Question
I was wondering if advertising with overture would be worthwhile? I tried google adwords and IMHO it sux. As far as overture is concerned, how many keywords/phrases should I bid on and how much for each?
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I have considered trying Overture. I get fair results from adwords. I have read you get fewer clicks but better results. They start at .10 vs Googles .05 so that has made me hold back. I can't see paying that for a misspelling. A lot of my keywords bring me a lot of clicks for .07-.08. Right now my main site is getting 200+ hits a day without Adwords. I still use Adwords on my weaker sites. I'm interested in what others have to say on the subject.
Mike
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I use both Adwords and Overture and have pretty good luck with both clicks and conversions.
I am very disciplined about metrics since buying keywords can pull all the profit out of a business pretty quickly. I write very specific ads with specific keywords: I'm not after clicks, I'm after sales. I set a budget and stick to it, revising it as the business allows or demands. If I am well below by budget I will broaden my keywords up a bit as bait generating more clicks but lowering my conversions
I am willing to pay more for search clicks than content clicks. My experience has been that people searching for a specific brand or product are more likely to buy than someone seeing and interesting link associated with an article they have come across.
Hope this is helpful.
Bob
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I don't sell products per se, but a service. I wonder if overture would do well for this, or if adwords would be better. When I tried adwords before, it was for products, not a service.
Answer
Originally Posted by SellersCircle
I don't sell products per se, but a service. I wonder if overture would do well for this, or if adwords would be better. When I tried adwords before, it was for products, not a service.
I'm selling products so I have no clue on how things work with services. Depending on the kind of service one offers, I can imagine that the selling cycle is less impulsive and much longer.
If you offer multiple services, why not zero in on one (most profitable or the one you want to improve sellthrough the most) and write some try a combination of keywords and copy and seee how it plays out.
Bob
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The last time I used adwords was a few years ago and it seems I can remember google slowing delivery of my ads or something due to a low clickthrough rate. And I think google said something that if the performance of my keywords didn't improve, I would have to pay $5.00 more dollars to activate the campaign. It's been a couple years though and my thinking may be a little muddled on this. Guess I could try it again though, it's cheaper than overture anyway
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I believe you are right about Google slowing ad delivery for ads which they deem to be under-performers. I don't believe they are looking for an absolute clickthrough rate though but rather compare it against other ads with similar keywords. I think Overture may do the same.
As much as I would be bothered by this if it were to happen, I think the intent its to have the advertiser review the ad for effectiveness.
All in all, I can't find much fault in Google given the traffic and, more importantly, the conversions they bring us.
Bob
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If they have to stop your ad because of typos or other mistakes in your ad after 2 tries they will charge you $5.00. Now your keywords will be slowed or deleted due to poor performance but there are no charges involved with this. You just lose that keyword until you find a way to improve your click-thru rate. Normally anything less than 1% is considered bad and your keywords will be slowed or deleted.
Mike