Hi,
Having read another post this (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=360256). Not wanting to take it off topic I thought this deserved a full discussion of it's own, so here it is.

The reason why I want to discuss PPC advertising is because i'm reconsidering how I spend my advertising budget. As Blacksheep noted (in aforementioned thread), I feel that my Google adwords are being wasted. For my first site I budgeted £30 a month at £1 a day. Within the first few hours of every day this budget is used up. After a week the program informed me that many of my keywords were now more expensive (many almost double).

At this point I wrote a few statistical analysis features for my site. I already direct adwords to special pages which are logged. Upon analysis I noted that virtually every visitor from Google only looked at the homepage, many didn't even get there (you are instantly redirected from the adword specific page), which indicates that it's a search bot of some kind. Other well known search bots including Googles, click through from the paid adverts on a fairly regular basis.

With the price going up and all my budget being 'wasted' straight away, we have discussed whether it is competitors, annoying kiddie scripters or even some being Google themselves (not that i'm saying it is, but it is in their interest, true).

Google do do an analytic service, you've probably seen the googleanalytics cookies and scripts (if you use 'noscript' and Firefox). But I haven't opted in for that feature because I aim to avoid scripts and cookies wherever possible, that also extends to forms of data-mining. So, I wrote to Google with my thoughts, mmm, they've still not replied to my message (my small business advisor suggests contacting them twice more before approaching some magazines, newspapers and the such like!).

Anyway, this is turning into a big Sunday rant. In conclusion (for now), when my money has run out in my Google account, I will be using the budget elsewhere (keep installed for more).


P.S. Yes I also use other PPC schemes such as Yahoo's. When someone click's through from there, they traverse the site like a human being would. In addition, my budget isn't used up every single day, and the usage is spread across the day.

P.P.S. Google, you were my first choice though!

P.P.P.S. Sorry for the length of this!

Unless your campaign is properly set up and without knowing that, it is hard to say why your money is being wasted.

If, as a newbie to Adwords, you set up up without any proper guidance, it is highly likely you are paying Google to just get richer and richer.

To think you can spend £1 a day and get anything back is like giving a bookie 50p a day and telling him/her to place a lucky dip bet. It really isnt enough and again, without knowing what keywords you are working on, cant guage what £1 a day will buy you. My daily spend was £100 a day on one particular campaign, and I know someone who spends £7k a month, all year round, year in year out.

I'm sure if your spending that much that you wouldn't notice a little bit of leakage. But no, £1 is worth £1 and should be treat exactly the same as a 7k budget.

As to whether I can read the manual, understand it and then test it, comparing it to others, well i'm sure I can and have.

Another thing I noticed was, even though i've opted to just advertise to the UK, the only plausible looking hits to my site (through Google) are people from Africa, Kuwait, India, Australia and the like. This was achieved using the 'whois' package to locate the ip (not totally reliable, but I also track proxies (not tor, yet)).

But you need to invest a reasonable amount in order to reap a return. £1 a day isnt going to touch the sides of most businesses ROI in Adwords. What is your main keyword?

For the site in question it would be 'chat', yes a popular one!

Generally I just get good rankings for my sites from the meta tags, this is the first one that i've advertised though. But from looking through the general page rankings meta tags, i'm surprised the top selection is even there anyway...

web chat? back chat? lesser-spotted warbler's chat? Depending on your campaign settings you dont want to be lumped with everything with the word chat in it!

google dont rank on meta tags alone though. Its back links that bump you there. Sure, having the meta info in place is crucial in playing a part of that, but on it's own in a competitive industry, it just wont happen.

obviously on the subject of that site name i'm being coy. However yes, most my other sites are programming or linux related. I also help in numerous forums with a signature listing related sites, or sometimes I ask daft questions to start topics and ask people to look at the site. Generally when I finish a site I ask for it to be tested for vulnerabilities by hackers, which generally attracts a lot of worldwide attention, especially on the difference between hackers and crackers.

Another tip is to look for peoples link portals, review sites and the such like and get yourself added. Tell friends' on facebook, myspace and do some vids for youtube. There's loads of ways to do guerilla advertising, even if it's hidden within tags in forum posts, or from avatar links...

was that last post meant to be in this thread??

ai........

I couldnt make out its relevance to PPC that's all, mind you, I am blonde ;)

I couldnt make out its relevance to PPC that's all, mind you, I am blonde ;)

See topic title!

lol ah yes, but, you linked it to my Adwords PPC course saying it deserved a full discussion of its own, and, your para in your first post began "The reason why I want to discuss PPC advertising...." ;)

Hat's off, but i'm only strict at certain times!

If the original post wasn't so long I was going to diversify into affiliate systems and the inner workings of search engines in general, but the Olympic ceremony was about to start and I wanted to see Boris (he's definitely a bit blonde)...

maybe a topic on online advertising, or better still for the forum, a thread for each sub title within online marketing? they each deserve their own thread IMO.

OK, back to the original Google bit, i'm updating something and decide to have a look see at my ad logs. Once again 195.93.21.35, has visited twice within a few seconds of each other, not visiting any page other than the referred page. This ip has done this every other day since starting this program.

Doing a Google search on the ip yields:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:195.93.21.35
http://www.botsvsbrowsers.com/ip/195.93.21.35/index.html

If a clickthrough is £0.17, in the last month this has cost me £5.10. This is an identified, but none listed bot, one of many out there. It may not sound like much to you out there who spend large amounts on advertising, but i'm a Yorkshire man and this is adding up!

Why dont you contact Google and dispute it then?

come in on this a bit late but at £1 per day - you have hardly given it a fair crack.

You must at least split test your ads and if possible, landing pages. (there are alternatives to google analytics)

the word chat is probably one of the most the most competitive terms around. Did you do any longtail keyword research?

We use google, yahoo and msn ppc all with good success.

I wouldn't want to take your advisors advice and get into a war with google though...

If you meant me, im not his advisor. and I wasnt saying to get in a war. It is possible to dispute clicks that are not genuine clicks by humans, if that is what the OP is syaing is happening. They may be able to explain something to him or, make a refund. I got some refunds, albeit only small ones.

If you meant me, im not his advisor. and I wasnt saying to get in a war. It is possible to dispute clicks that are not genuine clicks by humans, if that is what the OP is syaing is happening. They may be able to explain something to him or, make a refund. I got some refunds, albeit only small ones.

ummm no but I agree that click fraud is different to way that google conducts its general business -

from original post

(my small business advisor suggests contacting them twice more before approaching some magazines, newspapers and the such like!).

With Yahoo it's a very different story, the patterns seem very genuine, also they give you a lot more information on the passthrough.

I did contact Google 9 days ago now, but still no reply, and yes i'll contact them again. My logs are getting bigger and showing more patterns all the time.

Am I really going to war because i've spotted a fault that i'm being charged for? If it was ONLY £5 per month per site, across the whole country and say the Brits have 100k advertisers with Google, then that would mean this country is giving them half a million quid a month, but I bet you it's a much bigger picture than that! But also, i'm not saying that it is Google directly, but it's also not in their interest to stop it.

ah right, well I wasnt sure what, at the point he wrote that, he was unhappy with. ie the fact his clicks just arent converting beyond the home page let alone sales?

As said, that would require an in depth analysis of the current campaignset up and once that was 100% in place, and tested, only then could you work out if Google are doing something wrong.

Yes, I totally agree. I wrote my CMS myself and have a specific module for monitoring clickthroughs. Additionally I have made some statistical report pages which also link you through to other built in log search queries. Then just because I am the way I am, at the end of the day when I review the logs, I also run numerous 'whois' queries to build up a picture of the demographics.

I think if you run a Googleads campaign with £1 a day you get what you deserve, nothing!

Some keywords are more than £5 a click to get in the top 3 positions. I cant see how you even show up to get clicked and waste you pound with "chat" which costs around 50p a click to be in the top three.

Your analysis is somewhat flawed using your current tooling (£1). Even if robots like Yahoo crawled google pages it shouldn't be the end of the world for using it as a fantastic means of getting your website noticed.

That is indeed the second coolest feature in that you get your own back link generator from sites displaying your advert, so its not wasted.

You dont need to run all of those checks on a campaign of £30 a month. For anything, not just 'chat', it is simply not enough to yield a conversion of any description.

Kipper, with that philosophy i'm glad I turned down your offer to advise me for £200 a day.

If i'm testing the water with a £1 a day across the board and it appears that between 60% - 75% clickthroughs from Google are crawlers, then why am I slated and inferred as cheap for only limiting the budget and not just wasting it.

I know this part of the forum is about 'small business help', but Kipper, does every solution you offer cost? (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=382671)


EDIT REASON:
Indizine had replied, so I specified that this was a reply to Kipper, not Indizine!

Indizine, since i've written the CMS and will soon be releasing it, yes I did require to develop the administrative side to that level, my security features are even more banal.

so you have not been spending £30 a month with any expectations as such then, but to test only?

Obviously theres some expectations, but yes i'm studying the market... And at a point my budget will increase, where it is most effective and least wasted.

I'm starting to feel a bit dim! Is this course really going to be for beginners? Because I'm already getting lost.
One thing I'd really like to know is exactly what back links are. I know that you're supposed to have as many as possible, but I'm unclear as to what they actually are, and how to go about it. Can anyone explain this to me, and preferably without all the jargon already being bandied about on this subject?
I don't think people who understand all this stuff actually realise what a beginner is!! Or how to explain things in easy, clear language.
And if £30 per month isn't going to do anything, I think you're going to have to count me out anyway.

This thread isnt about my Google Adwords course Josie, its about Crookes' own experience with Adwods.

Backlinks are nothing to do with Google Adwords they are to do with organic search engine optimisation and that is another topic entirely! I dont want to go off topic here about SEO so I wont do. But I have PMd you about the course anyway and I will send you a link so you can read up on SEO and link building.

Hi Josie G, Im sorry if my post in this article started by thecrookes has put you off attending the FREE Adwords course as per the seperate thread. You should go and see what Adwords is all about and soon all that has confused you as being complex will be revealed as simple and logical.

If you have a website and want to get noticed fast once it is released onto the internet, then there is no better way of advertising your site to your customers.

About the price of running the Adwords, once you have your campaign underway with all the niggles ironed out £30 a month could be enough to keep you going. What I say is there is a 10% chance of clicking your link on the google page and a 10% chance of placing an order.

The testing phase does cost more in the short term, but should all be ironed out in no more than two weeks. Once you meet up with everyone you can bounce ideas and questions off the group probably saving you hundreds if not thousands of pounds in the future.

By kippers reckoning, if you only spend £30 a month, then you can expect only 1 and a half orders per month. (Thats 1% at 20p per click) (depending upon your product, and in my experience it can be a lot lot less, as thecrookes mentions try yahoo (even though it is a google partner(?)))

Have a quick read of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlink) for backlinks.

Best way to do this is to join lot's of forums and always have your site as a signature, also look for recommendation sites, oh and do blogs.