Make sure that you are showing on the front page of Google with a starting bid of 0.10. A lot of times you will hear AMers say that they inflate their bids at first. This so that they show up on the front page. With 0.10 you might end up on page 3 and get no impressions at all. But I can't say if 0.10 is enough to show up for your keyword, you will have to determine that.

I think you hit the nail on the head in your previous posts about how you need a big budget to get sufficient data. But CPC is also a factor.

Thanks

Just one comment - I am hoping my high cost keyword with a low CPC combined with the ad quality will bring forth the long tail words.

Zale

YUCH!!!

I am so so so dumb!

I keep reading TEST TEST TEST.

I think I understand TEST TEST TEST.

I think I know about A/B testing.

Do you think I do it?

NO! NO! NO! NO!

The reason I am not making money is simple. I am doing everything and nothing at the same time.

Because I am running so many ads with so many keywords - I have no significant data to work with. All I know is what generates impressions.

Ok - what a waste of time and money.

Now - I have restructured everything.

I am only running a small number of keywords - 25.

I am only running 3 ads. Similar - only varying one thing.

Guess what - I will quickly be able to select the best ad and move onto the next ad.

I went back and applied all my new techniques to all the data I have collected. Nothing is significant except the number of impressions.

I can now adjust keywords as well - following my pricing approach. That works.

DUMB DUMB DUMB.

Why did I make this mistake - which is huge?

Hoping for something to work immediately.

That can't happen - because I just don't have enough experience to get it right the first time. Once I have several successful projects - I will probably get it right sooner rather than later.

I HATE THAT I AM SO SO DUMB.

Zale

Impressions mean nothing except for CTR and quality score calculation. Outside of this, only your clicks matter and those are the ones you need to convert.

This thread has been a pleasure to read. Thanks for taking the time to report your experiences.

I just got started with this a few days ago, and there is so much to learn it feels downright overwhelming.

I have been frustrated with so many things from trying to get set up with Google AdWords (and never seeing any impressions whatsoever), getting set up with MarketLeverage.com, building my landing pages, and discovering and installing Prosper202. All in all it has been a fun challenge.

I am going to bookmark this thread and try to learn from your experience. Thanks again.

You are welcome.

Latest Update:

Here is what I am doing:

In Google - there is a cool reporting mechanism.

It allows you to create a report of what ever you want.

I have created an Excel Spreadsheet that uses the data.

I download a resport of All Time. With the following fields:

Keyword, Description1, Description2, DisplayUrl. Avg Pos, Avg CPC, Impressions, and Clicks.

Using the Excel Cross Tab function, I have created a number of reports.

These reports let me do the A/B testing and tell me how well they do.

Some of the reports I have:

Description text sorted by Average CTR (You need to use the calculate function to get the real Average CTR

Since I have two or three ads for every keyword - this tells me how they are doing relative to each other. I get rid of the low one and test another one.

Steven mentioned that impressions are not important.

I have one comment on it.

Impressions without clicks mean that you have had opportunities that did not work.

I have a special report where I list the top 10 keyword with the absolute worst response. This means a high Impressions to low keyword ratio.

The calculation is Total Impressions/(total Clicks+.9)

(I add the .9 so as not to get a divide by 0)

This chart tells me the keywords where I am totally blowing the opportunity. I then create special ads for these keywords.

As I improve the click factor for the keywords - the particular keywords changes.

As you can imagine my Excel chart is getting really complicated. My process is time consuming.

My average CTR is going up.

By the way - I keep finding keywords and phrases in T202 that are helping as well.

Thanks, Zale:

Have you ever heard of KeywordSpy.com? It is a pay-for-membership site that offers some really awesome tools for researching and tracking keywords.

(That really reads like spam, but it is not.)

This tool helped me realize that I was targeting the wrong keywords. I don't have the budget right now to compete for some of the most in-demand keywords. So this tool helped me identify other keywords that weren't as competitive yet yeilded a decent ROI. Also, the tool is cool because you can "spy" on which keywords your competitors are using.

The downside....it's kind of expensive (but that's all relative...might not be expensive to you). It costs me $140/month for both modules (research and tracking). It's only $89/month for just one of the modules. I went with both.

Hi Brady,

I don't think I am having a problem with keywords.

I have lots and am maxing out my daily budget.

Here are a couple of ways I find keywords - beyond the obvious of looking at the webpage.

I am finding that most of my clicks are coming from keyword phrases of three or more words. These are cheap cheap cheap.

My best keyword is clicking at 6.7% at .23 with an average position of 3.1. The next best is at 3.85% at .47 with a position of 4.1. (Yes I have dropped my max CPC price).

The number 3 position is at 3.55% at .35.

About finding keywords.

1) I look at the index of a book that is all about my promotion. If it was woman's health product - then a book on woman's health will give you the key words.

2) Scanning the chapters will help

3) I look at the keywords form T202 that are actually generating clicks. I look at the combinations in there and create phrases from there. Also I add the word "I", "My", "of", etc. to my existing keywords. This generates phrases that T202 picks up - and then gives you are other verbs to connect with the nouns.

4) There is something called SEOBAR plugin for Firefox - it has a number of different things on it. One of them is SEMRUSH - has some free keyword analysis tools that look at the page and competition. These can be used for some ideas.

5) THE ABSOLUTE BEST PLACE to find keywords is by doing basic marketing. Understanding your customer and what information they want to know.

6) I use two words together "women cancer" for example to generate some phrases.

I can't stress the importance of looking at yesterday's t202 keyword results to find keyword phrases.

Now - this is all based on what I know today. I know my CTR is going up - I know my CPC is going down. But I still haven't made any sales. So this is all theoretical. But - the word on the street is that - high CTR's will generate sales. Once that happens - I will then need to figure out how to adjust my keywords/pricing/ads even more.

I don't know what a CTR rate is that generates sales - But my guess is that will be around 5% or more.

Time will tell.

Zale

---

Updated experience.

I wrote that I was taking the keywords that had high impressions and low clicks and made special ads for them.

What a great idea. One of the special ads had a CTR of over 3.5% - which for me was amazing. That ad text has now become one of my testing ads. I Dropped one of the ones that were low performing.

The cross reference table in Excel is an amazing way to analyze the data.

Zale

Zale...certainly an individual dedicated to the craft of ppc/cpa marketing :)

Anyone use searchfeed?

I've heard it still has 1 cents minimum bid and convert well.

Am I the only one that notice. Downloading excel doesn't work anymore.

Hello, is it just me or everyone?

Zale,

I hate to say this but instead of writing essays on your trials and errors, you're not spending enough time with with your campaign. Folks spend way too much time trying to find the silver bullet instead of DOING. You need to spend lots of money for data- you have to pay for data, otherwise, how would you know what keywords are working?

I don't want to come off abrasive but hear me out. Let's say you have an offer that pays out $20. And, let's say each click you get at Google is worth 1 cent. Your job is now to get one conversion in 2000 clicks. If you go beyond that, you are going to be in the red; however, when testing you should go double that - now 4000 to be sure the keyword is really dead.

Further, let's say you want to test 200 keywords - not a lot. You will HAVE to burn 200x$20 = $4000 for data. That's right. Hopefully, some of the 200 keywords will convert and you don't need to let them run fully to 2000 clicks. The figure $4000 is a worst case scenario bu t I hope you understand the concept.

So, my friend, $10 a day and you're spinning wheels. You may need to spend $500-800 per day for data and hopefully, 80-90% of that money comes back with converting keywords.

You mentioned "high CTR will generate sales." Not necessarily. If you stock trout in your stream but folks are fishing for salmon, there are going to be some hungry folks standing around. Your keywords have to be very targeted - start wide, then get narrow.