Easy-Pickings via Adwords

[SamSites]

How much would you judge it would cost to be at the top of the page for a otherwise ad-less search result on google? Would you vary it by exact searchs per month?

As a example, I often see keywords with very high CPC - as much as £20 - as the average - but with long tail keywords which are nearly as relevant which have no ad's showing or estimated CPC.

If you bid 10p - could you come up first? How about 20p? Does it vary by the exact searchs like I said above? or related terms? please shed some light on this for me! :/

 

[peacock]

Sounds strange as most people bidding on the exact main keyword will also have broad and phrase match adgroups.

Google cares as much / perhaps more about CTR than CPC bid... So the question to ask yourself is would your ad get a good click through rate?

 

[eddieb]

If you go for something like m&s (marks & spencers) there are no adwords. When I first started out I wanted to see if people searching for a popular term may be tempted to stray onto another site so I used adwords with 'm&s', got to no.1 easily at a cost of 10 - 15 p per click but got no clicks.
Cost me nothing but proved a point to me, no use trying to piggy-back on a big brand just because it is cheap to do so.

 

[dazc]

I used to get ads for 1p a click on alcohol terms when you were not allowed to use certain words (even though you could bid on them) in the ad just by using a bit of imagination.
I made about £20 a day for a few months at a cost of a few pence but eventually the merchant copied my ads and kept out bidding me to the point where it wasn't worth it anymore.

I haven't found another instance where you can get ads at a penny a go but I'm sure they are there somewhere.

Also very few merchants will allow you to send direct traffic anymore so it is even harder to make money - unless you are in a closed group.

 

[David]

Not sure what volume the search query has but it's worth noting that Google often doesn't display ads for queries with low volume.

http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=118604

If you manage to get your ad displayed the CPC will depend on your quality score. Follow the below guide on QS and you can't go wrong. Technical as it may be for a newbie (assuming you are) adwords is pretty black & white and their suport section offers a great deal of insight.

http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2454010

 

[GotLiveChat]

Not sure what volume the search query has but it's worth noting that Google often doesn't display ads for queries with low volume.
...

Yes, which can be quite frustrating since there are many keywords that get decent traffic, but ads won't show for them. And sometimes, even if ads do so, Quality Score often 'tanks' on them which affects the whole campaign.

 

[TinkyWinky]

Given concerns over G's dropping CPC rates it woudl not suprise me if the TQ score system was revised down a bit in coming months and quarters. They got to keep the instituionals happy some how and they can't do it via divi's.

 

[dashu1]

I had one instance a few years back where I was the only advertiser on adwords for a specific keyword, and related terms.

Started at about 4p, gradually started going up, went up to 8p, went to 10p, went to 20oddp, went to 50p, and about a week later they wanted over £1 per click.

I was under the impression it was a bid based system, so how the hell it went from 4p to £1odd with only me advertising I'll never know, but it made the website I had go from being highly lucrative to not even breaking even.

I could have cried 1 month where my turnover jumped from around £3000 per month to almost exactly £6000, and adwords costs shot up to £4500.

I made £1500 from my endeavours, Google made 3 times as much.

So I stopped using them.

Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg.