Google Adwords

[interactive]

Just trying to get some activity going on the boards, not spamming ;). Anyways I've always wondered, I know google adwords are expensive. But for all the hosts out there how succesful are they? Thanks

[rochen]

I have never used Google Adwords, however, I think by optimizing your keywords can actually give you better results and it's free.

Google Premium Banners are another issue; however they cost a lot more than the adwords.

[interactive]

I know that Google uses the title of the page and all. I was just wondering how, succesful are they. Are they worth the money?

[Wire]

I dunno but whenever I search I hardly ever click on the adwords just the first or 2nd page. Would be cool if we could pay for that

[inogenius]

I thought about using Adwords, however after seeing the amount of hosts that are already doing so I think I'll just stick to doing local advertising.

[interactive]

Originally posted by inogenius
I thought about using Adwords, however after seeing the amount of hosts that are already doing so I think I'll just stick to doing local advertising.

What I thought there's like 4 pages. I was thinking about it for one of my sites. Not sure though.

[xaviahost]

We used it for a while, it did absoutely nothing.

I have only paid for advertising twice ;

hostppc.com
adwords by google

We have gotten all of our customers from participating in communities such as these, and now we host about 500 web sites.

[PipeTen]

:fork: We tried Google adwords for a short while. To get a hosting ad listed it cost about 60 - 70 cents a click! Even then the click through rate was really low as there are so many other adverts appearing next to it. We ended up spending about $30 with no sign ups so just sacked it off.

Pipe Ten Web Hosting (http://www.pipeten.com/)

[VoxKeysGtr]

One probem I have with the implemetation of the adword program is that the results appear off to the side, not at the top of the results. Yahoo, does it correctly, though. Their sponsored listings appear first, and even though they are labeled as sponsored results, I believe it is more effective to have them appear at the top, rather than off to the side where they may or may not be noticed.:cool:

[Mikrodata]

I think the cost for hosts is a little high, but other then that we have had good success with them in marketing campaigns we have setup for other companies (not host related) .

Maybe if you tried keywords that where more specific you would be better off. (Less costs and better leads) Example: if you sell Oracle DB Servers set your keywords to "Oracle DB server", not "DB Hosting". Or you can set your keywords to be specific to the service you make the most profit on.

One site that we have found very useful as we attempt to build our own marketing campaign is: http://www.marketingexperiments.com . They have a lot of free reports for people to review. If you want the full reports it is only $20 / month. :homer:

When ever you can put in a Homer, it needs to be done! : )

[VoxKeysGtr]

Looks like they have some good info there, Mikrodata. Thanks.:cool:

[flexiplan]

if you have a large budget for advertising, the google ad words is a good way to go. BUT...

if you can't afford $0.5-$3 per click then have a look at the many other ppc search engine out there, which are a lot cheaper.

i recommend going to www.alexa.com. its a good way to compare the traffic to various sites. i wouldn't bother with ppc search engines under about the 20,000 ranking on the alexa rankings.

also, on these search engines, its best to be listed in the 2-4 positions on many keywords, than position 1 on just a few keywords.

hope that helps

matt

[allan]

Originally posted by flexiplan

if you can't afford $0.5-$3 per click then have a look at the many other ppc search engine out there, which are a lot cheaper.


Do you have any PPC engines you recommend Matt?

[flexiplan]

humm, well im in the process of trying them out. ive signed up with mettamission.com - for $50 you get $300 of credit. BUT not many clicks. i have enough credit to last me 4567 days !lol hopefully they will get better.

goclick is a good one. cheap prices than a pretty good click through. Only a test, so no sales through it.

trying out IQ seek, now.

Just go to alexa, type in the ppc engine, eg goclick.com. it will show thier rankings and some relevant sites. Go through the sites and compare thier prices per click and thier ranking.

if anyone here does do it, just make sure you share your results with the rest of us, lol.

good luck

[Chicken]

There is an article about Google Adwords: http://findmyhosting.com/web-resources/Articles/google-adwords.htm

... but other types of advertising, http://findmyhosting.com itself might be something to discuss.

[nameslave]

>>PipeTen: ... Even then the click through rate was really low as there are so many other adverts appearing next to it. We ended up spending about $30 with no sign ups so just sacked it off.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. You only pay with clickthroughs, isn't it? So the low clickthrough rate does NOT cost anything extra BUT actually renders longer exposure, right? And the sign-up rate has NOTHING to do with Google at all. I guess it's more your business when the visitors are already on your site. Just my two cents.

>>VoxKeysGtr: ... Yahoo, does it correctly, though. Their sponsored listings appear first, and even though they are labeled as sponsored results, I believe it is more effective to have them appear at the top, rather than off to the side where they may or may not be noticed.

Google DOES have sponsored links on the top, but they are not called Adwords AND they are MUCH MORE expensive. Likewise, Yahoo's sponsored links cost an arm and a leg, at least to me.

[Binx]

We actually got a bit of fraud with Google Adwords. Also I didn't think the ROI was all that great. But who knows, it could have been the timing when our campaign went out which was right when the war with Iraq started so I think everything was a little slow during that time.

[alex042]

So the low clickthrough rate does NOT cost anything extra BUT actually renders longer exposure, right?
I'm not sure this is correct. We've just started a campaign there this weekend and the low clickthrough has already slowed our campaign. Every 3rd time it's slowed, it's gonna cost us more money to reactivate things than it costs in click throughs. I'd consider leaving it slowed if it meant longer exposure, but am afraid they'll deactivate the campaign. Does anyone else know how this works?

I'm leary about narrowing our keywords to something so specific that we don't have enough impressions to generate the clickthroughs we want just to get their ratio. Btw, anyone happen to know what CTR they're looking for?

Our pricing isn't that of a cheap host, so I could probably get a few more click throughs if we don't put our pricing in the ad, but it's likely many of those click throughs are looking for the cheap host resulting in those being non-signups so we've wasted money either way. Anyone have any suggestions regarding this?

Btw, what's a decent avg position? I've noticed our keywords have quite a variance when it comes to position. What exactly does this positioning mean? Is it the page number, ad #, or something else when people pull up results?