August 13th, 2009 by Carolyn Thompson
Are you getting what you are paying for on Google Adwords?
I created several new campaigns for a client a couple weeks ago. I check my conversion rates constantly. I am finding that Google is charging the account when the click has a 100% bounce rate and ZERO time on the site.
Google Response: A visitor may land on a page, but unless they select to go off the landing page to a second page, it may record the time on the site as ZERO.
Hmmm. This does not make a lot of sense to me as it appears as though some visitors go to my client’s site and land on the page where I want them. The time on the site is recorded regardless of whether or not the visitor goes to another page.
I am going to set up a new webpage and not include it in the sitemap or robot. I will place analytics on the page; click on the page and check to see the results. I will test this numerous ways. I will go through various search engines and I will type the url directly into the browser. Each time I will record my actions.
I will post the results here in about a week.
————-In Google’s defense, I did contact their Adwords dept and received a response stating that if I think that I received the clicks in error, I can request an investigation. How many people are doing this? It seems as though this is where other search engines are finding their edge. They know that Google’s conversion rate is garbage. That people are still paying for garbage clicks.
I wrote a business plan for a search engine company and have determined at the time of writing the plan that Google knew that their conversions were garbage and were trying to make some changes, but it is clear that they have not gone far enough. Thanks to Yahoo Analytics, we can keep an eye on our Google conversions.
Posted in Adwords | No Comments
November 5th, 2008 by Carolyn Thompson
I recently had a client that went out of town for three weeks. I asked him if there was anything that he would like me to do while he was out of town.
He asked me to manage his adwords campaign.
I find that more frequently my clients are hovering over their adwords campaigns. They are constantly tinkering with it. After reviewing this particular campaign I could see why. My client’s average click through rate was running about .11% .
He was confident that I could do a better job while he was out of town. Wouldn’t that be nice, just go on vacation and come back to more business. After a bit of tinkering, I have been able to get his click through rate to .89% as of this am.
Is this a fluke? I don’t know because I don’t have the stats to back it up, but I see that the campaigns that he designed are not performing well.
I am playing on the consumer confidence and accelerating all campaigns. I am using a lot more of his advertising budget over the next week.
How do these ad campaigns convert to return on investment. Since there is so little work that we can do to his current site, which is quite complicated, there is no way of telling. What- that is correct.
I recommend that you have a separate landing page for each of your ad campaigns. For this particular client, it is at least a year off from becoming a reality. I have Google Analytics, so this can also show me some of the activity on the site, but because the site is not tied in to Google Shopping Cart or a program that tracks it well, there is no way of telling what is going on.
I simply have to ask how sales are.
I have additional ad tracking on the site, which tells me that my Organic marketing efforts are working well, but there is still a disconnect.
This is common for any company that does not do E-commerce that is easily traceable. Traceable through the IP Address. Correspond with the new lead and see track their IP.
This is not easy for my clients who are not tech savvy. If you have a solution, please feel free to contribute.
Posted in Adwords | No Comments
