How to get 1c clicks using Google Adwords  

How to get 1c clicks using Google Adwords  

Article by William Bakhos

Using Google Adwords is a fantastic way to drive traffic through effective contextual ads. Unfortunately for many industries it has become extremely expensive. We all dread that pink pastel colored warning box at the top of the screen and that classic “Bid is below first page bid estimate of A.653. Who is crazy enough to pay .65 to get on the front page? You must have either been selling something that has a crazy conversion rate or was lulled into using Google Optimization strategies to be paying a click!

(Quickly just on that, what Google’s Adwords optimizations strategy really does is take all your money quickly and gets you 10-12 visitors for your bucks worth. Don’t bother with it.)

Now before I go on any further, I’m assuming you know a small bit about Google Adwords, not a lot just the basics. If you don’t there is so much info out there on it you’ll figure it out within 3 minutes. Don’t buy anything, all the info you need is free so don’t get sucked in. The best resource would be Google’s own info regarding Adwords or simply just try it yourself and dive in.So if your in an extremely competitive market what can you do? You don’t want to be paying a click do you? But you don’t want to be on the second to last page either. I personally had this problem with a games business I run. When I tried to promote free games on Google Adsense i’d have to pay at least .50 to be on the front page. Now don’t reckon that means you’ll be in a excellent position on the front page, we are talking .50 to be on the bottom of the ladder of the front page. To be at the top your probably looking at double that, probably more.

Then I learned a way to manipulate my listing so I could get traffic for much less than that. I went down to 20c a click then to 10c. Then down to 5c. Then ultimately down to 1c! I was getting targeted traffic to my site for 1c per click! How did I do this? I skipped the search side of Adwords and focused on the content network side.

You only ever hear of 2 things when it comes to Google advertising, Adsense and Adwords. Many people fail to know that they really go hand in hand. Too many online marketers separate the two and use Adwords in their search marketing and place Adsense on their site to generate revenue. Adsense is nothing more than other people’s Adwords campaigns that have come up in the content network. Let’s take the facts. Adsense revenues on average are steadily declining. 4 – 5 yrs ago Adsense clicks were much more valuable and it was not uncommon to see sites getting 30+ dollars eCPM (effective cost per thousand – ie how much money you’ll probably make per thousand impressions). Today, with the exception of some competitive niches, such a figure is unheard of. What does this mean? It means the costs to get in other people’s Adsense ads, ie the content network, is now much cheaper. People are making less money through Adsense which boils down to the ads on their content pages costing less. This is in comparison with search engine marketing which is now more expensive for excellent keywords.

Using an example of mine when promoting an online gaming site, I paid on average 28c per click on the search network and 1c per click on the content network. I got over 24,500 people for 8 using the content network. To get this from the search network I calculated that I would need to pay nearly 00!! I don’t know about you but that’s a serious bargain!

How do I get on the content network? Simple. All you need to do go to “Edit Campaign Settings” in your campaign summary page and make sure that the content network is clicked in the Networks and biddings section. Here you can also choose to disable search marketing which will make Google focus on delivering your ads in the content network. Now you should be placed in the content network.

Even better, there are not even more advanced options where you can tell Google what sites you want to be showed on. This is brilliant as you can simply find the site’s that your target market most likely visits and question for your ads to be shown on them. This is fantastic for slightly off-topic ads such running a promotion for an online business opportunity and putting it on job search site. This is really simple to do as well (as with most things with Google!). Click on the campaign summary and then click on the ‘ad-group’ you have made. You will see four tabs on the right hand side of the screen. These say Summary, Keywords, Placements and Ad Variations. Now click on the ‘Placements’ tab and there should be a button that says “Find and Add Placements”. Click this then I would recommend you choose the “Describe Topics” tool and do a search for your desired target topic. Then select the sites you want to have in advertise in! You will need to go back and edit your campaign settings (previous paragraph) so you can change the content network targeting to “Relevant pages only on the placements I target”. And that’s it.

Sounds a small long winded when you write out the steps, but it’s dead simple. Hopefully now you will be able to work your way around those expensive keywords and yet still place your ads in a contextual environment. The key is to test it out. Don’t go straight down to 1c. Try 20c, then 10c and so on until you reach a point where you are paying the least you can before your traffic starts dropping off. I was lucky to go down to 1c but your niche may be different. Of course by using the content network you may not have the direct targeting of certain keywords but then again, who has that budget?

About the Author

William Bakhos is a 26 year ancient entrepreneur who has founded and built four start ups. His knowledge in the online world as well as the offline makes him a fantastic resource for any budding entrepreneur or anyone trying to break free from the traditional. To learn more visit his site at http://www.williambakhos.com

Tags: AdWords  , clicks, Google, Using

Posted in Google Adwords