Google Adwords

I have been running Google Adwords for about 8 weeks now. Although my account shows 1.1 million impressions, and about 2000 clicks, I haven't actually noticed any increase in sales. Thus far, the campaign has cost me about $840. I am not convinced it has been worthwhile. 90% of my ad showings have been through the "Content Network", so I don't have any stats on the majority of my advertising.

What are you experiences with Google Adwords? Are there bots clicking the links?

I never click on google ads, even if they look interesting. I've become immune to them.

That's not the point. I only get charged for clicks. 2000 people clicked on my ad. I just don't see that translating into sales.

I ran the adsense side of things on a site for quite a while until one day Google cancelled my account for invalid clicks. They kept a few hundered dollars owed to me and would not give me any proof of why they cancelled my account. So I have no faith in them.

Yes, I think there are certain situations, perhaps bots where links are clicked, hence my accout being disabled. I did some research after my account was disabled without reason and there are heaps of people who have had the same thing happen to them.

On your side of things, if you've had 2000 new visitors to your site via your campaign, spent $840 and not noticed any increases in sales then I'd take that as a waste of money and stop right now before you head into the thousands of dollars.

you could try setting up google analytics (free), this will help identify where people are going when they enter your site , and thus where your site may be going wrong.

Well Adwords is only as good as the words you pick and the price you bid. If you bid too high - or too low - or if you're competing on the wrong keywords, it won't work for you. Adwords is one of those things you need to watch, monitor, play with, tweak all the time. You can't just fire and forget and wonder if it'll work. Well you can, but you might be disappointed with the results.

Which is precisely the reason I stopped after maybe 200 bucks spent with little or no benefit. It was too much work. If you're not keen on putting in the work ( and another thread I just read around here suggests you're trying to minimize the day-to-day business stuff to concentrate on development ) it's probably not for you.

Perhaps some more site-specific banner ads instead?

Google has ads?

I agree, it's a rip-off. If 1% of the clicks had translated into sales, it would have been worthwhile. I don't see how anyone else can afford this if less than 1% of their clickthroughs will make any money.

I think it's reasonable to predict that 1% of visits will translate into a sale, so I suspect that all this "traffic" is just bots, or maybe Google is just charging for visitors that don't exist.

I think you were just joking, but in any case:

http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour

@Leadwerks: I think the problem might with Adwords might simply be targeting - what Glimmer there said.

Have you checked AdBrite? There's plenty of crap sites out there.... but if you can find the right places I'm sure you can convert these into sales.

Leadwerks: I've played around with adwords a little myself with similar results to yourself. I was mucking around abit with some affiliate programs, but no joy. My ads were costing me more than I would return If I did get a sale. Anyways I ended up spending $2.50 on a traffic exhange site on an ad to 5000 ppl, and 'viola', yep I got one sale ($35). You would think being in the first page of google in the top 5 with that kind of exposure and with hundreds of clicks, and in your case 2000 clicks? you would make at least one sale. Seems suss to me, and that's why I left adwords alone.

You spend $840 on advertising and get 2000 clicks (people who want to click on your ad, becuase they are interested in your ad and get no sale)

I spend $2.50 on one ad and get 4-5000 clicks from people who couldn't care less about my ad, and half of them are probably bots anyway and BAM, one sale. Dosen't seem right does it.

Anyways, in the future any money making things I do will be from either ebay or setting up my own website from scratch. I think google is dodgy as with that.

Adsense for selling software is not a perfect idea, actually most ppl buy softwares are really in need...

And they'll search for alternatives if possible.

I use adwords for over 3 years now and not only me but 2 of my customers; it is working well for the 3 of us. our return is approximatly 1 sell every 200/300 clicks.
I believe it depend on the product you are selling. I also believe Adwords should be use only where your potential customers are in mass! I mean: lock it to a few words, lock it to north America, lock it to main search engine...ect ect..
this would result in less clicks, cheaper, and better ratio.
But I am going to stop here to avoid sarcastic replies.... ^^
cheers

Nope OverDozing has the right idea, adwords were good when we were selliong embroidery... now too many people doing same. No good now. had to limit areas further and further... paying more than made. had to get real job. :(

I analyzed the server logs...there were only a few repeating IP addresses, and there weren't any IP addresses that just clicked on the link and didn't look at several other pages, too.

There's a big difference though from clicking on an advertisement, to buying a product.
I've sometimes clicked on an advert by mistake, or clicked on one and not liked what I've seen. You're probably better off trying to get free weblinks or word of mouth advertisements for free than relying on paying through google.