1st attempt at using PPC with AM

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beantown

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Feb 1, 2008
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Ok I started my 1st campaign directing to an offer using YSM PPC search.
I've spent $102.95 in 3 days and made $90 from 3 conversions. I chose 25 top searched terms(using standard match) for my keywords and have had 103 total clicks with only 15 of the terms receiving clicks. All 3 conversions have come from one of the terms and its plural version.

I have a hunch I may not be using the right keywords in order to turn this into a very profitable campaign or I'm not using the right matching options. All these keywords revolve around the same concept and are short tail(standard matching). For example if my product was a drug cleanser, the keywords would be drug cleanser, drug remover, drug cleansing, drug detoxification, etc. I was thinking of trying to get 100 clicks for each keyword and seeing how many conversions I get.

My questions:
1. Is it even possible to come up with unique keywords for a very specific product?
1. If say "drug remover" turns out to be profitable after testing it with 100 clicks, should I turn on advanced matching for that term or possibly try to find a bunch of longtails related to "drug remover" and add them to the account?
2. I've read to test keywords with 100-200 clicks before deciding to remove them, how can anyone afford this with a list of 2000 keywords?
3. Plus wouldn't it take too long to get 100-200 clicks for each of the 2000 longtail keywords?
4. Should you only use long tail when you know their short tail can convert?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Beantown
 


Ok so far I've made 210 and spent 195 or so on advertising. I thought I was supposed to lose money at first so this is a pleasant surprise.
 
Great that your either breaking even or making a bit of profit. That means you are doing most things right now and it will soon turn profitable. All it would take it optimizing your quality score so you could decrease your CPC without losing your position. And as your CPC goes down, the more profit you'll be making.
 
The fact that you are in profit is great news and you're on the right track.
1. Is it even possible to come up with unique keywords for a very specific product?
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Yes it is. Though I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to promote so it's hard to say.

Let's just say you were promoting this "drug cleanser". What kind of people would be looking for this product? One of your targets would be people getting drug tested for a job. So you may want to look at "job drug test". If you plug that into the Google keyword tool that'll give you more ideas. Or try plugging in "how long does stay in the body", "pass drug test", etc.
1. If say "drug remover" turns out to be profitable after testing it with 100 clicks, should I turn on advanced matching for that term or possibly try to find a bunch of longtails related to "drug remover" and add them to the account?
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Yeah, as long as you are tracking your keywords. When you do this start adding negative keywords as well as you find them. This is probably personal preference for most but in Yahoo I always use advanced match.
2. I've read to test keywords with 100-200 clicks before deciding to remove them, how can anyone afford this with a list of 2000 keywords?
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See #3
3. Plus wouldn't it take too long to get 100-200 clicks for each of the 2000 longtail keywords?
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Yeah it would. On a lot of long tails it will never happen. e.g. if someone searched for "how to piss a drrug test in fivve minutes" , yeah the typos are there on purpose =p
4. Should you only use long tail when you know their short tail can convert?
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Not sure I get this question....

Good luck.
 
Nice job Beantown. I'm curious, you said you are directing to an offer...do you mean you are redirecting straight there w/o a landing page or do you have a page in between the ad and the offer?
 
Don't forget there's money to be had chasing the long tail stuff on the less saturated paths.
M0rtal sort of hit on it with "how long does stay in the body" as a keyphrase.
Try and think of other long phrases people are likely to type in, because the phrases mean they're after highly specific info, or are already in the mindset to purchase as they've done some basic research already.
 
^No prob.

Just to add to this, I just checked the competition on the "how long does stay in the body" and there are no advertisers. Google and Wordze are both telling me there's some traffic there.

So I did a quick search on cj for any relevant products and came up with Test Clear. May be a good little niche for someone getting started.

Throw up a blog describing how long each of the drugs stay in the body and how someone can pass a drug test by getting, you guessed it, test clear! (they have a few different options)

Who says you can't make money selling powdered piss?

To the OP, sorry if this actually is your niche, next time don't post the real one. :rasta:
 
Hey,
Thanks everyone for all the tips, especially M0rtal. Right now I've spent about $360 and brought in $330 but I'm fine losing a little bit considering I'm evaluating keywords for conversions.

Lambo- On Yahoo I am directing straight to the offer without a landing page, while on Google I do have a landing page, although most of my traffic and conversions(besides one) are from Yahoo(I need to actually check into why I'm not getting traffic from Google).

M0rtal- What I meant by my previous question on short tail and long tail keywords is that I probably wouldn't want to use a long tail keyword like "how do i pass an employer's drug test" without testing "employer's drug test" first. It just seemed logical to me but then again this is all new to me.

Beantown
 
100 clicks and 3 conversions is not nearly enough data to make any real decisions on. Right now ur converting abiout 30%. if you had one more conversion u would be at 40%. thats a big statistical jump. thats what the data isn't really relevant with such small numbers.
 
beantown said:
M0rtal- What I meant by my previous question on short tail and long tail keywords is that I probably wouldn't want to use a long tail keyword like "how do i pass an employer's drug test" without testing "employer's drug test" first. It just seemed logical to me but then again this is all new to me.

Beantown
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You should test both, "employer's drug test" is a much broader term and the person might not be looking to "pass" it. It doesn't necessarily mean it won't convert just that you should test both.

They may be actual employers looking for drug test kits but they could also be lazy druggies doing some initial research.
 
rgordon83 said:
100 clicks and 3 conversions is not nearly enough data to make any real decisions on. Right now ur converting abiout 30%. if you had one more conversion u would be at 40%. thats a big statistical jump. thats what the data isn't really relevant with such small numbers.
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Actually, wouldn't that be a 3% conversion rate? Eh?
 
I look to run at least 500 keyphrases to start off with, and I've found 1K better - Google Keyword Tool plus a bit of brainstorming around what might make people search for your product should get you there quickly, e.g. don't just plug in "drug testing", try to think of all the situations that might cause somebody to be drug tested - getting a new job etc.

What are you using the track your conversions / ROI?

If you haven't already looked at it, Prosper202 Self Hosted Apps will save you a load of time / hassle
 
Alright I've spent $550 and made $600 for a positive $50, although I don't think I've changed anything recently. I'm debating eliminating one keyword that had 1 conversion out of 100 clicks and lost money but I'm still not sure if I should wait for another 50-100 clicks or so to decide. I just added some keywords based on the benefits of my product instead of describing the product itself. On a random note, for you marketers who run a campaign with 500+ keywords or so, do you end up eliminating a bunch over time? Have you ever just checked what was converting out of the many keywords and then buiilt a campaign around those keywords?

Beantown
 
beantown said:
Alright I've spent $550 and made $600 for a positive $50, although I don't think I've changed anything recently. I'm debating eliminating one keyword that had 1 conversion out of 100 clicks and lost money but I'm still not sure if I should wait for another 50-100 clicks or so to decide. I just added some keywords based on the benefits of my product instead of describing the product itself. On a random note, for you marketers who run a campaign with 500+ keywords or so, do you end up eliminating a bunch over time? Have you ever just checked what was converting out of the many keywords and then buiilt a campaign around those keywords?

Beantown
Click to expand...

I always like trying a lot of different keywords, and constantly split testing them. Maybe you could try making a few different campaigns with a few different keywords, try a few different ad variations, and you'll be able to get a better picture of what's working and what's not. Just start stripping a few of your worst words, and try to build new long-tails off of what seems to be working well.
 
The_Stove said:
I always like trying a lot of different keywords, and constantly split testing them. Maybe you could try making a few different campaigns with a few different keywords, try a few different ad variations, and you'll be able to get a better picture of what's working and what's not. Just start stripping a few of your worst words, and try to build new long-tails off of what seems to be working well.
Click to expand...

When you say try a few different campaigns for a few different keywords, I'm a little confused when you say "a few different keywords" when you like to test lots of keywords.
 
I can't seem to figure this out but I have broad match set on a short tail keyword like "drug test" on Yahoo Search Marketing, but then I also have long tail versions like "buy drug test" etc, should I even bother having the long tail if the broad match will pick up the long tail version from the short tail? How does Yahoo even know which of my ads to show, from the long tail version or broad matched short tail?
 
Long tail keywords are best discovered from mining logs of broad traffic.

Long tail keywords are then best tested/evaluated using more exact match types.
 
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