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The declining profitability of Google Adwords

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Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#21

Post by [deleted] »

digitalengineer wrote: post #16
wwwong wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing SEM for five years and worked with the full range of google reps. Quite simply, don't ask reps for advice on a product they've never actually used (as in, with real money). You're better off investing in a proven SEM expert in your field. Also, the answers/responses from Google reps are basically read from a training manual.

I've just google'd SEM expert and not hits. Google suggests 'SEO expert'. Could you elaborate about SEM? I'm interested.

[deleted]

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#22

Post by lovskogen »

antr wrote: post #12

I don't believe this post tells the entire story. Adwords (advertising in general) is just one part of doing business in general. Other reasons that might explain the trends showcased: - Businesses have cycles, maybe the author is experiencing the end of his software's business/product cycle. An 8 year period is considered by many an economic cycle. I certainly don't use the same software today as I did 8 years ago.…

Maybe the shift towards web apps has turned potential users away from desktop apps like the one mentioned.

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#23

Post by Systemic33 »

mrtksn wrote: post #17
Systemic33 wrote: post #13

I'm actually quite impressed that people earn money from these advertisements. I have never clicked one of the adverts, unless it was the top result on a Google search for the thing I was actually looking for. It's like a natural instinct to ignore the ads. With the rise of addons like AdBlock Plus, I think it's inevitable that this Ad-venture (pun intended :P) will decline, and cease to work, until a new medium or m…

you would be also surprised that there are lot's of people using IE. The fact is, you and probably most of the people here on HN are the 1%. ABP has 15 million users on firefox and 10 million on chrome. This is 25 million users worldwide, so out of a total 2.4 billion internet users ABP users are about 1% of the world population. the rest, 99% of the internet users are people who see ads. probably some of them also n…

Good point, i searched a bit, and found this comment on Quora; Key findings:

On average, 9.26% of impressions were found to be ad-blocked, with some sites reaching as high as 50%

Tech sites average at 17.79%, followed by news (15.58%) and culture (9.94%). Business, real estate and travel sites average lower

Ad-blocking is higher in the US and EU: top countries are Austria (22.50%), Hungary (21.52%) and Germany (19.44%). Average in the US is 8.72%

Blocking rate is found to be highest among Firefox users (17.81%), followed by Safari (11.30%) and Chrome (10.06%). Explorer averages at 3.86%

Linux users have a staggering 29.04% blocking rate, compared with 12.95% for Mac users, and 9.25% for Windows users.

Mobile blocking is gaining popularity: Android shows a 2.24% blocking rate, and iOS 1.33%

*Findings point to the estimation that ad-blocking will significantly increase in consumer adoption

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-percentage-of-Internet-user...

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#24

Post by dools »

I agree that without maintenance an AdWords account will exhibit this kind of decline, but it appears to me as though the OP might not be bidding on exact match search terms which can make it difficult to control your spend and target your audience. If most of your spending is on broad or phrase match keywords then you're far more susceptible to changes due to other people coming into the market place and also have much less ability to optimise your ad text and landing pages to get the best ROI.

In my experience the single biggest improvement you'll ever see to your campaign comes from bidding only on exact match keywords that you've extracted from the search term report with ad text written specifically for those keywords. It's a pretty laborious task but the results can be pretty phenomenal.

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#26

Post by bobsy »

Seems like the article is only showing half the story.

Costs are going up which means increased competition. Increased competition will mean your ads are running against more competitors. Reason for fall in click-throughs could be under-optimized ad's losing out to competition's ads.

As for conversions. Looking at the table plan site I feel overwhelmed. If this is where the ad's are taking users I think it is fairly obvious why sales are dropping off.

I don't think Adwords can be blamed for the profitability of a product.

This isn't to say Adwords isn't declining in value for site owners. To make this claim though you would need information from lots of sectors from lots of site owners.

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#27

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lovskogen wrote: post #22
antr wrote: post #12

I don't believe this post tells the entire story. Adwords (advertising in general) is just one part of doing business in general. Other reasons that might explain the trends showcased: - Businesses have cycles, maybe the author is experiencing the end of his software's business/product cycle. An 8 year period is considered by many an economic cycle. I certainly don't use the same software today as I did 8 years ago.…

Maybe the shift towards web apps has turned potential users away from desktop apps like the one mentioned.

I don't think he said his sales were flagging, just that Adwords was becoming less profitable.

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#28

Post by [deleted] »

lovskogen wrote: post #22
antr wrote: post #12

I don't believe this post tells the entire story. Adwords (advertising in general) is just one part of doing business in general. Other reasons that might explain the trends showcased: - Businesses have cycles, maybe the author is experiencing the end of his software's business/product cycle. An 8 year period is considered by many an economic cycle. I certainly don't use the same software today as I did 8 years ago.…

Maybe the shift towards web apps has turned potential users away from desktop apps like the one mentioned.

[deleted]

Re: The declining profitability of Google Adwords

#29

Post by unwind »

wwwong wrote: post #8
jmotion wrote: post #3

I spent $100,000 last year on Google AdWords - it made me some decent money. The costs kept getting higher and higher - I called one of there advertising rep's to give me advice - it cost me around $600 losses in 1 day. Called back, made changes - told them I don't want to take 'risks' like that again. I then tried this 'Enhanced Campaign' feature that I think they're bringing in across all accounts in June - it put…

I've been doing SEM for five years and worked with the full range of google reps. Quite simply, don't ask reps for advice on a product they've never actually used (as in, with real money). You're better off investing in a proven SEM expert in your field. Also, the answers/responses from Google reps are basically read from a training manual.

I assume it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_marketing, i.e. SEM = search engine marketing.
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