RyanCole
08-09-2006, 04:52 PM
I apologize in advance for starting a thread like this as my first post, but I've run out of resources. Allow me to explain:
I started an AdWords account for a moving company about a month ago. The opportunity sort of fell in my lap, so even though I knew nothing about SEM, I agreed to do it, but I also said I wasn't going to start until I had a good handle on how the system works. For over a month, I spent countless hours reading blogs, e-books, articles, and pretty much anything I could find about AdWords. I went through Google's learning center lessons, bought some courses on AdWords specifically and other things like keyword research and marketing in general.
Once I had the basic idea and felt I could get it up and running, I started the account. I had some very thoroughly researched keywords (I signed up for WordTracker to do that) that I was going to target locally. The keyword market in this industry is pretty competitive, and most of the keywords either generate zero impressions or are too expensive to be worth getting on the front page.
I have two campaigns: one locally targeted with all my keywords broken up into different ad groups with specific ad text including each keyword (using all matching options for each keyword), and one nationally targeted with each of those keywords combined with the names of every city in our target area. I've loaded up on negative keywords (things like "moving pictures," "moving animations," "movers and shakers," etc., but not excluding the relevant keyword in the phrase; just excluding "shakers," for example).
The problem is, I'm not getting any impressions or clicks. I get maybe 300 impressions on a good day, from both campaigns combined, and I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 clicks out of it. I have some keywords that I average around the 4th position on, and there are so many of them that they add up to a decent number of impressions even if I only get 1-2 impressions per day for each word. But still, lucky to get even a 0.5% CTR on these.
My ad text isn't bad, and I'm testing out different ads for each group (rotating evenly), using techniques like dynamic keyword insertion in titles (though using it carefully so as to avoid goofy-sounding titles) and including keywords in the ad text.
So, that's problem number one: I'm not getting enough impressions or clicks, not even enough to determine an average conversion rate for this guy's site.
Problem number two: My ads aren't showing up for some of the exact keywords I'm bidding on. For example, I bid on the term "furniture movers south florida," using broad matching. If I type in that exact phrase, my ad doesn't show up 90% of the time. It varies from day to day, but most days there are usually a bunch of keywords that are simply not triggering ads.
Also, with the keyword I just mentioned, sometimes it instead triggers my ad for the general term "movers," which has a much higher max CPC and still doesn't rank as highly in the SERPs. That's going on with a lot of the keywords as well. I have some good words with a decent KEI, but they generate zero impressions most of the time. Google Ad Diagnostics tells me that my keywords aren't performing well enough to appear in the results, but many of them have never had a single impression, so how can they be performing poorly? (I understand that keywords with zero impressions would normally be seen as not relevant, but the thing is, I can type in those exact phrases on Google and not show up. How long does a keyword need to go without receiving any impressions before Google decides they're performing poorly?)
Finally (this is almost over, I promise), I have information from another guy who's running an AdWords campaign for another moving company in the same city. He's bidding on a lot (if not all) of the same words as I am, but he claims to be spending only $800 per month and getting 600-700 clicks for that. (Never mind the conversion rate, which I'm sure he's lying about because he says it's 50%. But I saw his account screen for myself and know that his figures are correct for click cost. I'm not worried about conversion rate because I'm not being paid to redesign this guy's web site.) Now, the only keywords that have ever gotten ANY clicks for me have been the high-priced general terms like "movers" and "moving companies," which are usually at least $4.00 per click to get on the first page of results. There is no way he can be paying that much for 600-700 clicks per month, so my only question is: HOW?
There's got to be some key concept (or several) that I'm not grasping. Is it something concerning the keywords themselves? Is it my ad text? (Or is his CTR just as abysmal as mine, and he makes up for it with many more impressions?) Should I get rid of the general terms and focus only on specially targeted phrases containing those words? Will that even matter if everyone else is broad-matching those same general terms (and they are, I checked)?
I'm at the end of my rope here. Anyone who can point me in the right direction would have my eternal gratitude, and I'd even be willing to pay for a consultation with someone who can help me.
I started an AdWords account for a moving company about a month ago. The opportunity sort of fell in my lap, so even though I knew nothing about SEM, I agreed to do it, but I also said I wasn't going to start until I had a good handle on how the system works. For over a month, I spent countless hours reading blogs, e-books, articles, and pretty much anything I could find about AdWords. I went through Google's learning center lessons, bought some courses on AdWords specifically and other things like keyword research and marketing in general.
Once I had the basic idea and felt I could get it up and running, I started the account. I had some very thoroughly researched keywords (I signed up for WordTracker to do that) that I was going to target locally. The keyword market in this industry is pretty competitive, and most of the keywords either generate zero impressions or are too expensive to be worth getting on the front page.
I have two campaigns: one locally targeted with all my keywords broken up into different ad groups with specific ad text including each keyword (using all matching options for each keyword), and one nationally targeted with each of those keywords combined with the names of every city in our target area. I've loaded up on negative keywords (things like "moving pictures," "moving animations," "movers and shakers," etc., but not excluding the relevant keyword in the phrase; just excluding "shakers," for example).
The problem is, I'm not getting any impressions or clicks. I get maybe 300 impressions on a good day, from both campaigns combined, and I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 clicks out of it. I have some keywords that I average around the 4th position on, and there are so many of them that they add up to a decent number of impressions even if I only get 1-2 impressions per day for each word. But still, lucky to get even a 0.5% CTR on these.
My ad text isn't bad, and I'm testing out different ads for each group (rotating evenly), using techniques like dynamic keyword insertion in titles (though using it carefully so as to avoid goofy-sounding titles) and including keywords in the ad text.
So, that's problem number one: I'm not getting enough impressions or clicks, not even enough to determine an average conversion rate for this guy's site.
Problem number two: My ads aren't showing up for some of the exact keywords I'm bidding on. For example, I bid on the term "furniture movers south florida," using broad matching. If I type in that exact phrase, my ad doesn't show up 90% of the time. It varies from day to day, but most days there are usually a bunch of keywords that are simply not triggering ads.
Also, with the keyword I just mentioned, sometimes it instead triggers my ad for the general term "movers," which has a much higher max CPC and still doesn't rank as highly in the SERPs. That's going on with a lot of the keywords as well. I have some good words with a decent KEI, but they generate zero impressions most of the time. Google Ad Diagnostics tells me that my keywords aren't performing well enough to appear in the results, but many of them have never had a single impression, so how can they be performing poorly? (I understand that keywords with zero impressions would normally be seen as not relevant, but the thing is, I can type in those exact phrases on Google and not show up. How long does a keyword need to go without receiving any impressions before Google decides they're performing poorly?)
Finally (this is almost over, I promise), I have information from another guy who's running an AdWords campaign for another moving company in the same city. He's bidding on a lot (if not all) of the same words as I am, but he claims to be spending only $800 per month and getting 600-700 clicks for that. (Never mind the conversion rate, which I'm sure he's lying about because he says it's 50%. But I saw his account screen for myself and know that his figures are correct for click cost. I'm not worried about conversion rate because I'm not being paid to redesign this guy's web site.) Now, the only keywords that have ever gotten ANY clicks for me have been the high-priced general terms like "movers" and "moving companies," which are usually at least $4.00 per click to get on the first page of results. There is no way he can be paying that much for 600-700 clicks per month, so my only question is: HOW?
There's got to be some key concept (or several) that I'm not grasping. Is it something concerning the keywords themselves? Is it my ad text? (Or is his CTR just as abysmal as mine, and he makes up for it with many more impressions?) Should I get rid of the general terms and focus only on specially targeted phrases containing those words? Will that even matter if everyone else is broad-matching those same general terms (and they are, I checked)?
I'm at the end of my rope here. Anyone who can point me in the right direction would have my eternal gratitude, and I'd even be willing to pay for a consultation with someone who can help me.