Hi All,
Has anyone used Google Adwords (specific to their geographic location)? What have your results been? The cost estimates seem pretty reasonable, and you only pay if someone clicks it.
Stephanie
Be sure to make it appear only in your service area. If not, you may find yourself paying for clicks from people on the otherside of the country- who may well like your services, but for obvious reasons- won’t be calling you for an estimate.
it’s not quite that simple in practice. but it will depend where you are located in my area clicks can cost $7 or more.
What’s not simple? Adwords in general, or selecting the area you wish for your ads to appear?
It’s been a while since I set mine up, but I do recall it being quite simply to select area(s) for which my ads appear. I seem to recall having several options for this including a size-specific diameter around a given address or by city, zip code…etc.
Perhaps things have changed since I set my account up.
You can call Google and they will help you set it up. There are people here that are very good at it and may give you more info. I think your money would be better spent on direct mail. Do a search in the archives for direct mail.
I use them for weak keywords… have no complaints.
There are often $100 coupons floating around if you do a search.
If you can’t find anything, let me know. I received an email the other day for a March referral special, where anyone I refer gets $100… and I’d LOVE to refer you. 
(You get $100 and I get a $200 credit.)
But you’d have to run ads before March 31st.
I have to work on my website a bit more before I would be confident paying to have it speak for me. The AdWords I ran where very specific, and Google estimated a CPC (cost per click) of $0.24-$0.37 for a total of an estimated $1.75 per day. I think it might be interesting to try out in April or May, when I have broken even in my set up costs, if my website still isn’t popping up on the first page or two for those Key Words, and if I am not booking up a week or 2 in advance. (Quite a few “if” statements there).
Thank you all for your replies, I was basically just looking to see if there were any strong opinions against this marketing tool.
Btw, JimfromtheD did you have to sign a contract to get the $100 off? Or could I just use it through the spring and cancel if it is not working out for me?
Stephanie
keep in mind that google is going to take your max spending per day and spread that out over 24 hours. to keep it simple, if you tell google you only want to spend $24 per day, thats $1.00 per hour. If you’re paying $0.25 per click you will only get 4 clicks per hour. of course if you dont get those clicks i believe they roll over to the next hour. but that can also be a nightmare as who in the hell wants 96 clicks at 1am if you dont get any clicks all day? in the window cleaning industry those can be good numbers. but in most cases window cleaning businesses are not spending $24 per day on a google ad words campaign. Reason being you would be up to spending $700 plus per month. which can be better used in other advertsing methods.
now just do some simple math and depending on what you are willing to spend you can be down to 1 to 2 clicks per day. Do you think your website is strong enough to pull in those sales? is the website strong enough to get them to pick up the phone and call you? I have tried google ad words in the past and never really liked the service. I don’t like bidding on keywords, it’s too vauge. I would look at doing a PPC on facebook. It’s more targeted. With google your ad can be seen by very little people in regards to the keyword and the amount your paying for it. As far as facebook is concerned, because the ads can be micro targeted, your ad can be viewed by the same person multiple times and thus increase your chances of them calling you. Like google you dont pay unless they click the ad. Google targets according to location. Facebook targets by age, gender, income, location, interests and birthdays.
Why would you run ads at 1:00 A.M.?
Because as I said. Google runs your ads 24 hours per day until you use up all the money you told google you wanted to spend for that day. Each time you get a click it counts towards the money you are willing to spend for the day, Google wants your money badly. So what they do is when you ad does not get any clicks they roll over your money to the next day and increase your placement. IE $24 now becomes $48. 96 ads run for one day now become 192 running for one day and so on. Google does not care if it’s one am in your sales area. They will blast your ad placement as much as possible to get the $0.25 you bid. Thats why ad words sucks you can’t control when your ad is viewed and really you can’t control who sees it. Geo targeting is a 1/2 assed chance of narrowing down that customer at best. It’s not as accurate as they would have you think.
Not trying to be argumentative… just trying to clarify.
I run ads from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. (8:00 start on weekends)
But if they are misleading me, I need to file a complaint.
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Not trying either J. Sometimes I just come off that way. I see they have changed the system. In the past it was not that way. How much business have you converted from those ads?
Eh, it goes in spurts. I pretty much only use adwords for my weakest keywords (which I admit are more than a few.)
It seems to be on par with the other coupons… there is a starting fee, but it’s only like 5 bucks or something. You don’t have to cancel, you just stop runing the ad(s.)
Anyway, here’s the info… notice how it says “for them to try adwords.”
If you have any referalls left, sign me up for one. My email is stephanie@cleanwindowsottawa.com
I’ll research the details a little more and then make a decision by the 31st.
