My first AdWord campaign

[Guest]

Hi Nate,

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I was on vacation for 10 days, then had to ship 2 kids off to kindergarten and first grade, after which they promptly became sick with a stomach bug and I've spent most of my last few days doing laundry! So send those boys in the white coats up here because I could use some time alone in a padded room.

Here's the answers you wanted:

1. Yes, you can do AdWords without doing AdSense. From an advertiser point of view--just uncheck the "content" option in each of your campaign settings. If you don't, then your Adword ads will show across AdSense as well as Google searches.

2. I can't even tell you how many keywords I came up with. One campaign probably had close to 1000, another less than 20. It really depended on the product and how many competing ads there were (which I determined by using AdWord Analyzer software, see links above). I didn't let Google's estimates sway me. I was more concerned with making sure the keywords weren't general.

For example, say you're selling footballs. I wouldn't put the keyword "NFL" in your campaign, because 99.9% of the people searching on that keyword don't want to buy a football! But if you used "genuine NFL football" you'd be in much better shape. See what I mean?

I haven't used Overture yet, for financial reasons. As well as time restrictions. At this point I don't even have the time to continue working on my website, which is why I'm trying to make the AdWord thing bring in a little income (once it's up, you kind of just monitor it).

I would check out Jeremy Wilson's site at www.googuide.com and email him with any questions you may have. He was super helpful to me.

That's all for now...have a GREAT day, Nate. You're doing fine because you're asking good questions and you're asking for help in the first place--all of us newbies should be grateful for forums like this to give us the ability to learn from each other!

God bless,
Cate

[ChristyK]

[Lynn Terry]

[flensborg]

[kdwells]

[Lynn Terry]

[guest]

[ChristyK]

(The way around this is to clear your cookies )

Thanks, Lynn. This is what I will do.

Before you decide on whether you should include AWA in your purchase or not I recommend you take a look at the following review

Definitely will. I always do my due diligence.

If 'all' you are after are AdWords campaigns for your candle business

No, this is for a totally separate stream of income, I hope. Something I can work on in the evenings.


Thanks for the welcome. Eventually, I'll get around to introducing myself.

Christy

[Cate]

Hi Christy, and the rest of the gang!

Christy, I haven't had any additional expenses over and above AdWord Analyzer and GoogleCash.

Once I pared out some general keywords, my CTR's combined have been well over 2-3% on some days. Some campaigns are less than 1%, others are near 3-5%. For most campaigns I opt out of AdSense.

My profits so far are not hefty - around $50 a month. I've been running 3 basic campaigns for 2 months, adding 1-2 per month after testing a few for no more than 5 days.

I see big potential...but I believe you have to keep re-reading Google Cash to get in the groove. Also, it seems to me that you have to get your feet wet at the 5 cents per word for a bit, then jump into the more expensive keywords once you know how to analyze your figures and breka-even points. The biggest payouts are, of course, in the most competitive keywords.

HOWEVER...Christmas season is coming up. I'm currently researching some things I think will be big sellers. You never know!

To answer your other question, I'm just using AdWords for affiliate sales (watch out for those popups). Soon, I'll try it to drive traffic to my website.

Thanks, everyone, for recommending my affiliate link. I really appreciate it! And by the way, Christy, I emailed Chris Carpenter (author of Google Cash) with some questions after I bought the product, and he was SUPER helpful. I also emailed Jeremy of ww.googuide.com and got some good information from him as well.

Parting thoughts: Definitely read Henrik's review of AWA but realize a great benefit is the number of Google campaigns per keyword that come up; utilize AdWord's keyword suggestion tool to refine your campaign; use brackets "[ ]" around certain keywords to make sure you don't get impressions you don't want; TRACK, TRACK, TRACK (I do it in Excel) and TEST, TEST, TEST; set a budget per campaign that won't break your bank; and don't get discouraged. Try setting up 1-2 new campaigns a week. That's 8 a month. I find about 1 out of every 3-4 I try is profitable.

GOOD LUCK! Please keep us posted!


Cate

[flensborg]

[giftsolution]

[Cate]

Hi Adriana,

Yes, I use links that go directly to the affiliate sites. One time I did use a landing page on my SBI site, and coded some HTML to redirect with a value of "0". But, there was still enough of a pause that I thought it looked funky - so went back to using direct links.

You have to be careful, because Google will suspend your ad if the landing page has popups. Also, you depend on your merchant's site to convert, so make sure the landing page does the job.

For your campaign, are you using keywords related to gift baskets? Google has a keyword suggestion tool you can use as you add keywords to your campaign...did you try that? I assume you're using the brainstormer that came with SBI. If not, give that a whirl, too. I would consider running a campaign for every type of gift basket you sell. Or, create one for a basket type, test, then add another a week or two later.

I'm sure the brilliant folks here can add even better advice (Henrik, Lynn, Gordon, Mike....hint hint)

Good luck!


Cate

[flensborg]

[Cate]

[Rob]

Hi,

If you keep this discussion going by the end of the year we can publish it as a book .

Thanks to all for the contribution and it has proved very helpfull for me. One thing I wanted to ask was at what stage do you give up a campaign should there be no results, is it after a certain budget is spent and no results or perhaps after a certain number of refers.

I understand that a certain trust has to exist between affiliate and retailer but has anyone ever asked the retailer to send the Logs containing the IP addresses of those referred.!!!!

Regards
Rob