This is a test; Only a test

Testing Your Way to Success

One of the beautiful things about Google AdWords is it allows us to test up to three ads against each other at the same time. And the system automatically shows the ads an equal number of times. That means if you do a keyword search on a term you are bidding on, then hit the refresh button on your browser three times you will see each of your ads.

Why is this important?

What I've found is that what I think is most interesting or unique or clever in an ad I write is rarely what the market says is best! Essentially it takes the guess work, and my ego, out of the process.

If you continually write ad variations, you will be in a constant state of improvement. You don't have to be a copywriting genius to write effective ads; you just have to test!

How to do it.

This is very important, simple as it will seem after I explain the process.

In any scientific experiment you must have a control. In this case, your control is always the ad that has performed best to date. You NEVER want to get rid of that ad!

2 Ads or 3?

You have the option of creating 1 or 2 additional ads to compete with your control. If you have a good control and you just want boost CTRs, only test one ad against it. That means your best ad will show 50% of the time, versus only 33% if you have two test ads running against it.

What to test?

Your ad has 3 parts. 1. Your title 2. Your description and 3. Your URL

You only want to change one component at a time. If you want to test a different title, do not change any other element in your ad! Why? Because if you change additional elements, you won't know if it was the new title that made the difference - or changes to the description!

For example, here are two ads I ran recently. See if you can guess which produced the best CTR . . .

Got High Cholesterol?
Natural, Effective, and Guaranteed.
Act Now - Instant Download - $29.97
60DaysToLowerCholesterol.com

Lower Your Cholesterol
Natural, Effective, and Guaranteed.
Act Now - Instant Download - $29.97
60DaysToLowerCholesterol.com

I wanted to see if people were more motivated to move toward what they wanted (Lower Your Cholesterol), or away from what they didn't want (Got High Cholesterol?). You will notice everything else about these ads is identical.

And the Results . . .

"Lower Your Cholesterol" beat "Got High Cholesterol?" by nearly 2 to 1 - that's a 1.3% CTR versus a 0.7% CTR. Which also meant a lower cost per click.

So, we'd think that based on these results we should avoid the phrase "High Cholesterol". Right?

Nope.

The next test, put "Lower Your Cholesterol" versus "High Cholesterol Solution".

And the results of that test . . .
Lower Your Cholesterol - 1.3%
High Cholesterol Solution - 2.1%

One can really only speculate about why people click the ads they click. And over time, you will develop an instinctual hunch that leads you in a certain direction. But the only way to know for sure is to ask. And with Google Adwords, the asking essentially boils down to offering people the chance to click on, or to vote for, the ad they find most compelling AND RELEVANT to their needs.

I hope you find this insightful and profitable.

Best wishes, John

My little test - You can ignore
Google AdWords Income Secret Guide Tips
AdWords Income Pay Per Click Suggestions
AdWords Income Google Cash Search Toolbar

What Comes First?

You know, the fun thing about AdWords - and I have to be totally honest here - is that while I consider myself pretty successful with it, the system is also pretty humbling at times.

I'd find it refreshing to hear a guru or two (not calling myself that, mind you) admit "Hey, I really stunk up the place this week. I thought I'd hit a home run, but it was a total dud."

And so it was this week, that I ventured into the land of feather beds, comforters and such. I discovered a program with a decent EPC. I thought, well, the rest of the world is competing bitterly for mortgages, credit cards and web hosting. I'm going to look for a "softer" market.

5 days and . . . 0 clicks! Amazingly terrible.

On the Adword Mentor bulletin boards, there are some people doing great. While others have struggled or just plain lost money. And I think it's very refreshing to have all of those experiences shared.

Ultimate PPC success requires a little luck (I think it really helps to stumble over a gem or two) and a lot of testing. Because testing is the great equalizer. You try product A against product B. Somebody wins. You try ad A against ad B, title A against title B, URL A against URL B, and etc. The numbers will tell you what people like and what they don't and it usually isn't what you think - or at least it isn't what I think.

Sometimes the product has no demand. And sometimes the person writing the ad or selecting the keywords just hasn't made their way into the right ballpark.

So that brings me to my point; where to start?

I've had good success by starting with a couple of products and building campaigns around the product. But while the money is good, I have to defer to advice recently received from John Reese. There are "money maker's" and there are "businesses". "If you're smart, you build a business."

The difference between a money-maker and a business is that when I'm just selling a product, I make one sale and that's it. I have little to no relationship with that customer and it's highly unlikely I ever will.

If I'm building a business, then I'm looking at a general market. It's the difference between marketing to the person who's looking to buy a wool blanket versus looking for someone who will eventually furnish their entire house.

And so, I point you to exhibit A. The Abundance Course

This is a site I built as an affiliate. That's right. I built a site, complete with a series of follow-up autoresponder messages. That's a little beyond just placing a banner ad, or writing a Google ad that sends my customer (and my investment) to the parent site in hopes it converts the sale. The parent site, BTW, doesn't convert particularly well - only about 1/3 as well as the site I created. That's a more advanced route you can take - find a great product with a lousy web site and sell the product like it's your own.

So, I've gone from marketing a product (The Release Technique, aka, The Abundance Course) to targeting a broader range of people interested in goal setting, self improvement and wealth creation. And I've set up a very nice lead generation system in the process. I hope those people will buy the Abundance Course because I think it's excellent material. But, if not, I have additional avenues to go with these people and I know they have interests that extend beyond just this one course.

And my point is/was . . .

Many people start with a product or a company they want to promote based upon potential earnings or demand. It's easy to see, for example, that Britney Spears has a high search demand. But is Brit going to be hot a year from now? Three years from now? Who knows. Maybe that market will continue and maybe it won't. The better bet is to identify the market that follows Britney and determine the various interests they have. Because then you've gone beyond selling Britney posters and CD's to selling clothes, dance lessons, diet plans, beauty aids, etc.

You see, Britney isn't the market - Britney is bait for the market. And maybe the cost of luring someone to your site with Britney bait might be spendy while you could use a different lure like, I don't know, Christina Aguilera (Britney's a bad example because I'm really out of my element here).

So, start with a market. If you want to look at what's been hot, from a product or persona perspective, then identify the "who" that's seeking it and try to determine what they might be looking for next week, next month, and next year.

Best wishes, John

To Make Money, Sometimes You Have to Spend Money

Friends, hello again.

One of my top affiliate income producers has been taking hits over this past several months. It's a program where I was very excited last summer when I start producing checks of $150 per month. Those became $300, then $500, then $900, then topped out at $1450!

Initially I had no competition for this product, but as competition has found my little market sales/commissions began to slide while bid prices have gone up. I used to spend .10 per click and I'm now spending up to .50 on some keyword phrases.

I confess my mistake!

I made a mistake in trying to keep my bid prices low. After all, this is a campaign that has consistently brought me 10-15 times my monthly spend on pay per click advertising. Poor me. That fell to an all-time worst of only about 7 times my investment last month.

While I still have little competition and maintain the top bids on Overture, my competition on Google AdWords has grown increasingly.

Desperate, I HAD to Take Action!

I confess to a sense of desperation. As a result of that discomfort, I decided I was going to bid what I needed to bid to regain the top spot. My ad, afterall, was producing a 5.8% CTR and it's tough to top that (though possible as I've discovered).

With a sense of determination and mild trepidation I doubled my maximum CPC. It was like the first time I decided to pull out my credit card and put $50 into an Overture account. It felt like a big, scary step.

Drum Roll Please . . .

Here's what's happened with a little background:

1. I hit a peak of 47 sales in a single month for this $160 product last Spring.

2. July 2004 was my "worst" month since last October - 25 sales.

3. My average bid price for all campaigns on this product last month, July 2004, was .15. This produced 679 clicks with a CTR of 5.8%. Combined with my clicks from Overture, I had an overall conversion rate of about 2.5% - ie, 2.5 out of every 100 clicks bought.

4. This month my average bid price has climbed to .26 - a cost increase of nearly 73% per click. With a CTR of 7.9% the campaign has produced 225 clicks putting me on pace for 675 clicks for the month. Actually, a slight decrease from last month. BUT! And this is a big but, I already have 22 sales for the month through yesterday. This puts me on pace to reach 66 sales for the month - a personal best.

So, I can forecast that I will probably spend about $175.50 on advertising this month and generate commissions of close to $2000. This compares to last month when I spent $101.85 and I made $750. Is that an effective ROI? I'll take it.

Lesson learned:

I am a firm believer in the holding the top spot. Others claim that bidding for a lower spot means you'll get customers who are "more serious". In certain markets, for certain keyword terms this may be true. And, it may be a matter of budget. You may not have the budget - or the ROI to bid the maximum. But for an affiliate product with competition, at least in this case, it has clearly paid for me to have that top spot.

My strategy is, and has always been, to get the most targeted words possible. 675 clicks per month doesn't sound like a lot. But, the keywords are so targeted for this product, that I stand to convert somewhere between 2.5-5% of them. And on a product that pays a decent commission, that's a pretty nice ROI.

And, BTW, this is something that I spend maybe 8 hours per month on. And the majority of that time is simply checking stats and ensuring I'm right where I want to be. This product is the gem in my portfolio of products. But it's also proof that if you find the right product, you can do extremely well.

So. I hope you've found this example both useful and inspiring.

Wishing you Adwords riches,

John

PS - I joined Chris Carpenter's and Jeremy Wilson's new membership site this week, AdWord Mentor. I thought I'd take a look around and see what kind of value is there. So far most of my time has been spent on the chat boards, where I've learned quite a lot. They have people making as much money every week using AdWords as I'm making every month! So, I think it's always good to hang with people having better success than I am.

Anyway, they're offering a trial membership for $2.95 - good for a week. I'm not a membership site aficionado, but I think this one offers good value. I recommend taking a closer look if you have a sincere interest in mastering AdWords and making real money at it.

MyWebND - Answers to your health questions.

MyWebND - Answers to your health questions.

I think I mentioned in a blog or two ago that Tara, my wife, and I launched a new site called "My Web ND". It's a place where people can get there health questions answered by a Physician schooled in treating people to wellness using natural methods.

We've begun our promotions for the site using Google AdWords. Even though we're still finding our with through testing various ads, we've had relative success to date.

What hasn't worked and what has . . .

We began with keywords in the more general "ask the doctor" vain. This produced a relatively low click-through rate (CTR). Why? Well, by design we prequalified in our ad by using "Naturopathic Doctor". To the general searcher, this either isn't what they're looking for or they don't know what a "Naturopathic Doctor" is. I didn't once upon a time!

I quickly recognized that we were slightly off in targeting our ads and compiled a list of search phrases related to alternative and complementary medicine. This positioned us better. Even though we are seeking people with questions, wanting answers, we've found better success by reaching our target demographic and introducing our new service.

Since there are many sites offering free advice (how often do you get more than you pay for?), I decided to test a variety of ads. One ad did not include a price. The other two did. Can you guess which ad had the highest CTR?

Of course the one without a price, by nearly 3 to 1. BUT. None of those clicks produced a paying customer! Obviously they clicked the ad thinking they were going to get a freebie. Using Clickalyzer to track customer footprints, I could see these visitors were arriving at the site and leaving almost immediately. They aren't interested in paying for an answer!

So, even though our CTR is going to take a drop (meaning our price per click is going up), we are going to save money and attract better targeted customers by keeping our pricing in the ad.

A few quick tips . . .

1. Depending on what you want to accomplish with a site visitor, including your product price in your ad may or may not be an effective strategy. You want to balance a high CTR with quality clicks. And if you find people clicking your ad that includes a price, but not buying, then you have an important clue price isn't the issue - your sales letter probably is.

2. The price you display in your ad must be exactly as stated on your site. If your product is $27.77, you must state exactly that. Google will disable your ad as soon as they catch it. I KNOW!!

3. Even though a keyword phrase such as "ask a doctor" seems like a great one, we've had better success with targeting our market demographic and using keywords that reach them - even though they aren't seeking to "ask a doctor".

That's all for now. Best wishes, John