Google AdWords PPC Help

[Ben Roberts]

I'm a newer wholesaler from Memphis, TN and I recently started a Google AdWords PPC marketing campaign.   I think it's going o.k. but I'm trying to figure out if my numbers are on par with the industry and I just need to raise my daily budget, or if I need to make changes in the campaign, itself.  

Lately it's been averaging about 20 clicks per week to my website but over the last  12 weeks, I've only gotten 1 lead.  I'm wondering what the funnel should look like? How many impressions, on average, to get a visit.  Then how many visits it should take to get a lead?  I know it's highly dependent on the ad, website, keywords, etc.   But here is are some more specific numbers for you.

Impressions : 32,000

Click             : 217

Avg. CPC     : $0.34

Thanks, Ben

[Jeremy Ferguson]

@Ben Robertsyou can PM me privately if you want but I would need to see more detail to comment. I convert 1 out of every 3 clicks into a lead.

I can provide some feedback but would need to see your campaign settings, keywords, landing page and your ad copy. Then I can put together some suggestions for you.

Jeremy 

[Jeremy Ferguson]

@Ben Robertsyou can PM me privately if you want but I would need to see more detail to comment. I convert 1 out of every 3 clicks into a lead.

I can provide some feedback but would need to see your campaign settings, keywords, landing page and your ad copy. Then I can put together some suggestions for you.

Jeremy 

[Sean Dolan]

Assuming the site is http://www.901re.com it looks really nice on mobile. I would make your number clickable (instead of in the alert/ad format you have it in). Put it in text in the slider or above the content so it shows above the fold on mobile. You really want to make them calling you as simple as possible. That's my first impression - and Jeremy is right that more info is needed. Not sure if you're running search only, or hybrid disolay ads, etc. 

[Ben G.]

@Ben Robertsto me it looks like you're way to broad on what your bidding on. You're getting impressions, but impressions don't always convert to deals. Conversions turn into deals.

Your CTR is .68% where as mine is substantially higher.  I can help, feel free to email me directly.

[Matt Lazas]

I second @Ben G.- impressions don't mean anything...you want clicks and leads.  it looks Like you're probably bidding on very broad keywords at that cpc/ctr.  Can you provide a few sample keywords and bids?

In general a 2% ctr is considered pretty standard, unless you are specifically targeting low ranks.  If you run a campaign with that low of a ctr for too long Google will penalize you w/ a low quality score.  They see your ads are showing up and no one is clicking on them (only 1 in ~140) so in time the system will identify that you're not relevant (even if you are!). Once his happens you'll have to pay a lot more for the same clicks that would be cheaper w/ a high quality score.

This is a tough place to come back from in my experience...especially in competitive spaces like RE

Don't be afraid to bid more,  lots of people will pay well above $10 per click...but because the clicks are better they generate leads and ultimately $$

[Jeremy Ferguson]

@Ben Robertsyou also will want conversion data coming back through to your Adwords dashboard. Without conversions metrics you will have no idea what is the driving force behind those leads you're getting. Conversions and cost/conversion are two columns you will want to focus on.

CallRail can be used for call tracking and will sync with Google Analytics and Adwords. For any forms you can either create an event on the submit button (less accurate) or a "thank you" page, then use that "thank you" URL as a goal.

[Ben Roberts]

Thanks @Jeremy Ferguson. Will do.

@Sean Dolan , the site I'm advertising is MemphisHomeHelp.com I will make the number clickable. I think I'm running Search Network with Display.

@Ben G..I will definitely be reaching out. Thanks.

@Matt Lazas Thanks for the info. I had no idea that I would eventually be penalized.

After looking over everything with just the info you guys have been able to give me so far, I see a number of problems. I haven't been very consistent. Starting and stopping ads because of low clicks, rather than looking at CTR. Certain ads had higher CTR's so I need to revisit those ads and the keywords that worked best. I also have 200+ keywords but I'm only getting clicks from handful of them. I should probably get rid of the dead weight or tweak the ads to better suit those keywords. The further down the rabbit hole I go, the more complex I see things getting. But I love the game!

I'll definitely be reaching out to you guys.

[Angel-Ty L.]

@Ben Roberts

To address your statement, "I'm trying to figure out if my numbers are on par with the industry", there is no industry standard you should go by. The standards should be what is going to work for you. That's me looking at it from a bigger scope, but in hindsight, there are some metrics where you can pretty much tell that you need to adjust something. Before I go into optimization changes I'm going to address how to figure out YOUR numbers, and what YOU should be hitting.

This is all a math problem and you just need to figure out your equation with specific metrics.

Do the math. We'll be using 5 key metrics

* APD (Average profit per deal)

* LPD (Leads per deal)

* Crv. (Conversion rate of the landing page)

* CPC (Cost per click)

* CPA (Cost per acquisition)

For this example...

Joe Shmoe's Metrics

* APD= 12k

* LPD= 1/25

* Crv= 4%

* CPC= $4

* CPA=$100

Joe Shmoe is a wholesaler whose APD is 12k, LPD is 1/25, and the Crv of his landing page is 4%. So Joe needs 625 clicks to his website to close 1 deal (25\625) based on his website Crv. of 4%. Joes's CPC is $4 on Google AdWords. Based on this knowledge you can multiply Joe's CPC by his needed clicks (4 x 625) which would equal 2,500.

I will mention that I don't pay attention to the CPC much but rather the CPA... The CPA of the deal has to be under $100. I don't pay attention much to the CPC because it doesn't matter as long as we are hitting CPA also through my experience I never really hit the goal CPC but rather hit the CPA.

So Joe should be investing $2,500 in paid advertising to generate 1 deal. Now you could add a 30% buffer just to be safe. This is just an example everyone's numbers will most likely be different. All you have to do is Switch the numbers with yours to effectively calculate your max investment peer deal.

Great, now that you know what your numbers are you need to know what decisions to make and how to make them based on the numbers. This will address your problem with changing ads and any other account changes you are going to make.

What you need to know is in an Adwords account everything is connected and is a flowchart of cause and effect. Example of this would be if let's say you dive into your reports and you see that over the past 30 days your conversions are down. Now, this can be a result of clicks be down which then leads to this being due to avg. CPC being too high or too low, low impression, low CTR, which you then have to diagnose each of those issues. As you can see everything is connected as one and flows together. If one metric is not aligned then most likely that will affect other metrics.

With this in mind, I want you to get the misconception of what your success metrics are. Too many people get stuck like your self on using CTR as a success metric. OHHH MANNNN my CTR is down. Or using avg. position. OHHHH MANNN I'm not #1, etc... Pay attention to what matters to you. Do you want to get more awareness, do you want leads, etc... In this industry (REI) most want leads. Now ask yourself what is the last step of your funnel. Most likely a form fill or a call. That translates to a conversion. When diagnosing your account and making changes you want to keep that flowchart in mind and work backward. That's how you diagnose the problem and how to find all the ways to attack the problem.

But when should I be making changes you may ask? To that question, I answer when it will actually make a difference.

I refer to this as statistical relevance. "Statistical significance helps quantify whether a result is likely due to chance or to some factor of interest,” says Redman. When a finding is significant, it simply means you can feel confident that it’s real, not that you just got lucky (or unlucky) in choosing the sample." -Harvard Business Review

This relevance factor is achieved when we have the correct volume and time from the data. As a rule of thumb, you always need a couple hundred users to sample the data from. This is your volume. So if you are testing ads and only see you got 70 clicks and a CTR of 1.5%, its truly not enough to compare to another ad that has 200 clicks with a CTR of 1%, because they aren't relevant enough. You should not be testing ads every day on a $1000/month budget. You're never going to truly know the winning ad by doing this.

Coordinate your testing cycle with your volume flow. This will give you the idea of how much time should pass before you can make a conclusion. having low volume through your campaigns will usually mean a longer testing cycle. I prefer to not have tests last for more than a month, but in certain instances can let them run for two months if needed.

I noted that your CPC is extremely low along with your CTR as @Matt Lazas mentioned. Sounds like you don't quite have a grasp on keyword bidding. Adwords has a thing called match types.

A match type is Google's way of letting you control how you want your ads to show for different search queries.

There are 4 different "Match Types" a single keyword can have...

* We buy houses -Broad Match

* Includes any word on your key phrase in any order

* +We +buy +houses -Modified Broad Match

* Tells Google that the search query must include that term. Use the parameter "+" in front of words

* "We buy houses" -Phrase Match

* Queries must have key phrases in exact order

* [We buy houses] -Exact Match

* queries need to have exact keyword by itself

Broad Match keywords will get a larger number of impressions; however, many search queries won't be so relevant to you, and you will have a lower conversion rate. Exact Match keywords target the exact keywords you want which will have a higher conversion rate, but it will result in lower impressions. I truly believe choosing the right keywords for your market will make or break you. It can leave you with either bigger pockets (pun intended) or pockets that look more like the Sahara desert. Now you could just slap a ton of keywords on the wall and call it a day, but the likelihood of it working is a 50/50 chance.

Here'swhy...

* Certain keywords will take a large chunk of your budget, not allowing you to spend money on keywords that are bringing you leads

* Going to have some serious trouble keeping track of thousands of keywords

You want to be running keywords that bring you quality leads. So, take your big a$$ list of keywords you got, and chop it down into ones that are actually getting traffic.

To give you a better idea of what type of keywords to bid on is choose bottom of the funnel keywords. What I mean by this is the keywords should label someone as having a high likelihood of converting. For example, the keyword "sell my house fast as is" has a more likelihood of converting than "sell my house companies" for the fact of the other searcher is still in the navigational phase of their journey. So choose only keywords where the searcher will show intent.

Also, I noted you mention that you think you are using search with display network which is a no. I'll talk about the difference between the two.

For google search, your ads can appear with Google search results and on other search sites when your keywords are relevant to a user's search.

Google the defines its display network as an opportunity help you reach people while they’re browsing their favorite websites, showing a friend a YouTube video, checking their Gmail account, or using mobile devices and apps.

Problem with the display is its reaching people higher in the funnel, thus costing more to convert.

With the metrics your giving I believe a large chunk of your traffic is going to display.

Use "search only".

Hoped I helped the community, and if anyone has any question feel free to reach out.

- Angel-Ty L.

[Ben Roberts]

@Angel-Ty L. Thank you SOOO much for the detailed reply.  After the original post, I actually took down the Google ads thinking that after I did some research, I'd try again.  I've been focusing on word of mouth and direct mail, but now you've piqued my interest again.  Armed with this new knowledge, I may push this effort again.

Thanks!

[Michael Quarles]

I didn't read everyone's post however if you're not building your Negative list off of you broad match list you're crazy.....

As a simple example 

Broad match = Buy my house

Negative matches I certainly wouldn't want to spend money on.

• What is my house worth
• What is my house value
• House Appraisal

So for me I wouldn't want to show up in any result for the words Worth, Value, or Appraisal.   And your Broad list will build your negative list. However although time consuming and expensive int he beginning it will pa  off later. 

I have even seen 

Dog House.

Just remember PPC isn't fast nor easy... Its biggest issue is non buyable motivated leads. 

You will also want to look into YouTube and Facebook. 

Also keep in mind follow-up after contact is crucial.

Automate all inbound calls,, webforms, chat forms and text with campaigns. 

Good house hunting

[Angel-Ty L.]

@Michael Quarles Your certainly welcome. I hope you give AdWords another try, and if you need any assistance feel free to reach out directly.

Best of luck!