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Aduramus

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

TheDillon__

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Adurere (v.) Latin - to set ablaze
Aduramus (v. first person plural, active subjunctive) let's set ablaze.

Hello everyone!

I find posting a progress thread here more relevant than posting on my own Wordpress account - so let's roll.

Why am I doing this - who knows. Hopefully something good comes out of it.

Let me introduce myself and my previous successes. Hi - I'm Dillon!

I'm a young guy presently trapped in DFW with my girlfriend. I love espresso and recently found the best doppio I've ever had waaaaaay out in Marshall, Texas. Five hours away from home. The roaster works on site and only roasts their house espresso two pounds at a time. He wanted to sell me a 1/2lb bag for $3 - I bought it for $8. Love this batch (called Cracker Jack.)

I love foreign languages. I've managed to teach myself a good deal of German and French so far, and a client hired me to do local cold calls in Spanish to help sign businesses up for their food festival. If anyone knows how I can structure a payment plan, please let me know. I don't like hourly rates as they can get fuzzy. Alternatively - considering teaching myself ASL so I can produce a quality course for American Sign Language.

I currently work as a manager in a growing retail chain. My short term business goal is to provide enough value to earn $2,500/mo. Effectively doubling my current income. I'm thinking of doing this by, basically, reading everything written by @Andy Black as scripture - working to soon but his full course on Google AdWords.

I'm a self-published author - having written my first book in seven days time, contemplating a second. (I know I'm going to write it. I just haven't firmly decided to make time for it yet.) Sales here have been minimal - but I didn't expect anything grand out of it.

Lastly, I'm considering starting a Project Aduramus next summer in which myself and 3-5 other young entrepreneurs rent a mansion in Miami/Chi-town/Palo Alto/etc. and spend a year devoted to starting fruitful businesses, supporting and building on each other as we continue. (A la Neil Strauss 'The Game') Though this is something I just took interest in about 30 minutes ago.

So yeah - this is a thread for me to keep track of my progress as I, initially, try to replace my current income with a business. I feel like this will best be done by furthering my knowledge and skills in Google AdWords.

My first step is to find a way to pay for Andy's course!

Complete - I have a freelancing sales gig in which I use Spanish to sign up local businesses for a food festival.

I only need 14 businesses to understand the value in representing their businesses on a local level (with a, historically, big crowd.)

I know they're willing to pay AT LEAST $300 for my work, as they'll profit very well off of my success.

They offered a position where I would work on an hourly rate, but I believe this to be too ambiguous. (Does my clock start when I step in the door of a business, or when I'm on the train into town?) and also provides less value to my client as I'm encouraged by this model to take as much time as possible.

What other potential compensation methods are there?
 
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Adurere (v.) Latin - to set ablaze
Aduramus (v. first person plural, active subjunctive) let's set ablaze.

Hello everyone!

I find posting a progress thread here more relevant than posting on my own Wordpress account - so let's roll.

Why am I doing this - who knows. Hopefully something good comes out of it.

Let me introduce myself and my previous successes. Hi - I'm Dillon!

I'm a young guy presently trapped in DFW with my girlfriend. I love espresso and recently found the best doppio I've ever had waaaaaay out in Marshall, Texas. Five hours away from home. The roaster works on site and only roasts their house espresso two pounds at a time. He wanted to sell me a 1/2lb bag for $3 - I bought it for $8. Love this batch (called Cracker Jack.)

I love foreign languages. I've managed to teach myself a good deal of German and French so far, and a client hired me to do local cold calls in Spanish to help sign businesses up for their food festival. If anyone knows how I can structure a payment plan, please let me know. I don't like hourly rates as they can get fuzzy. Alternatively - considering teaching myself ASL so I can produce a quality course for American Sign Language.

I currently work as a manager in a growing retail chain. My short term business goal is to provide enough value to earn $2,500/mo. Effectively doubling my current income. I'm thinking of doing this by, basically, reading everything written by @Andy Black as scripture - working to soon but his full course on Google AdWords.

I'm a self-published author - having written my first book in seven days time, contemplating a second. (I know I'm going to write it. I just haven't firmly decided to make time for it yet.) Sales here have been minimal - but I didn't expect anything grand out of it.

Lastly, I'm considering starting a Project Aduramus next summer in which myself and 3-5 other young entrepreneurs rent a mansion in Miami/Chi-town/Palo Alto/etc. and spend a year devoted to starting fruitful businesses, supporting and building on each other as we continue. (A la Neil Strauss 'The Game') Though this is something I just took interest in about 30 minutes ago.

So yeah - this is a thread for me to keep track of my progress as I, initially, try to replace my current income with a business. I feel like this will best be done by furthering my knowledge and skills in Google AdWords.

My first step is to find a way to pay for Andy's course!

Complete - I have a freelancing sales gig in which I use Spanish to sign up local businesses for a food festival.

I only need 14 businesses to understand the value in representing their businesses on a local level (with a, historically, big crowd.)

I know they're willing to pay AT LEAST $300 for my work, as they'll profit very well off of my success.

They offered a position where I would work on an hourly rate, but I believe this to be too ambiguous. (Does my clock start when I step in the door of a business, or when I'm on the train into town?) and also provides less value to my client as I'm encouraged by this model to take as much time as possible.

What other potential compensation methods are there?

Seems very interesting. I like it.

I'd recommend finding these 3-5 young Entrepreneurs and first establish what you'd like to create, plan it and bang out all the paperwork first before going into this house. You don't want to go in there without a plan, potentially wasting 1-2 months that could be utilized actually building your business/product/service.

Is your girlfriend okay with this? I mean, one year away could drastically affect your relationship (especially if it's new).
Regardless - seems like a cool idea, reminds me of Erlich Bachmann's Incubator (Silicon Valley).
 

TheDillon__

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Alright - game time. Girlfriend and I are moving into an apartment on Friday, and the move-in costs are a bit higher than she and I had anticipated. We have some savings that we don't want to touch, so we're pulling out all of the stops to make our goal - we're on the last stretch!

I needed a way to make some money. I was racking my brain for weeks how can I provide some value around here!? Then - it finally hit me. READ THE DAMN GOLD AND NOTABLE POSTS! I've heard that the Inside has a lot of quality stuff, but you guys have left waaay more than your fair share out in the commoner's section of the forum!

I stumbled across a post by Andy Black, and I knew that I had just found (whether he likes it or not) a mentor. Though it may be indirect - Andy is more than happy sharing a wealth of his own personal knowledge and successes in his posts all about the forum. This is a guy who has created success for himself, and wants nothing more than to help others achieve success as well. I respect that a lot.

Needless to say, I dived into his posts with a thirst to learn everything that I could. (The night I found his page, I was up until 6-7 in the morning taking notes.)

Now - how does this help me pay bills? By helping people I know of course!

Well would you know it - one of my closest friends recently bought a course on starting his own t-shirt company! The course had hardly touched on how to market your new company, only offering advice equating "hey btw bro u can use facebook ads," I knew he could use a boost.

I told him I'd offer him some help in finding the raw statistics of his market. What search terms were people using to find similar products on Google? How frequently did those terms get searched every day? What's it going to cost to get a decent ranking on Google? These are important things to know - especially when you want to get some quality people visiting your site!

Oh - and what's this? That's right, I have another friend who runs a greeting card website! He's saving up to buy some retail space, I'm sure he'd love if I could help him boost his online sales! I gave him a call, and he's super excited to meet with me and start boosting the traffic (and the quality thereof!) to his website.

Two calls, two customers. This is so cool!

I've been playing around with the fantasy recently of paying for the rent with my own online marketing agency, based off of AdWords. Seems pretty CENTS-y to me, and it's perfectly location independent. So long as I have a laptop and wifi, I'd be able to steer the ship from Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Berlin, wherever!

Very interested to see where this goes.

Aduramus.
 
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TheDillon__

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Wanting to expand my client base - wondering if the best way to do this is with Upwork, Fiverr, Word of Mouth, etc. (Hell - why not AdWords!)

Putting together a little deck to explain my services to the clients I'm meeting tomorrow - let's go provide some value and make some referrals!
 
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TheDillon__

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First AdWords client landed!

I went in not really knowing what to expect. All I knew was that I had someone who wanted to boost their sales online, and I had a few answers on how that could be done.

I explained that there are a few ways to make more money online.

1. Increase your margins (not always the best option, nor the most possible!)

2. Increase your Visits-per-Sale rate. (Best done by providing more value to the customer, making sure their needs are catered to at every second of their visit, and by getting those good, golden referrals!)

3. Increase the amount of people visiting your site. (Often the most lucrative and most effective way of going about this.)

After taking the client through these, and showing them a slideshow that I had pieced together using some hijacked slide from the following @Andy Black thread, I was ready to make my first sale! The AdWords Jumpstart

They told me that they wanted to run a $50 metrics test on Mother's Day related keywords. (A small test-ad on Google that allows us to find critical metrics like CTR, Impression Share, Cost-Per-Click, Average Position, and most importantly, which search terms people are actually using to find our products!)

They also added in $250 to fund their first campaign based off of these metrics - and I struck a deal so that I get 20% of Spend as payment!

____

Right now I'm running the metrics test with the two keywords

+mothers +day +cards
and
+mothers +day +greeting +cards

I was told that these two are cannibalizing each other, so I'm going to split them into two different ad groups.

My only thing is, I'm not sure that I'm targeting the right keywords to begin with! How do I make sure these are Buying customers, not Researching customers?

I could target something like +mothers +day +card +discount which is a search with intention to purchase - but I feel like this targets the wrong type of customer for us. (A customer focused on cost over quality.)

Whenever I go look at the terms people used to find us, I see that "Inexpensive mothers day cards" is a search that got us a click for $.74, and at position #1!

This seems like it would be a good keyword to target - but again, what kind of customer is that attracting?
 

TheDillon__

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I'm having some fun with this. I'd love to be able to pay rent based off of my own marketing agency - you know how cool that would be!?

Let's make it happen!
 

TheDillon__

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I guess this isn't really my first sale. In 2016 I sold two crop tops to a stranger in Tennessee - just because she loved my brand and my designs!

But this, man this feels something crazy different. I see why people devote their whole lives to this entrepreneurship gig - solving problems, making lives better, and getting compensated for it.

If I opened my bank account yesterday, after all the bills for the month had been paid, I would've seen a big bright green

$6

Man - how thrilling a number that is! That's one damn good cup of coffee! That's two burritos from Taco Bell! Think of all the things I could do with that!

Yeah - I was pretty upset about the whole thing, needless to say.

HOWEVER!

I remembered that I had met with a potential client just a few days ago about their AdWords campaign.

I just remembered that I could totally help them find the customers that are already looking for them!

I just remembered that I sent them an invoice!

I log into PayPal.

Available : $291.00

Man - now THAT'S a number I like! I used to make that much for a week's worth of work! But on Tuesday, I decided to spend $20 and 7 hours on Diesel and Coffee, and next thing you know, there it is.

I love this forum. I owe a huge thank you to @MJ DeMarco and @Andy Black on this. First step in a long journey!

ADURAMUS!
 
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And he did.

Congrats on the sale, and welcome to the inside.


upload_2017-4-14_0-2-14.png
 

TheDillon__

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Ahoy there! Update time.

Just hit our spend limit for a metrics test ($50.)

Things went...differently than I'd expected them to. I had three ad groups running
+mothers +day +cards -cheap -cute
+cute +mothers +day +cards -cheap
+cheap +mothers +day +cards -cute

Guess which one got clicks/impressions? Only the first one. The rest 0'd out on every scale.

So I'm sitting on 43 clicks, 3.69% CTR, an average CPC of $1.16, but I'm hitting just about 34% impression share! (Total spend was $49.77)

I feel like something's off here. My client's website gets, on average of the past 60 days, a 1% conversion rate with an average customer spending $38.

This tells me that I have to spend just about $100 in order to get one $38 client. That's some priiiity negative expected value at work!

I looked at the search terms people used when they clicked our ads, and no search term was used more than once except for "wholesale mothers day cards" (which we don't offer,) and of course "mothers day cards" which yielded 5 clicks.

What's something that I'm missing here? There's got to be a way that I can better connect with people, and get the right people to my client's website.

Cheers!
 

TheDillon__

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Also - I'm curious. Think with the end in mind, all that.

Let's say I went the local lead gen route - started gathering, selling leads for "dallas locksmith," etc. for 50 other cities.

How do I build a sellable business out of this?

I've heard about building a webpage for the selected "Dallas Locksmith," "Fort Worth Locksmith," etc. I can sell that website as an asset, sure, but you can't exactly sell the adwords account that's the backbone of the whole operation...could you?

Aduramus!
 

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My client's website gets, on average of the past 60 days, a 1% conversion rate with an average customer spending $38.
$38 for every 100 visitors means an earning-per-click (EPC) of $0.38. At that click-to-sale-rate you can't spend more than $0.38 CPC. What happens when your CPCs (not bid prices) are $0.38 and under? Does volume disappear completely? If so, then you could look at lowering your CPCs (other keywords, other strategies, other channels), or increasing your EPCs so you can bid more.

I've heard about building a webpage for the selected "Dallas Locksmith," "Fort Worth Locksmith," etc. I can sell that website as an asset, sure, but you can't exactly sell the adwords account that's the backbone of the whole operation...could you?
Why can't you sell an AdWords account?
 
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TheDillon__

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What happens when your CPCs (not bid prices) are $0.38 and under? Does volume disappear completely?

Not sure actually - I haven't controlled for this! I plugged all of my 'search term' data into Excel and I found a few terms that ranked me Position 1 under $.75 CPC. Maybe If I drop these to <$.38 I'll still rank first page and be able to get a leg up there. My only issue is that these are phrase-type matches and I'm not sure what to do with that (in terms of finding search terms to target.)

Why can't you sell an AdWords account?

Well. I guess that does make sense eh?
 

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Thumbtack.

Hey all!

So it seems that Thumbtack looks pritty noice for my area. Of course I'm not looking for anything long term out of it, but I'd love to pay rent on the earnings of my own marketing company. (I'll be starting a job as a retail manager soon, so I've got bills covered regardless. But every extra hundred helps!)

So I'm signing up, and they're asking me what makes my services standout. I don't trust people to take the time and read my copy, so I like to keep it short and sweet. What do you think?

(I took the 'Agency' approach over a personal one.)

We at Three Cup Marketing believe that there are only two metrics that really matter in business - Revenue and Costs. If your revenue is higher than your costs - you're doing well. We focus on building you the most effective Google AdWords campaigns to drive sales to your business, and connect you with customers already trying to purchase your products.

Thoughts/opinions?

Cheers!

Edit: Looks like you have to pay to bid on jobs for Thumbtack? Bit of a weird approach. I think I'd rather take the money spent on bids and point it to local lead gen efforts. We'll see how that goes.
 
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TheDillon__

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Alright - trying my hand at Local Lead Gen!

I'm starting out with a small budget targeting electricians in a town in West Texas (I was surprised to see some of the ad quality around my home town! It seems that RotoRooter paid very close attention to @Andy Black's "ST-AD-LP" posts!)

Can I get some critique on the site? Cheers! Home | Three Cup Ventures
 
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TheDillon__

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So after finding already highly-optimized ads in my hometown (ST-AD-LP congruence, good landing pages)

towns that were too small to compete in (9,000 reach, "Low Search Volume" warning)

and clicks that were WAY expensive for what they were (front page bid for +sherman +electrician -jobs was $14!!!)

I finally found something that works. +sherman +window +repair -jobs shows good volume in a decent sized town (~30,000 pop.) with a cheap front page bid of ~$1.30

Set up a campaign and my landing page, excited to see where this goes!

If anyone else is interested in making money with local lead gen, join our weekly lead gen mastermind group! [Lead Gen Mastermind - 2017/$2017]

Aduramus
 

TheDillon__

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Bit the bullet - just bought @Andy Black'a JumpStart course! Very excited. Let's go!

Aduramus
 

TheDillon__

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Limiting Belief identified!

I've rammed every single positive belief about money that I can into my head over the past few years.

* Money is plentiful, and mine is out there waiting.
* Money can be used as a force for good.
* Money can be used to establish personal freedom.
* Life awaits after passive income.

However, there is one belief that has re-emerged that I wasn't able to break until a major coincidence last night.

----

My girlfriend is as anti-self help as they come. This poor girl has gone through so much grief, loss, and stress in her life, that she doesn't believe that any book out there holds the secret for her. She believes that all of these books rehash the same "don't worry, be happy," type of advice, and that they are all going to amount to "forcing a smile on your face, and hoping things work out."

I've been trying to get her to read "You Are A Badass" by Jen Sincero for months, seeing as how it might be the only self-help book she cn vibe with. Of course, all along the way, I've met resilience. Until yesterday, when we were driving home from the mall. We passed by a new Barnes and Noble that I'd never seen before that I expressed interest in. Before I could finish my sentence, she was in the parking lot smiling and running inside to get me a soy latte. (Love her.)

Anyway, I walk in, and the first thing I see is a huge stack of "Your Are A Badass at Making Money" books (the sequel to the former), and a huge banner announcing that, no shit, Jen Sincero herself was going to be there in an hour to do a signing! I grabbed a copy of both books and convinced her to run upstairs with me. Then, finally, after hearing the 6'1" sandal-wearing, former-coke-snorting, loud-voiced hippy talk about turning her life around and making a success out of herself, my girlfriend was elated at the chance to meet Jen, and is reading through her book excitedly.

I'm reading through the money book myself, and I realized, I've spent the last year believing that money is hard to get! I believed that by following the entrepreneur grind, making millions is possible, but it takes years to cultivate. (WHO SAYS!) If I can use AdWords (thanks @Andy Black) to help one plumber in Texas earn, say, $1,000 in customers every month, why can't I charge them $250+spend? If I can do this for one service, why not 49 more? Who says I can't have 50 clients by November? (That's gonna be one hell of a birthday party!)

Or as another example, I've had MJ's post about retail resale (INSIDERS) on my mind recently. I really need a new laptop. Right now I'm using a totally bricked laptop with a linux boot drive. I can't watch Flash videos, I can't save files, in fact, everything on my computer is completely erased and restored every time I turn it on!

However, I see an ad on Craigslist where a guy is selling a messload of Surface Pro 2 laptops with the keyboard for $180 a piece! I began to wonder, I could really use a new laptop, how can I afford this?

Then it hit me to check eBay. I found out that these are being sold for about $100-150 less than what they're really worth!

That's when it hit me.

If I bought three laptops, I could sell two of them at a price people are already asking for and recoup my investment! Now I get to keep the extra laptop, and my money supply is unchanged!

Things are looking up. I'm going to have 50 clients by November. I will buy my first apartment complex (WOO REAL ESTATE
@MidwestLandlord ) by May of next year!
 
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Good luck. Was that your post on r/small business - the AdWords offer? If not, there's another person on this forum with a remarkably similar writing style to yours.

What's your feedback so far on the course? I'm seriously considering it myself.
 

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Good luck. Was that your post on r/small business - the AdWords offer? If not, there's another person on this forum with a remarkably similar writing style to yours.

What's your feedback so far on the course? I'm seriously considering it myself.

Do it. Join the INSIDERS, then sign up for Andy's course. (You save $40 doing it this way.)

The power of both of these combined is craaaaaaaaazy.
 

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Do it. Join the INSIDERS, then sign up for Andy's course. (You save $40 doing it this way.)

The power of both of these combined is craaaaaaaaazy.
I know you're still working your way through the course. I'm genuinely curious what your main take-aways have been, and what you're doing differently from before starting the course...
 
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I know you're still working your way through the course. I'm genuinely curious what your main take-aways have been, and what you're doing differently from before starting the course...
The biggest takeaway thus far (about 1/4 through) has been to really punch my focus on long-tail keywords, and look at the Keyword Planner as a viable tool. (With the help of the latter, I finally found a lead-gen niche that's affordable for me to start off in!)

Now I'm just racking my head over how to get more specific with the longtail keywords for my greeting card client.
 

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ALRIght guys kickass time. I feel good today.

I woke up this morning nearly broke after paying rent. I felt defeated in a way.
I saw someone selling a certain type of laptop for $200-300 under market value (love pawn shops), so I decided to set up a listing on eBay, Craigslist, 5Mile, LetGo, and OfferUp.

No bites at all.

An AdWords campaign I'm running for a client is NOT turning out the way I wanted it to in the slightest. We're getting decent traffic, about 100 new visitors a week, but our bounce rate is so high that the conversion rate is even worse than before! (Used to float around 1.5%, now it's around half of that.) On top of that, our CTR is around only 2% with a 26% Impression Share. yuuuuuck. And I don't know if it's smart or stupid to say that we can't boost our CPC. There's still money in the budget, but I don't feel like it's "safe" to do. Seems limiting to me.

My girlfriend's birthday is coming up in a week. Utilities due the week after. Rent due two weeks later.

I wanted nothing more than to lay in bed this morning and just fall back asleep. In fact, after she left at 8, I did precisely that. I got up just long enough to make breakfast, then laid there in bed. For three hours.

Then it hit me. Something from Jen's book (You Are a Badass at Making Money) clicked. Why in the hell am I choosing to view the world through a lens and perspective of such lack. Why am I choosing to view money through such limiting beliefs? I thought I had this figured out!

I believed that it was possible to make a living online,

but I believed it needed to take years.

I believed that I could find and plug holes in markets,

but I believed it would take too much time and money for markets to respond.

I believed that I had the same mindset as every successful entrepreneur,

but I still didn't fully believe in myself and what's actually possible.

I texted this to my girlfriend this morning after she told me she felt bad about wanting to do something for her birthday.

"I'm tired of us having to feel bad, scrape change, ask family, whatever to make it through or to do something nice for ourselves. There's money out there, we deserve it, and dammit we can make as much of it as we want. I choose to take you shopping. I choose to take you on trips. I choose to tip $100 at restaurants. I choose to be able to eat out all we want. I choose to have a nicer apartment. I choose to have the furniture we really want. I choose to get you whatever doctors you want to go to. I choose to put you in cosmetology school. I choose to get a car I love instead of walking everywhere. I choose to join the best gym in the area. I choose to get us the laptops we want. I choose to live our lives without being tied to a job. I choose to travel.

That. Everything up there is our life now. We're in a rough spot right now but dammit that's not slowing me down anymore. I am going to make some F*cking amazing ads. I am going to bring clients to as many businesses as Google will let me. I'm going to build this damn business."

Now - I have a few questions pertaining AdWords.

1. When I search my keyword, there are no other ads on the page save for mine. Why then is my ad on the bottom of the page?

2. How do these structured snippets work - and why are they so difficult to get approved?

3. How do you put the name of a two-word city (for example, New Braunfels) into a modified broad keyword? +new +Braunfels?

4. How do you balance long-tail keywords and Low Search Volumes with local lead gen? For example, I'd love to target something like "emergency plumber Wiley," but there's nearly no traffic for this. Now I'm lumped into a non-urgent keyword +plumber +wiley // Should I try a larger city for this? Right now I'm targeting cities around ~50,000 pop.

5. What are some local services businesses that aren't on this list;

Plumber
Electrician
car window repair
car motor repair
transmission repair
tractor repair
tree removal
bathroom remodeling
kitchen remodeling
locksmith
HVAC repair
oven repair
dishwasher repair
landscaping

ADURAMUS
 

Andy Black

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There's money out there, we deserve it

Be careful of "we deserve it". Go earn it.


1. When I search my keyword, there are no other ads on the page save for mine. Why then is my ad on the bottom of the page?

Google doesn't think it's worth their time showing your ad. Maybe boost CPCs to get into top ad position and then gradually drop them down and see if you can stay there.


2. How do these structured snippets work - and why are they so difficult to get approved?

Keep trying. I don't know... I keep fiddling till they show.


3. How do you put the name of a two-word city (for example, New Braunfels) into a modified broad keyword? +new +Braunfels?

Yes. +blacksmiths +new +braunfels


4. How do you balance long-tail keywords and Low Search Volumes with local lead gen? For example, I'd love to target something like "emergency plumber Wiley," but there's nearly no traffic for this. Now I'm lumped into a non-urgent keyword +plumber +wiley // Should I try a larger city for this? Right now I'm targeting cities around ~50,000 pop.

50k pop is quite low. It still works though, but volumes won't be massive.

Plumbers have higher search volume than electricians btw.

To get more volume, master the long tail.

Sometimes, there's just not enough search volume...



5. What are some local services businesses that aren't on this list;

Plumber
Electrician
car window repair
car motor repair
transmission repair
tractor repair
tree removal
bathroom remodeling
kitchen remodeling
locksmith
HVAC repair
oven repair
dishwasher repair
landscaping


How would you figure this out? Who might have already done this and nicely classified it for you?

Yellow pages? Yelp?


Here's a post listing ones I've done off the top of my head:
 
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Azure

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Regarding your ad not being placed at the top - the bid rate you post is under their suggested. Try to raise it to generate more actionable clicks and also to reduce your "bad traffic" bounce rate.

Google is all about providing the optimal user experience, think about the critical factors that may affect your ad other than bid rate. Relevancy and quality score being big game changers.
 

TheDillon__

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Be careful of "we deserve it". Go earn it.




Google doesn't think it's worth their time showing your ad. Maybe boost CPCs to get into top ad position and then gradually drop them down and see if you can stay there.




Keep trying. I don't know... I keep fiddling till they show.




Yes. +blacksmiths +new +braunfels




50k pop is quite low. It still works though, but volumes won't be massive.

Plumbers have higher search volume than electricians btw.

To get more volume, master the long tail.

Sometimes, there's just not enough search volume...






How would you figure this out? Who might have already done this and nicely classified it for you?

Yellow pages? Yelp?


Here's a post listing ones I've done off the top of my head:

Absolutely - kicking everything up 10x now. I've just created ads targeting a few services in four different cities (four ads total.)

I'm going to start moving up to cities with ~75,000 pop. and see how volume gets.

What do you typically consider a healthy blend between Avg. Monthly Searches and CPC? (For example, HVAC repair CPCs are typically $50/click in my experience!)
 

Azure

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Regarding the high CPC despite no other ads, I found a post on a forum that was actually replied to by an AdWords rep. To sum it up, there is a cost associated with ads being presented, so even if it seems due to lack of search volume a CPC should be much lower, take the administrative factors into account. In addition to that, low search volume keywords may not have have the necessary backlog of data for the system to accurately predict the proper bid. So a bit of tinkering may be required.
 
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Andy Black

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What do you typically consider a healthy blend between Avg. Monthly Searches and CPC? (For example, HVAC repair CPCs are typically $50/click in my experience!)
Depends on your experience. If you're just starting then you want high volume and low CPC (with good search intent). It's quicker to learn...
 

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Alright friends, I have a little secret.

it's kind of dirty.

Are you ready for it?

Lean in closer.

I didn't brush my teeth this morning.

Gross right? I know, i know. But here's why.

I hopped out of bed this morning and raced my a$$ out of the door as quickly as humanly possible.

The first thing I did in the morning was check my phone to see an e-mail from OntraPages.

Subject: New Contact in OntraPages!

Someone filled out one of my lead gen forms! Someone in North Texas needs a locksmith! (Only bad thing is that the contact came through two hours ago eeek.) Nevertheless I still put out a call to a locksmith in his area.


I'm feeling so excited. I go sit down in the cafeteria for breakfast where I have no cell signal.

I finish up about twenty minutes later and head out to the bus, as soon as I reconnect I see a notification from someone in North Texas needing windshield repairs! Sure enough, I put in the call to a local business, but damnit, the customer had already called!

So far both of the leads I've given have fallen through (I didn't need $20 anyways) but still - my ads are getting leads! This is awesome!

Thanks @Andy Black and @eliquid

Let's keep moving.

ADURAMUS
 

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