Cost of Google adwords?

[sprite]

How is the cost of a Google adword calculated?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Your cost is whatever you bid. If you don't bid high enough, you don't show up!

 

[maximus20895]

Right, Google adwords is a risky, risky place to be if you don't set a maximum budget and if you don't know what you are getting into.

The cost per click (CPC) varies greatly depending on how competitive the market is. For example, the term "refinance" will cost you a ton more than "paper". On the other hand, if you use the other end of Google Adwords which is Google Adsense you will get paid more per click if you have a website about refinance as oppose to "paper"

Also, when you choose you keywords choose them wisely. Say you have a website about fish. If you tell Google to show your ad when someone searches "fish" then there will be a plethora of people who just want to know facts about them or see pictures, not buy them which is how you would be making money. Instead, choose the keyword "buy fish" or something to that effect. You will get a bettor ROI and not have tons of people wasting your money.

The number one spot on Google Adwords is generally more expensive than the 2nd spot. I would bid a number so that you will appear in number two. This generally saves you money buy not paying more per click and it yields the same results.

I have much more info to share if you want.

 

[mtnman]

Their attempt at presenting baseline costs as VPL is whack... So an explanation would mean nothing if you were to compare markets. Typically over run by market conditions. Such that, if VIPwithyou is paying 5 bucks a click, you have no choice but to match and outbid or be invisible.

The problem in competitive markets that do not have web professionals on their staff, is that they have no clue what a quality score is, so they drive up market conditions. You can however, run along side them for less money if you spend time paying attention to your landing pages and use quality score software or pay someone that knows what the hell their doing.

 

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[rocksolid]

Can you select a region? I will be setting up a website that is tailored to the NY area. I would like to expand in the future, but I want to start slow and build it up.

 

[maximus20895]

I am pretty sure than you can.

 

[TC2]

Can you select a region? I will be setting up a website that is tailored to the NY area. I would like to expand in the future, but I want to start slow and build it up.

You can select region. However, Google treat people with the IP in your region and people from other region with ISP's IP in your region the same. Google also treat people search on Google as USA visitor even they are from Australia.

If you are targeting an entire country, make sure you choose each state/province, but not just the country itself.

 

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[Udt123]

Try MSN =) Much cheaper

 

[biophase]

Work on your quality score and aim for long tail keywords. Also, your cpc will significantly go down the longer you bid on them. Some people bid very high for the 1st month and then lower it as time progresses.

I started paying $0.35 for top 3 positions. I'm down to $0.08 right now and show up between 2-5 for the same keywords. Quality score is huge to get your prices down and your ads to show up high.

For your site you would probably want your ads to show from 12am to 4am. Costs might be lower for those time slots but in your industry it may not.

Maybe try 10pm-12am, as many others may have blown their budget earlier in the day and there may be no competition until their budget cycles around to 12am.

If you are using adwords keyword tool, I'm finding that the actual cost is about 1/2 to 1/3 of what the tool predicts.

 

[MattThomas]

Depending on the keywords you are competing on, you may have to start out bidding a lot higher on some of the terms. The more competitive, the more you'd have to spend (in the beginning). Why? Google, in part calculates your quality score depending on your Click-Through-Rate.

Generally, if you land in the top 3 ad positions, your click rate has a greater chance of increasing right off the bat. As you click through rate increases, your quality score will increase, decreasing the minimum Cost-Per-Click. This will also allow you to place less expensive bids on the same keywords while still maintaining a decent ranking.

Agreed with biophase that you should use long-tail keywords, but they don't always bring a lot of traffic either. Use both long tail and main keywords as well to ensure your ad displays on a regular basis.

 

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[sprite]

So if I put in keyword niteflirt. Niteflirt show up and 0-2 other random listings. How come the whole sidebar doesn't get filled with ads every search?

 

[biophase]

So if I put in keyword niteflirt. Niteflirt show up and 0-2 other random listings. How come the whole sidebar doesn't get filled with ads every search?

It's because you cannot target the keyword "niteflirt" because its probably trademarked. When I type that in, all I see is niteflirt's adwords ad. You will need to use generic terms like phone sex, etc... and I can imagine that those keywords will be expensive!

 

[sprite]

It's because you cannot target the keyword "niteflirt" because its probably trademarked. When I type that in, all I see is niteflirt's adwords ad. You will need to use generic terms like phone sex, etc... and I can imagine that those keywords will be expensive!

If you type in niteflirt enough times you will see other ads. I think cost is ~$3 per click.

 

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[biophase]

If you type in niteflirt enough times you will see other ads. I think cost is ~$3 per click.

Ok I see asian cam models. Using SEM rush you can see some of the keywords they target. I wouldn't count on being able to use niteflirt. You can try it and see if adwords takes it.

(They are probably reading this thread now if they have google alerts on!)

www livejasmin com
live pu**y
girls chat rooms
adult live
hot toon girls
f**k my asian
thai friend finder
chats live
adult live feeds

Here are some keywords that niteflirt targets

niteflirt
phonsex
phone sluts
free live local phone chat
live phone chat line
www niteflirt com princess monique

 

[NerdSmasher]

I agree with Biophase, you probably won't be able to use niteflirt, as it is quite possibly trademarked, or in some other way protected.
However, if you're paying $3 for a click on that anyway, it had better be either a very high payout, or very high converting landing page, or you'll be out of money pretty quick anyway. Assuming you get a reasonable amount of traffic through it, that is.

Honestly, I never paid more than a dollar for clicks, and never actually kept using anything that cost me more than 15 cents or so per click... had an average of 4 cents per click for what I advertised. But, I was on a tight budget, and went purely for efficiency.

Depending on the overall search traffic that you're targeting, I may recommend you do the same. But, mine was quite large; and I imagine yours is significantly more constrained, so that may make it much more difficult.

 

[Andrew]

To answer the original post exactly:
Inside AdWords: Introduction to the ad auction

I've spent millions of dollars just on Adwords. Pretty much anyone with half a brain can buy traffic profitably. The hard part is buying it profitably in volume.

In competitive markets refining your business model is the only way to go. If the other bidders are monetizing users at 3 times the rate as you, no trick is going to put you on top (short of account theft, which I've seen happen.)

 

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[jaywolf]

Try MSN =) Much cheaper

You can't just say that. Those networks are completely different, and the type of person who uses google vs. yahoo vs. bing are different audiences and personality types, which mean their buying habits, price ranges, and attention levels are different.

If you want to truly find out which platform works better for your situation, you're going to have to do A/B testing. This is the approach I took when I was doing SEM for hire. You can only predict so much about how an ad targeting a keyword or group will do. The smart thing to do is to try two (or more), see which performs the best, cut the other two out, use the top performer as a control group, and test OTHER new ads/keywords against your control group, always trimming the fat between intervals, and using the top performer(s) as the control groups. This way you'll be able to optimize your efficiency of your campaign, which should equate to more return for each dollar spent in SEM.

:smxF: