Google Adwords Strategy

I haven’t really written an article on how I’ve been dealing with Google lately, and PPC ad networks in general. My progression of where I advertise has been pretty simple :

Four Months Ago –
70% Facebook / 30% Google
Two Months Ago – 40% Facebook / 60% Google
Two Weeks Ago – 0% Facebook / 100% Google

Now looking back already, the biggest mistake was relying 100% on Google…and I’m feeling it via slappage.

Now my experiences with Google in these past four months? They’ve slapped more and more, and faster and faster. How have my strategies changed?

Early Strategy : 3 Accounts, Lots of Campaigns in Each, Use Redirect Trick

I had 3 accounts that I’d make 5 campaigns in and use the redirect trick (make your ad so the display URL and destination URL is Geico.com, they scrape Geico to determine your QS, then set the individual keyword destination URL to your landing page. this gets any site through and gives it a good quality score).

It took Google maybe a week before they’d catch on and slap everything. Matt would then just make 5 more campaigns in each account and repeat and wait a week.

Eventually they stopped sending a lot of initial traffic to the campaigns and slapped them right away.

Mid-Way Strategy : Mass Accounts, 1 Campaign Per Account, No Redirect Trick

The redirect trick was getting snuffed out right away so we ditched that and went onto mass account building. Matt made 20 accounts in a day and added campaigns to all of them. We linked right to the site as well. I think because we didn’t use the redirect trick, none of the campaigns got any traffic. I think five of the accounts spent $100 or so, and the rest didn’t do anything.

We ditched that and are moving back to…

Late Strategy : Single Account Rotation with Mass Campaigns, Redirect Back

Now we’re going to use 1 account. Make 10 or so campaigns in that with the redirect trick and see if they all get traffic. Once it gets a burst and gets slapped, we rotate the account out and use a new account and make 10 campaigns in that. Rinse and repeat.

This clearly isn’t the textbook way to use Google and it’s not anything that’s going to generate a long-term profit, but we’re making money on it now and that’s what matters to me. As long as I can keep finding ways to make a lot of money fast, 1-2 good years is all I need.

Anywho, just wanted to openly share exactly how I’m promoting things right now.

I’m planning on getting back into Facebook, MAYBE Myspace, and definitely media buys.

Happy April Fools Day ya’ll.


4 Comments

  1. June 26, 2010

    Another facet to consider is that maybe the low conversion rates aren’t due to the keywords used. It could simply be a poorly constructed ad. Re-think and re-tool the copywriting on your landing page. Or, maybe the issue lies with your page layout. Maybe a certain link on your landing page is stealing your traffic, so instead of buying from you, your traffic is getting distracted by another deal.

  2. July 22, 2010

    Nice progress you’ve made, very interesting!

  3. January 21, 2011

    Being dependend on one source is never a good idea

  4. February 5, 2012

    Never depend on google!

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