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http://www.google.com/
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login
When I heard that Google had released a pay per click system for generating traffic, I thought that it would follow in the tradition of the search engine, and be a great service. Was I correct in my assumption? Well - yes and no. Google's AdWords Select (AWS) program is a mixed bag - ESPECIALLY if you're an adult webmaster. What do I mean by that? Read on...
What IS Google's AWS?
To put it simply, you go to Google.com, you create an advertisers account (which costs $5 for some reason), and you can then make text ads which will appear to the right of the search results at Google.com. The text ads must follow a strict layout so forget the kinds that you're used to when it comes to your adult sites. You get a box with a small text link in it, and a couple of tiny lines of text.
Ease of use...
It's pretty easy to get started with Google's AWS - all you have to do is go to this page - https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login - and click "Try Adwords Select". Trouble is that it took me around 15 minutes to realize this was the link to getting started. I thought it was just a demo or something. So that was very confusing. Eventually I did click the link and began creating my first ever AWS advert.
And that's when the trouble began...
Who cares about adult webmasters?
Out of the title, the 2 lines of text, and the URL - NONE of the parts of my proposed ads were accepted. The reason for this was something like "one of your terms might offend some of our viewers". OK, "fair enough" I thought. I edited out the word 'fucking' and tried again. I got the same message - "one of your terms might offend some of our viewers". So I removed the word "tit". Tried again and get the SAME message. You want to know what word was causing all this fuss? "Boobs". I am an adult webmaster and I can't use the word 'boobs' in my advert.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is a serious limitation here. My URL had the word "boobs" in it, and while I could edit my title to say something like "pretty breasts" - I could not do the same with the URL. Once again, the adult webmasters, who I imagine will make up a great deal of the AWS customers, are penalized.
More problems - the minimum clickthrough rate...
So eventually, with some very frustrating re-edits and a bit of creative thinking, I had my first Google Adwords campaign up and running. I confirmed my email address, and gave my billing details - no sweat. But then more problems started.
Once you've signed up and confirmed your email, you log in to your private member's area. Here you can view reports, create new ads, and see how you're getting on. It was here that I saw a warning that said something like "you must maintain a minimum clickthrough ratio on your ads".
What this means is that you can't just have your ad sitting up there and think, "well - if no-one clicks it, nothing lost". UNLESS a certain % of people click on your advert, Google will remove it the keyphrases that you are listed under but where no-one is clicking your ad. Google say that this is to help YOU - but in reality, that's not the case. I believe that it is an attempt to get more money out of advertisers.
This is a BIG problem with Google AWS. If one of your ads does not make enough money for Google, it can effectively mean that it will be pulled down. I've yet to see this happen, but I'll keep you posted about how I get on, and whether I maintain the required level of clicks.
There MUST be something good about Google AWS???
As I mentioned, it's not ALL bad news here.
Last night, I managed to create an account with Google, set up a non-content site to send the traffic to, create an advert, and to get traffic to my new site by this morning.
Here's the stats from those few hours:
My advert was looked at by 4584 people.
55 people clicked on it.
42 of those people clicked through to a sponsor.
The total charge was: $4.16
I paid 7.5 cents per click.
If you've been following my saga at Overture, you'll know that I was paying around 27 cents per click for some traffic there, so 7.5 cents per click here isn't too bad.
In the space of a night, I managed to generate targeted traffic to a niche content-only website. That's unheard of in this day and age in the regular search engines. Even when I started out, it was not possible to generate SE traffic that fast. It's all going to depend on what kind of ratios I see at my sponsor's sites, but 1 in every 450 surfers from Google AWS buys something, I'll break even. (At $35 per sale). Anything better than that - I might have something I can work with.
How much does it all cost?
Google's AWS program's billing is a mixed bag again.
Unless you're some kind of genius, it's unlikely that you'll be able to understand exactly how Google AWS rank you, and how much you pay per click. After reading the explanation a few times, I glossed over and just decided to throw some damn money at it and see what happens. You have to specify a maximum you're willing to pay per click, rather than the exact amount. And you can't see what other people are paying per click.
The GOOD news is that if you put in say 10 cents per click - the program will instantly calculate how many clicks per day you're likely to get for that. I thought that this was ingenious. I specified 10 cents per click, and Google told me that for 7.5 cents per click, on one phrase, I could get about 150 clicks per day. That sounded fine. I have no problem with the Google per click way of working things in that sense.
The other superb feature with Google is that you can specify your daily advertising budget with them. This was a big relief for me because I was worrying that I'd go to bed, and AWS would just keep billing and billing, and I'd wake up to a colossal bill. I set the amount to $10 per day. I figure if I can make a sale a day, I'm happy paying that amount, and I'll increase it. But that's a long way off.
The worst that can happen is that I'll be stuck with a bill for about $300 at the end of the month, and nothing to show for it. That's fair enough. I figure I can afford to throw $300 into an experiment that could make me a lot of money. If not - I've only got myself to blame (and GOOGLE!)
A return to no-content sites...
If I'm paying for my traffic, the last thing in the world I want to do is THEN pay money (in bandwidth and content fees) to entertain the surfer. With PPC I want to get them to a sponsor immediately. I couldn't see anything in the terms about not being allowed to do this with Google AWS. It was an absolute pleasure to make and upload a site that didn't really "go anywhere", from the surfer's point of view. The message was simple - go to a sponsor and BUY SOMETHING!
Wrap it up!
I'll finish this review as I started it - by saying that Google's AWS program is a mix of really useful features, and some poorly thought out frustrating problems. The results I got last night ARE encouraging indeed, and I'll keep you posted as I hopefully head towards my first sale with the system.
Google Ad Words Select Score:
Ease of use: 7 / 10
Reporting: 7 / 10
Adult webmaster friendly: 4 / 10
Performance: 8 / 10
Friendly rules / use no content sites: 9 / 10
OVERALL: 7 / 10
TOM ^"^
ICQ 12616560
Email tom@tomsnewbiebooster.com