"buy" keywords in PPC campaigns

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bigbyte

bigbyte

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Oct 22, 2006
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Am I the only one or is it really just me who does not get significant traffic from any of the "buy *" keyword variations? I am having about 20 Adwords campaigns running and in none the campaigns I am getting more than 10 impressions for the "buy" keywords.

Example:

I want to buy product name
buy product name
best price for product name
purchase product name

and so on. I have several variations and those are all the worst performers for me in Adwords. Luckily I am able to maintain a good CTR with other keywords to avoid the Google slap.

Chris
 


You're not the only one. In one of my campaigns that has had over 65k impressions over the last month, well under 1k impressions have been for "buy", "best price", etc. But that's what "the long tail" is all about.

BTW, the cost of those clicks is higher. Unfortunately, I can't tell whether the conversion is any better than usual because I can't track conversions by keyword for this affiliate program.
 
whew, and i thought that was an individual problem only i have to deal with.

i did setup a campaign consisting of all variations of buywords for product that is, according to the analysis tools and google, in high demand. google forecast is, that i should get at least 100-130 clicks for 1€ each.

result after 24 hours is 1 click for .90 cent.

i escalated this to google, because i had only 24 real impressions and 3.800 in content network, which i feel is plainly wrong. i can clearly see my ad in the top 1-3 when using the analysis tool, qs is ok but just no impressions for a term that is searched 10.000 times a day?
 
Man, I am glad I asked that question. Now that I know it is not just me .... lol

I don't use content network ever, so I don't know anything about these words performing there. But I think I might have been chasing a monkey by concentrating too much on the "buy" + variation keywords when trying to go long-tail.

I see much better conversions with words like "compare", "comparison", or "review" and anything that is related to those. Give that a shot. Those were the long tail keywords that kept my CTR above the magic 1%.

Chris
 
bigbyte said:
Man, I am glad I asked that question. Now that I know it is not just me .... lol

I don't use content network ever, so I don't know anything about these words performing there. But I think I might have been chasing a monkey by concentrating too much on the "buy" + variation keywords when trying to go long-tail.

I see much better conversions with words like "compare", "comparison", or "review" and anything that is related to those. Give that a shot. Those were the long tail keywords that kept my CTR above the magic 1%.

Chris
Click to expand...

Hehe, yeah, it is good to know, that everyone is somehow dealing with the same problems ;)

thanks for your tips, but the bad thing is: i have an adgroup running in this campaign, that is running solely utilizing these pre-sales words and guess what? it is even worse :)

see, the thing is that i really expected to land hard on my nose because this should have been my first time that i would go into the ppc affiiliate game. everything was setup and i expected to get teached a good lesson on what not to do and how not to burn your money ;) however, i was willing to lose it, as i just felt ready.

the scary thing now is, that google does not seem to want my money and that seems a bit odd ;) so i really assume that they got some problem at their side, as i really can not imagine that the prediction is so far off as it is now. 5-6 clicks were i should have gotten a 130?

maybe my whole campaign is really totally fucked up from a marketing point of view, but i don't think that i could have been that far off ;)
 
I've had the same experience with "buy-keywords". All of mine get little to no traffic.

I think it's really going to depend on the product, but I still think they are worth using since it's so targeted. Just don't pay anything ridiculous for them unless you find they are converting in your particular situation.

The "compare" and "review" terms have been a lot better for me too, and although they are usually more expensive, if you mix them with a nice comparative landing page it can do very well (for affiliation and arbi). Don't bid on a "compare" keyword and take them to a single product page.

Don't be afraid to give the content network a try, you can get content placements cheap as fuck so a little testing isn't going to break you.
 
Do any of you use buy keywords on a regular basis? I can't remember the last time I ever searched for "buy xxxxx"
 
People probably wouldn't search for "buy xxxxx" but they might search for "where to buy xxxxx"
 
"best place to buy ...."
"best website to buy ..."

Variations that did not work for me either, but might work for you.

Chris
 
The reason you don't get a lot of traffic from them is that is not how most people use search engines. If they want to buy something they just type in what it is.

It would be nice if they did precede their search with a buy, but that is rarely the case.
 
aeiouy said:
The reason you don't get a lot of traffic from them is that is not how most people use search engines. If they want to buy something they just type in what it is.

It would be nice if they did precede their search with a buy, but that is rarely the case.
Click to expand...

that's probably the painful truth. all the time they hammer into your brain to look for the buy words, but it seems very obvious, that the buy words are not necessarily the ones containing the term buy at all :)

but it's right. i would never get to the idea to type "buy hd recorder".

ok, so there is more brainwork required than that ;)
 
Yeah, if I'm reading up on something new I want to buy, I always search for things like;
"recommended XXX"
"XXX review"
"compare XXX"
etc..

but when getting to the buying stage, I go for;
"cheap XXX"
"price comparison XXX"
etc..

I think most people don't go for just the "buy XXX" as they in most cases already know that they CAN buy if from many places. They are rather interested in not just where to buy it, but where to find a good deal.

- First, they want to know WHAT they should buy and IF they should buy it.
- Then, they want to know WHERE and for HOW MUCH
 
I have a domain with the word "Buy" in it. Occassionally I'll get an entry in my log files where someone has come to my site through google organics because they put the word "buy" in their search. But it is very rare. My advice: Don't believe everything you read in forums.

I was running an AdWords campaign around clothes, and I used a bit of cut and paste to mix up loads of keyword combos like "women", "men", "children", "shoes", "sweaters" etc. I included "buy" in there too.

I uploaded all my keywords and almost straight away I paid for a click on "men's skirt" even though I hadn't meant to have that keyword. I'd generated it at random without noticing. The offer I was linking to didn't have any men's skirts in it, let me tell you now! The "buy" keywords got hardly any impressions and no clicks.

So my conclusion is that generating a long long list of specific product names and descriptions is a good way to capture the long-tail searches, and that "buy" isn't a good word to include.
 
I have a domain with the word "Buy" in it. Occassionally I'll get an entry in my log files where someone has come to my site through google organics because they put the word "buy" in their search. But it is very rare. My advice: Don't believe everything you read in forums.

I was running an AdWords campaign around clothes, and I used a bit of cut and paste to mix up loads of keyword combos like "women", "men", "children", "shoes", "sweaters" etc. I included "buy" in there too.

I uploaded all my keywords and almost straight away I paid for a click on "men's skirt" even though I hadn't meant to have that keyword. I'd generated it at random without noticing. The offer I was linking to didn't have any men's skirts in it, let me tell you now! The "buy" keywords got hardly any impressions and no clicks.

So my conclusion is that generating a long long list of specific product names and descriptions is a good way to capture the long-tail searches, and that "buy" isn't a good word to include.
 
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