To date I have started four ad groups with Google Adwords. Only one of the four is successful with both clicks and conversions. The other three were failures for various reasons. Here is a post-mortem on one of these failures.

Canon 20D Camera

I picked this because it had a higher sticker price and I wanted to try and sell something through buy.com. I had 897 impressions and 0 clicks! The average page position was 10.8. I was only willing to pay 0.15 cents a click.

Thoughts:
1. Buy.com doesn’t have a great price on this camera
2. Lots of competition
3. The 20D has high search engine traffic and I was afraid to spend more per click for a better page position (visions of spending a ton of money with no conversions danced in my head)
4. I varied my ad texts but nothing pulled a click

I am convinced that Adwords is viable with the right product/commission scheme/click price. I’m still searching for that perfect mix.

My first adwords campaign is going well. I have high position (3.6 average) and targeted keywords. My clickthru rates: 11.7%, 7.5%, and 9.6%. My ad currently reads:

XYZ Widget
52% Discount!
Perfect for Trips
www.xyz.com

I’m not that happy with the third line and plan on tweaking that. I’m going to use that line to sell benefits/value. So what about conversion rate? So far it appears I haven’t converted any clicks yet. While that is disappointing, I am counting this first campaign as a learning experience.

You definitely need to be careful with Adwords. Making money is going to require a great product, high commission rate, and great sales copy to convert those clicks. At 3 – 5% commission, you will need a high priced item to sell at standard conversion rates.

I suppose in theory conversion rates should be higher with targeted and niche keywords, but I have yet to see that.