The Unseen Pitfalls of Google Ad words Marketing

"Spending 5x the Google Ad words spent didn’t increase sales 500% (only 10% increase). This is pretty dismal. What we discovered was that the Google Ad words delivered good traffic, but the traffic that was delivered converted to sale at about 20% of the conversion rate of traffic from natural search engine results."…………

There was Proactive S/W which tested what works out, what will not and what strategies would take us forward than our competitors, as any co for that matter is driven by Metrics. They conducted a test to find as to how many sales were from Google Ad words. They had free and paid Marketing tools and the budget was 1000$ per week on Ad words.

They decided to evaluate Google to know as to how other PPC Competitors were doing well like Yahoo and MSN. Google’s ‘Price per bid’ to retain a set position has lifted 80% in the last year.

They undertook 3 experiments and came to a final conclusion and were able to identify Myths as well.

EXPERIMENT 1:
One Month with Google Ad words turned off completely

- Website Traffic dropped about 80%
- New Trial Accounts dropped only 25%
- New Sales dropped only 10%

So they thought they had then push Google hard. We turned up the Google Ad words

EXPERIMENT 2:
One Month with Google Ad words set at $5000 per week! (5x original budget)

- Website Traffic increased 2-300%
- New Trial Accounts increased 50%
- New Sales increased 10%

So then they did one more experiment and set Google Ad words to $100 per week for a month. Here are the results:

EXPERIMENT 3:
One Month with Google Ad words set at $200 per week (1/5 of original budget)

- Website Traffic dropped about 10%
- New Trial Accounts dropped only 10%
- New Sales dropped only 5%

Conclusion:
The entire Ad words traffic was doing was flooding our demo pool with poor converting leads.
So they have dropped the Ad words completely for a few months now to confirm the conclusion. Basically, still making good sales but saving thousands of dollars per month in poor performing traffic.
In Julian Stone opinion, Google Ad words aren’t a ‘waste of time’ but you need to test thoroughly to understand the conversion rates. The amount we’re saving could be another staff member’s wage!
So they are concentrating on other (free) marketing approaches and keeping those wasted Google dollars in the bank.

Some final thoughts…
———————————

Myth 1. Google Ad words Marketing is Controllable & Dependable!
It’s not. You can be knocked off the list easily by other higher bidders. There’s heaps of click fraud and you have no control over the quality leads you pay for.

Myth 2. Google Ad words Convert Well!
They may for some people but didn’t for us. This depends on a lot of factors. One other factor we’ve measured is the conversion rate of Ad words leads now as opposed to a year ago. The conversion rate has dropped considerably (but not for other marketing methods). So we believe the ‘Quality’ of Ad words has dropped.