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Home » Marketing Articles » Do Adwords And Other Ppc Ads Really Work

Do AdWords and Other PPC Ads Really Work?

Many discouraged online advertisers will tell you to stay away from AdWords or any other Pay-Per-Click programs.

They'll tell you that the ads don't generate sales and you'll waste a lot of money even trying to make things work. They know from their own experience that the whole idea of PPC advertising is a complete waste of time and money.

Usually, newcomers to PPC make a common mistake - they create an ad, then display that ad for hundreds, or maybe even thousands of different keywords. Then, to further insure failure, all keywords lead to the exact same landing page.

Here's a hypothetical example - Joe has a website that's all about the hobby of radio controlled model airplanes. On his website, he offers airplane kits, building supplies, radio transmitters and receivers, servo actuators, engines of all sizes, tires and wheels - just about everything that's related to model airplanes.

Joe decides to use PPC advertising to boost his sales, so he compiles a gigantic list of keywords. His list has several hundred keywords, all generally relating to radio controlled model airplanes. He works for hours creating what he thinks is the best ad he's ever seen. He's really proud of his new ad and surely, with his hundreds of keywords, he expects to see a big jump in sales.

Joe goes to his AdWords account and enables his new ad. Confident that he's done his best, he goes to lunch. While at lunch, he's contemplating all those new sales being made. He can hardly wait to get back to his PC and check the action.

Back at the office, Joe logs in to his AdWords account and his jaw hits the floor when he sees he has had no clicks! His ad has been displayed hundreds of times, but still no clicks. Then he notices that Google has disabled some of his keywords, telling him he has to increase his bid price to use those keywords. Joe raises his bid and his keywords are back in business.

A couple of hours later, he checks his account again and this time he does see that he's had some clicks. He's had 87 clicks so now he's confident everything is working. Joe checks his payment processor account to see how much money he's made - there are no new sales. Joe lets things run for a couple of days, but the results are the same. He's getting lots of clicks, but no sales.

By this time, Joe has spent over $800 on clicks and so far, only Google is making any money. Disgusted with the lack of sales, Joe cancels his AdWords account because "PPC ads don't work".

Joe made several crucial errors. First of all, you don't want to use a single ad for hundreds of keywords. Some of Joe's keywords were related to radio equipment, while others were related to construction kits and engines. All those keywords would trigger the exact same ad to be shown. If someone searches for a specific item, they're not likely to click on a generic, one-size-fits-all ad that's just about model airplanes in general.

His next mistake was to raise his bid price to get more displays of his ads. Sure, more displays did mean that he started getting clicks, but those clicks didn't do anything except cost him money. Those visitors may have originally searched for model airplane engines, but Joe's ad took them to the home page of his site - not to a page related to engines. Most people won't waste time navigating around your website, trying to find the item that matches up to what they're actually searching for. They've already searched on Google, then they clicked on your ad, now you're telling them that they have to search even further to find what they're looking for. That's it, they're gone in a flash.

To do things right, you should have your ad directly related to the keywords you're using. If your keywords are about model airplane engines, your ad should also be specifically about model airplane engines. And when someone clicks on your ad, you should send them directly to the page on your website that's about model airplane engines. Going this route will get you more clicks and more of those clicks will become sales.

Ideally, each keyword should have its own specific version of your ad and that ad should lead directly to the page on your website that's about that specific topic. Of course, this may not be practical, especially if you have hundreds or even thousands of keywords. But at the very least, you should group similar keywords together and connect them to an ad that's related to the group.

For example, if you have 164 keywords related to engines, you could write an ad specifically about engines and then connect that ad to the engines part of your website. Make it easy for the prospect to find exactly what they're looking for and you'll be rewarded with more sales.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

How To Avoid Work-at-Home Scams and What To Do When You're A Victim

As more and more people opt-out of conventional jobs and instead choose to work from their homes, the number of work-at-home scams has also increased. Each year thousands of people find out the hard way that opportunities which are too good to be true usually are but not before they invest and waste millions of dollars a year.

You don't have to be one of those unfortunate people. All you need to do is to become more informed, ask the appropriate questions, and know what to do if you are the victim of illegitimate opportunity.

Become More Informed

One of the first things you should become aware of are the types of business opportunities which are most frequently scams.

One of the oldest of these scams are stuffing envelopes and/or assembling items in your home. You'll find these opportunities in lots of sources, even some that are legitimate. However, what most of these ads fail to say is that you have to pay them a fee to begin. Then after you complete your job, your work is often rejected as substandard and, of course, you never see a penny. The other thing that happens is that you have to send in money only to receive instructions on how to place an ad just like the one that you've just placed in order to bring individuals just like yourself.

Another common work-at-home scams are Pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are often passed off as MLM (multi-level marketing) opportunities, but there is a key difference. Pyramid schemes are more concerned with having you bring in more people and less concerned with selling products. The reason is that they aren't making their money off of selling anything to actual customers but from taking money from hopeful entrepreneurs like you. Most of these schemes ask you to make an investment or a purchase in order to become a full-fledged participant and/or to receive all of your potential profits. Generally, you never see any of the earnings promised in their advertisements.

If an opportunity you've found seems to fall into one of these categories, you should start asking questions before signing up for anything.

Ask the Appropriate Questions

Even though these work-at-home opportunities often state that you have to act now or join by a certain time to secure your spot, you must take the time to ask questions. Then, don't join unless your questions are answered to your satisfaction.

Here are some of those questions:

1. Ask exactly what type of work you will be expected to perform.
2. Ask how you will be paid. If you are going to be paid by commission, be sure to ask exactly what your percentage will be.
3. Ask exactly how much money you need to spend, including fees, supplies, inventory, etc.
4. Ask how long the company has been in business since non-legitimate companies frequently change their name to go out of business.
5. Ask to get copies of the company's sales materials and product descriptions, so you can determine how product-focused the company is.

Know What to Do If You Are a Victim

If you are the victim of one of these scams, then you need to know what to do next.

Your first course of action should be to notify the company. Talk to someone as high up in the business as possible and be sure to make them aware that your plan to contact the appropriate authorities.

If you don't receive any satisfaction from the company, your next step is to report the company to the authorities. You should file a complaint with at least one, if not all, of the organizations below:

1. The Federal Trade Commission â€" You can file a report through their web site at www.ftc.gov
2. The Better Business Bureau â€" You can contact them through their web site at www.bbb.org.
3. The Attorney General of Your State â€" You can find out how to contact the attorney general in your area by doing a search for "Your State attorney general" at Google.com. The right page should be the first or second that appears in the search results.

The bottom line is if a business opportunity seems to good to be true, then it's worth checking out. Any business that tries to pressure you into making a hasty decision isn't a business you should be working with.

© 2004 Vishal P. Rao