A bad experience
I have to say that I hate Google Adwords.
It probably wont do me any favours to go slagging off a Google service, especially one that earns it as much money as Adwords, but it has to be said. I hate Adwords.
My whole problem stems from a very bad experience I had with the service a while back. I think it may have been a similar experience to what a lot of people have had.
The Problem
First and foremost Google Adwords is there to make money for Google. The idea is simple – you pay for your search result come advert to skip all the normal listing algorythms and be shown above or to the side of the normal listing results. It is a good business model for Google and has traditionally been the biggest earner for them. Large companies spend millions a year on Adwords to make sure they are listed.
The trouble is that Google now views Adwords as a giant big cash cow. To start with the cost per click will be around the $3 mark with a promise that it will fall as Google learns to trust you. This means that anyone starting out with Adwords gets hit with a particularly high rate meaning that you will need a substantial investment running in to thousands of dollars to be able to get to a competitive deal.
Google will reduce your rates as you get better clickthrough but the problem is that the default settings on the Adwords user interface are specifically setup to be very loose, meaning that your ad will be shown to a lot of very random people. This means that the money will rapidly drain out of your bank account as people inevitably click randomly on your link. Clickthrough rates will still be low because you are being shown on irrelevant keywords and the actual conversion rate of all this traffic will be zero.
Having to turn round to an increasingly irate client who see’s their marketing budget evaporate in front of their eyes and explain it will be alright is not a nice feeling.
To make matters worse it almost seems that the Adwords client has been specifically designed to confuse and obfuscate the correct settings. Everything has to be tightened up to make sure you are only listing on specific and not freetext search terms and I am convinced there is a team at Google specifically working on making this as unclear as possible. When technical professionals such as myself get confused the average punter has no chance.
Google also has a habit of changing the interface on a regular basis so just as you have got the hang of it you will be back to scratching your head looking for the now relocated setting. This also conveniently makes most of the support sites and blogs with useful help go out of date much quicker.
Now all the time remember – while you are making mistakes Google is earning money.
When is it suitable
I would only recommend Adwords to a client with a very high margin product. If your product or service has a margin over $500 and there is a 1 in 100 convsersion then you might make money using Adwords. Sure it might take you 100 clicks at $3 a click to get a sale but you are still making $200 profit.
The client will also need to have deep pockets at the start as the account will cost thousands to properly establish. It can also be a painful experience.
If your product retails at less than $100 then forget it. The number of random clicks and browser not buyers means that your conversion rate will never be sufficient to turn a profit. Even with a perfectly tuned account you are simply giving your profit to Google.
My Recommendation
Adwords is still the quickest way to instant results. It will just cost you.
If I was advising a client the best, most cost effective short term results can be gained from Social. A good social campaign where you are paying for man hours rather than Google office space is a much better proposition. At least at the end of the process you should be left with an asset in terms of viable social media accounts that will retain some usefulness. Adwords burns and is gone.
Long term the most powerful investment is in site content and backlinking to boost your actual website in traditional organic listing. You simply cannot beat being the No 1 listed site in your chosen keywords. This will bring in business but it will take a lot longer to properly establish, especially if you avoid the perilous short cuts that can get you de-listed.
Adwords has its place but it is only viable for a certain type of business. Ideally ones with deep pockets.