What's a good ROI in adwords?

[rentdvds]

What should I shoot for as an ROI in adwords? Mine is currently pretty dismal, 239 clicks and 9 conversions, which is like .04. But I guess it's really less since of those 9, only 3 have taken the next step and gotten into my downline. I confused ROI and CTR (and I thought I was doing so well)
jm2c

[stephfoster]

ROI is return on investment, it sounds to me like you are looking at conversion rate, which is something else.

What you need from AdWords is a ROI in which you are earning money, not losing it. If you are building a downline from it, it may be harder to determine when you are making money from what you have spent. After all, not everyone in a downline will earn you more money, depending on what your program is.

If you're not paying much per click but earning money from those who joined, you may well be earning money now. Or you could be losing it, it's hard to tell from your post. If you were paying the minimum of $0.05 per click, then you've paid out about $12 by my calculations... more, of course if your cost per click is higher. Has your downline earned you more money than you've spent in recruiting them? Then your ROI is fine. Otherwise, yes, it needs more work.

[rentdvds]

Thanks for the post, that is exactly what I'm talking about. I thouht I was doing really well because my CTR was like 4-7% but once I sat down and figured out that of the people that clicked my ad, 9 registered and 3 off those enrolled. Don't get me wrong, I grateful for the 3 people I have but at that rate the cost is way too high to use it as a downline building tool. So, off to the next stategy

[Dean Phillips]

Because of rampant click fraud, I'm not a big proponent of PPC. However, a good ROI is one that makes you more money than you're putting out-- although there are a ton of variables to go along with that. Generally speaking, however, as long as you're making even a dollar profit, keep reinvesting your profits back into your advertising.

[gary_the_ace]

Dean,

I've often wondered, why do so many think that click-fraud is rampant?
I've yet to see a published study, from an independant source with any
amount of credibility, that states such a thing.

Let me clarify that a bit ... I've never seen it for the big PPC's. Google,
Overture, and Kanoodle .... the small guys are in trouble, but the bigger
services seem to have it under control from everything I've seen.

I can understand the motivation for click-fraud in cases where keywords
go for $1.00 or more per click, but at a nickel a click, I doubt those are
areas where fraud would run rampant ...

Am I wrong here?

And to "rentdvds" ( that's an odd name, why did your parents do that to
you? )

You said you got 239 clicks and 9 conversions ... have you considered
that your ad might be good, but your landing page isn't? Why not spend
a little time on your landing page to see if you can bring your conversion
rates up to acceptable levels before giving up on PPC?

If you give it a few tries with no luck still, then maybe the problem is that
your ad doesn't accurately target the market you're after. I could easily
generate 15% CTR on ads, but that's not going to help me if I'm brining
the wrong people to my website in the first place.

Really think about what you're selling ... beyond the obvious.

If you're selling a DVD opportunity, you're not really selling DVD's, you
are selling financial freedom, an automated system, or something along
those lines ...

Or, if you're doing this ... think about NOT sending people directly to your
conversion page, but to a page that gives a review of the service you're
trying to get people to sign-up for. Tell people who you are, what you like
about the product or service, and then recommend they check it out from
there. At that point you will probably get more people to read your landing
page, and if they take the next step to your opportunity page, they might
already be pre-sold on the concept based on your review.

[Dean Phillips]

[Dean Phillips]