend using your home page for a landing page.

I've found that G will ignore new ads with low max cpc. It works better if you start with a higher cpc and drop it down over time. Having said that, I'd start with a max cpc of say 20 cents and let it sit for a while. Say two weeks. New ads don't usually get a lot of impressions immediately or at least it takes a while for G to decide if they like the ad.

After the two weeks or whatever time frame that the ad settles, you can play with the max cpc a bit. If you ad isn't showing for fourth position or better, up the bid for a day or two and see if it moves. Keep an eye on it though, as if you all of a sudden get a bunch of hits, you can go through money pretty fast.

Start with several ads. Even different ads for the same landing page. Sometimes G will like an ad or keyword you don't think should work and conversely may not work for an ad that you think is good. You still need to dance with Google just like natural SERPS, things just happen faster with adwords ie a few weeks to tweak and place instead of months.

J from Michigan
02-22-2011, 12:47 PM
Interesting to see "cents" used as cost examples. My typical CPC is about $4 bucks.

Another thing is "negative keywords." Do any of you guys use them a lot?

I noticed I would get a ton of people searching "window cleaning JOBS" and "window cleaning SOLUTION." So I had to use words like "jobs, employment, soap, tools, etc..." as negative keywords.

I was paying thru the nose before I realized what was happening. :D

billbenson
02-22-2011, 02:20 PM
Yes, I use negative keywords as well. You pretty much need to look at your stats for searh terms to see which ones to use.

greenoak
02-22-2011, 04:25 PM
thanks bill....

mettro2
02-23-2011, 04:29 PM
Negative keywords are very important, because at the end of the day you want to lower your price per conversion and that's one of the most significant tools to do that. Every week I go over my search terms using the "see search terms" button like bill said, and try to get ideas for negative and positive keywords as well. The best negative keywords are the simplest and most times less obvious. For example, I run a locksmith business and one of my best negative keywords is "how". I found out through research that in my industry anybody that uses a search query that has how in it is not looking to purchase any services. something to think about :)

J from Michigan
02-23-2011, 05:13 PM
Yeah, one of my negatives is "how to" for the same reason... :D

Incidentally for all you Adwords users, I recieved my coupon in the email today.

Hi, J
Thank you for participating in the Google AdWords Big Small Business Plan offer. As promised, we are providing you with $100 in free advertising with the coupon code below.

If anyone was already signed up for Conversion Tracking and spent the appropriate amount by Feb 15th, you should automatically get the coupon... so check your email! :cool:

Reflo Ltd
02-24-2011, 10:59 PM
weve gotten a couple of 100$$ coupons for google ad words.... and havent really even considered using google...... do you think it would be worth looking into? we are local and dont sell on line.... we know people find us thru our website a lot....

I sent you an email but figured I might as well post here too.

I am in the middle of signing up for Adwords now. I stopped my registration to do a search for coupon codes and the ones that are out there are used already. I guess each code gets one use. Some people must get multiple codes sent to them (one to use and others to share), in an effort to promote adwords from what I can gather.

Then I thought I should pop into SBF and see if anyone here knew anything good on the matter and here you are, code(s) in hand and not sure if you should use them.

If you have any extras, I would be more than happy to take one off your hands.

Thanks, Pete

J from Michigan
02-25-2011, 07:47 AM
Check eBay... they have $100 codes for under $10 bucks.

greenoak
02-25-2011, 08:56 AM
thanks pete.....im working on it too.....
now im leaning to 3 or 4 specific words, like kitchen island , in one ad and within 100 miles.... ... i just need them to see our pictures....the keyword tool was very helpful....
im swamped right now with all the spring inventory we bought in january and thats coming in ... i cant really get to it yet...

Reflo Ltd
02-25-2011, 12:30 PM
Check eBay... they have $100 codes for under $10 bucks.

Thanks J... do you know anything about how these coupons work? Do you have to use the whole amou8nt before the expiration date or just submit the coupon by then? Are these straight credit to your account or is it a matching funds arrangement? (do I have to spend X to get X?)

I never thought about looking on ebay so thank you again for the great idea.

J from Michigan
02-25-2011, 04:01 PM
It's a straight credit to your account... I see you stopped the process of signing up to find the codes... good move.

They are for use when you sign up.

When you enter the code, it will show as a negative balance (owed) on your billing statement.


You can spend it as quick or a slow as you like. :)

Reflo Ltd
02-25-2011, 05:17 PM
Thanks, I found a great deal on one through eBay

greenoak
03-03-2011, 10:00 AM
we are doing it....thanks for the posts..... we are going specific...and local...for kitchen islands and harvest tables..... still sifting thru all their info...we are in google places now too...

Steve B
03-03-2011, 02:41 PM
Good luck Ann. It has consistently worked well for me for several years.

jpohl
03-04-2011, 10:15 AM
I have spent a LOT of money with Google Adwords in the past. Some of it good and others, well, not so good. Hands down, its the easiest, fastest way to get targeted traffic to your site. However, it is by far the most expensive or one of the most expensive. Others have given you great tips so I won't rehash them here. I would suggest you do a LOT of research first. Read about it for a couple weeks or more. Tracking is a pain but its essential for long term profits.

I hear a lot of people complain about contextual advertising with Google Adwords but it can work great. Contextual is the adsense advertising that you see on people's web sites. You don't get the hot and heavy buyers but the cost is considerably less. I find it great for prospecting and creating a list. However, tracking is even more important because not only do you want to know what keywords are triggering the click, you want to know the web site (lots of clicks from the same site and I am considering a banner buy directly from them, but I digress.

Anyway, it is certainly a good traffic generation source, just go carefully and set a reasonable daily budget. Good Luck

J from Michigan
03-14-2011, 07:23 PM
I got this email the other day...if anyone is thinking about using Adwords, but HAVEN'T yet, let me know... I'd be happy to refer you. :D
(you'd have to place an ad before the 31st.)

You get $100 credit, and the referrer gets $200.


Love AdWords? Tell a friend.

Earn $200 for each friend you refer

Send a friend $100 of free AdWords advertising. When they post an ad, you get $200 of AdWords credits.

Refer up to five people for a grand total of, well, a grand. Your friends will thank you, and AdWords will thank you, too—with $200 for each referral.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

greenoak
03-14-2011, 10:24 PM
j...is that for real? or just for new accts? we have an ad running right now but i would probably take a free $$100....any strings attached?

J from Michigan
03-14-2011, 10:45 PM
The referral has to go to a new user, sorry.

Which is typical for google promotions...

Reflo Ltd
03-17-2011, 02:49 AM
I know I've promised you all an update as things progress. I've just been really busy.

So far I've spent about 110 dollars on Google ads and have had maybe 2 sales totaling $54 dollars.

I have suspended the ads from running for now but will likely resume them once we adjust pricing in the next month or so to test the influence of such a change on sales.

vangogh
03-17-2011, 11:05 AM
Sorry to hear you didn't have great results Pete. Odds are either the AdWords account needs some tweaking or your site does. Did the ads send a decent amount of traffic to the site? It's hard to know without specifics, but it could be either an issue with the keywords you're targeting or that the site isn't converting well.

If you want to share more details about how often the ad was viewed and clicked and how much traffic you got to make those 2 sales I can probably offer some ideas of what to tweak.

Reflo Ltd
03-17-2011, 12:06 PM
We had a variety of ads in text that generated maybe 8-12 clicks per day (up to our daily budget limit). The two sales I had were MAYBE from those ads.... all other sales were definitely not.

We are currently running a free shipping offer but our prices remain what they were. I will try modifying prices and return to standard shipping and see if that impacts sales differently.

greenoak
03-17-2011, 12:15 PM
since my ad words are local....cant i count all the impressions a little bit as well as the clicks? i got lots of impressions but paid about 3
$$ a click....but it was free....as usual no way to track....they might come next month or tell a friend tomorrow.....

vangogh
03-17-2011, 01:14 PM
Pete let me toss out some numbers to give you some ideas on how you might improve things. I'm going to keep the numbers simple to keep the math simple.

Let's assume you're getting 10 clicks a day and it took 10 days for those 2 sales to happen. So the ad sent 10 x 10 or 100 visitors and 2 sales / 100 visitors = 2% conversion rate. Again just using simple numbers to keep the math simple. A 2% conversion rate is hardly something to brag about, yet it's probably not far off from what most people see.

If you're losing money at that conversion rate you have a few options.

1. Look for different keywords. Look through all the words you bid on and see which led to a better conversion rate. For example the one or two keywords that actually led to sales will have a better than 2% conversion rate (assuming you bid on more than 2 phrases). If you remove all the other keywords and look only at the one or two leading to sales, did those keywords lead to profit? You might then eliminate those keywords that led to know sales and try putting more money into the one or two that were profitable. You could then experiment with other keywords to see if you can find other profitable ones.

In all honesty you may not have run the AdWords campaign long enough to really know which are and aren't the profitable keywords, but hopefully the above helps you understand how you can tweak your campaign. As you run a campaign longer and collect more data you may also discover some keywords that lead to sales, but are costing you too much in clicks. In that case you would look for more targeted phrases that are similar, but more specific and likely cost less per click. You might be able to see the same amount of sales for the new phrases while spending less for the traffic.

There really is a lot you can do with an AdWords campaign to improve it.

2. Redesign the site to improve conversions. It's possible that your AdWords campaign is actually working well and the problem is that your site in general isn't converting as well as it could be. Assuming the same 2% conversion rate how does that compare with the conversion rate from other sources like organic search traffic or referral traffic. If AdWords is converting at the same or better then other traffic, it's probably the site that needs work.

Assuming it's the site in your signature we're talking about I do think it could be improved quite a bit to convey a more professional image and be better organized and make it easier for people to buy and trust buying from you.

Most likely both the AdWords campaign and the site could be improved so that the ads lead to profit instead of loss.

@Ann - there are ways to track the ads. Where clicks are concerned you can have the ad lead to a page on your site offering a coupon of some kind. Anyone who prints the coupon and presents it at the register or says the magic word at the register is recorded. It's not going to be a perfect measurement, but if you set it up well it should give you a good idea how effective the ad was.

If it's only the impressions you want to measure you might have the ad read something like "mention (add anything you want here) and receive 5% off your next order." Again you record how many people mention the word or phrase and compare it to the number of impressions the ad received. I wouldn't copy that ad I just wrote. It's more to illustrate how you can track things than it it is to represent an ideal ad. The point though is you can track the impressions. Again it's not going to be a perfect measurement, but you should be able to track things well enough to determine if the ad is working and even better if the ad works better or worse when compared to another ad.

greenoak
03-17-2011, 01:59 PM
thanks vg.....i like the mention it idea... a buddy of mine in texas uses that a bit... and it seems easy and nice....the coupon part or sending them to a different page well ..ive heard of that and we seem to try it sometimes , with no results..... i dont need to know for sure i guess.... there are so many pathways to us , forums,web, blog, etsy, facebook, google, word of mouth....i think it would be a mess to try and gunk up everything with a coupon for each pathway to us...also im not up to it ..and i think they are a problem if overused and especially if your customers just wait for the next one...which kind of happens if a store isnt careful.........

its so different when you dont sell online. harder to track i think.....but i do know the web is a biggie for us...in general....weve been hearing lots of good feedback about our new colorful web and our facebook ...
i do count all the impressions a bit...do you think thats right? they would all be within driving distance...

vangogh
03-17-2011, 04:27 PM
Ann I agree it's harder to track when you aren't selling directly online. It's still possible offline though. You have to be a little more creative and also understand you probably can't measure things quite as accurately. The key though is always tying the ad to the purchase or visit to your store. Usually you do that by directing everyone to a unique page set up for ad, which is where the coupon idea comes in. You only link to that page in the ads so no one else will find it. Anyone who uses the coupon must have gotten to it through an ad. It's not 100% accurate, but it's accurate enough.

The idea can still work with all the different pathways, though it'll be a little trickier to set up. You could still point ads (or any promotion) from Facbook, etsy, forums, etc to the same page. However you add parameter to the end of the url. Say your page is at domain.com/my-landing page.html. You can send people to:

domain.com/my-landing page.html?ref=facebook
domain.com/my-landing page.html?ref=etsy
domain.com/my-landing page.html?ref=forum1
domain.com/my-landing page.html?ref=forum2

Everything after the question mark is a name value pair. In this case he name is ref (short for referral) and the values are facebook, etsy, forum1, forum2. The reason that works is you can access the parameters (name/value pairs) programmatically and change things on the page.

If you're having people print a coupon the site they came from could easily be present on the coupon. If you're having people just tell you the coupon code you might one to have one word that's the same for the specific ad and one that's unique for the site they came from. If you want people to just see the work in the ad based on the ad impression go with the same word, unique word approach.

I think impressions are good to track. It's harder to track them, especially as someone might have to see 5 different ads multiple times before coming into your store next month. It's hard to know if it was the first ad or last ad or one in between that really got them in the door. But anything you can do track and gain a deeper understanding of what is and isn't working is a good thing in my opinion.

greenoak
03-17-2011, 05:19 PM
thanks ...im not interested in coupons..
.i can see quite a bit about pathways from our stat counter....
i do count the impressions as kind of good...like seeing an ad several times before you buy something....like in a long running newspaper ad....i probably wouldnt be trying to track them... on our facebook ads the impression numbers are huge.... i never hear any opinions on the value of them tho...
we really try to talk to new folks to see how they got to us....

J from Michigan
03-17-2011, 06:34 PM
- Click the "Campaigns" tab at the top.
- Next click "keywords"
- Finally click the "See Search Terms" button (circled in red) - and select all.

That will give you the keywords people used for each click.





http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c349/JfromtheD/SearchTerms.jpg

J from Michigan
03-17-2011, 06:36 PM
- This a list of a few of my keywords people used.
- Notice the three at the bottom, especially the ones I circles... they are perfect examples of learning the hard way about "Negative Keywords." ("Equipment" "Canada" and "Paid")






http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c349/JfromtheD/NegativeKeywords.jpg

greenoak
03-17-2011, 09:26 PM
its neat info isnt it....we were suprised that our second best word was shabby chic..

billbenson
03-17-2011, 10:24 PM
Not surprising to me really. I have a ton of ads. 100 or so and should be writing more. I'll have one that I think should be perfect. G doesn't like it. Another one they do. No idea why. Which is why I go by the philosophy of using lots of ads.

You will see people say AdWords doesn't work. When you dig deeper, they have one ad, they tried it for one month, and lost money. Adwords doesn't work like that.

Also, I wouldn't completely pause your campaign. If you can, change your bids or whatever to keep it active but not costing so much. G doesn't like inactive campaigns either.

J from Michigan
03-17-2011, 11:19 PM
I used to have one campaign with like 100 different keywords. But now I do an ad(s) for every city I service, with only about 5 keywords each.

The problem is googles ad rank... the better the ad rank, the lower the bid is.
(Ad rank = Max CPC x Quality score.)

But google gives a higher quality score to things like "window cleaning supplies" or "window cleaning jobs" which are completely against what I'm trying to accomplish.

Meanwhile, my "window cleaners in Michigan" keywords get 5's and 6's. :confused:

I guess it's a matter of finding the right balance... and patience.