AdWords suggestions?

[PeterPanarchy]

Hi, all. First off, thanks in advance for any serious replies here. I've been scouring the forums for a couple of days here; good stuff. MANY apologies if this has been directly answered before.


Basically, I've recently begun advertising on AdWords. I'm trying to find the magic balance between relevant clickthrough and traffic (like everyone else).


The problem seems to be, if I stay away from the expensive terms (the $12 "phentermine" keywords), I can't seem to get served up at all. Here's a sample of where I've started:


Max CPC: $5.00


Max Budget: $100.00


I've got a few ads running under one campaign. I've tried lots of things, mainly flip-flopping between going for phrases like "buy discount phentermine" to "cheap rx" -- for $5.00, I can't touch the popular terms, but for the others, I get plenty of clicks, but have made only one sale for a $100.00 .


I'm all for tweaking the campaigns looking for the best results, but it seems that as soon as I removed the term "cheap medicine" and "cheap rx" (neither of which were exact-match), my clicks went to 0...


Sooo... In closing this novel of a post, is it generally better to just wait for my ad to be served once in a blue moon with a great phrase, or take the chance on broader terms? Is mistypes the best way to go for a guy with a lower budget like mine? I certainly don't expect to dominate the advertising world for a hundred bucks a day, but an occasional visit would make me the happiest kid on earth.


Sorry this is so long winded. It's early, and I'm still working on my coffee smileys/smiley2.gif


-PeterPanarchy

[phalaris]

>>>is it generally better to just wait for my ad to be served once in a blue moon with a great phrase, or take the chance on broader terms?


Broader terms don't convert as well as specific terms do but cost of specific phrases like "order Phentermine" is most likely to be higher than "Phentermine".


>>>Is mistypes the best way to go for a guy with a lower budget like mine?


Typos also don't convert well, although once in a blue moon you can hit jackpot and find some typos that converts well and hasvery low bids. Also when you are just starting with a new PPC ad your conversion ratio will be dismal for first few days because most of the clicks that you get are not from actual buyers but are from your competitors who are checking out what kind of site you have and your prices etc.


$100 will not take you far if you are bidding for OP related keywords. If you don't have big budget to start with, then concentrate on organic SEO instead.

[DaveM]

I'm don't know who's program you are promoting so I can only generalize the advice I'm going to give you.


Take a look at who is dominating the top, say 10 spots for the phrase "buy phentermine online". What is the price that they are selling for? Chances are that it is probably close to your cost! So, if you are bidding on that phrase for, say $5.00 and your profit if you make a sale is $18.00 that leaves you with $13.00. Now, chances are you are not going to make 1 sale for every click. More like 1 out of 10. So now you are in the hole.


The point is, find the meds that you have a strong profit margin in. Chances are that they are not the "glamour" meds like Phentermine or Viagra. Those are the meds to target. You will find that your CPC (cost per click) will be more reasonable and your ROI (return on investment) will be much better.


Make money WHERE YOU CAN, not where everyone else is trying to. Find your niche and promote the sh*t out of it.

[PeterPanarchy]

Hey, thanks for the reply!


By organic SEO, you mean getting on top of the search results the "free" way? I love the idea, but it seems so competetive, could be months away, eh?


Interesting point about competitors checking it out. Hadn't even considered that.


Have you guys noticed a major difference in conversion when going to either XML or at least an "in-frame" shopping cart? Seems that if I were a customer, I'd get scared the minute my ordering process took me to a different site. Then again, maybe the average person doesn't notice?


I have one of my sites in a frame, the other simply goes to the aggregators shopping cart. Hard to spot a difference as of yet..


Thanks again for the quick reply. :)

[redex]

If you are bidding cheap rx or discount phentermine, make sure your price is the lowest around. If a potential customer clicks you then clicks someone else and finds you are lower, they go back and click you ,. now the sale cost you $10.





I stay away from the popular meds and go with off the wall stuff that people buy too. Less competition, more profit per sale, better conversions on the click through.

[PeterPanarchy]

I've heard others mention the "niche" drugs as well. Seems like every drug that I sell (probably 50 or so?) that each term and its misspell variations are thoroughly dominated on the PPCs. But, your point about profit margin is well taken. I sold a bottle of Phentermine yesterday for a whopping 9.00 profit. Think I'm not going to make that mistake again :)


Thanks for your reply too, Dave.

[PeterPanarchy]

Thanks, RedEx. Can you give me an example of this? Not necessarily in the OP line, but if I were selling shoes, rather than "buy nikes", you are suggesting..:


"buy redwing velcro shoes" -- that kind of thing?


or "where can i buy nike shoes online"


Seems like none of the drugs I offer are completely niche or off-the-wall, otherwise they wouldn't be offered, right?


In response to your post, are you saying that if a customer clicks me, checks my prices, then comes back to me later, I'd get charged two clicks? I thought AdWords had safeguards against dbl charging from the same person?

[overdose]

Interesting point about competitors checking it out. Hadn't even considered that.


that's how SEs makechunks of their $$.

[PeterPanarchy]

That's too bad. It'd be swell if they checked the IP against an AdWord customer database and discounted the click on the fact that the IP had a running competetive campaign with your ad. Siiiigh. Yep. It'd be nice smileys/smiley14.gif

[phalaris]

>>>By organic SEO, you mean getting on top of the search results the "free" way? I love the idea, but it seems so competetive, could be months away, eh?


Now a days google's index for competitive search terms is updated almost every 3-4 days against the one month that it used to take till March last year. Every change that you make in your site or every incoming link that you add shows an effect in less than a week. It no longer takes months as it used to take till march last year... but the search engines make money from PPC becauseit provides instant gratification in terms of traffic.

[RxAmatuer]

Try looking into Looksmart too.

[phalaris]

I strongly suggest that you stay away from looksmart too. I just completed the online support form on looksmart.com asking them to refund $400+ that I have in my account and close that account. In last29 days they generated 4 sales worth $170 at a cost of $200+. I used to have a ROI of around 30% from looksmart when it was on MSN but only traffic it sends now is junk/fraud traffic.