Google Ads - Worth It?

Anoua

Anoua

Senior Member
Does anyone have any experience with using Google Ads for advertising? I have some ad credit (as in pay 50 and will credit you 50) and thought about trying it out but wanted to see if anyone else had any experience with them and if they felt like it made any noticeable difference or if people actually clicked and signed up for there games with them? 

I have not really used or paid for any advertising before so don't have anything to compare it with, but since I have the credit thought I might utilize them to advertise Eliyo some.

 
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Adsense is Google's program for you to serve ads ON your site, not to advertise your site. (I do have experience with this as well.)

Google Ads is for you to advertise, and I've done it a really long time ago and didn't get a whole lot out of it, but their advertising methods have changed a lot in recent years. It's worth a shot! Ultimately $50 isn't a whole lot to spend on an ad campaign, but you can do it and see where it gets you! For whatever it's worth, I haven't had a lot of luck with any type of online advertising - between ad-blockers and people training themselves to ignore them (when was the last time you actually paid attention to a banner ad, let alone actually followed it?), the return on investment is pretty low in my experience.

 
I actually used to work for Google doing just this. 
The thing is, you get out of it what you put into it. If you don't have any experience in SEO, I'd suggest looking into it before you start. I'd also suggest NOT going to Google for help. The people there are paid on commission, and they'll want your ad money gone asap rather than waiting for the best results (or at least, that's what we were taught to do when I was there). 

A few tips I could give are;

  • look into the cost of your keywords. More isn't always better with Google's algorithms. Use keywords only that are directly relevant. Otherwise, you're wasting money. For example, "petsite" might be good, but "pet" and "site" won't be. 
  • Have a landing page set up that has as much information on it as possible. The more people have to click, the less likely they are to be engaged with the site, and the faster they leave. Google times this, if they leave your site quickly, your rating within goes down and you lose holding both on Google Search and within Google Ads. 
  • Target your demographic. Use the age and location options. You don't want to be pitching your petsite to 90-year-olds, you know? They're less likely to want to play. Likewise, you might not want to target 13-year-olds because they have less money to spend (though their parents do). Think about it from a financial viewpoint.
  • Finally, spend more than the credit. Those credits are just a way to get you into Google's contact pool. They're not enough money to really get a business much more traction. 
  • EDIT: Another suggestion! Throw grammar to the wind when it comes to capitalization. The formatting of an ad means so much. 
    If you want this: "Check out Petsite! It's awesome."
    Do this: Check Out Petsite! It's Awesome." (every first letter is capital). 

    Sounds stupid, but it works.
 
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@TonyWatkinsArt It's nice to hear from someone who has some inside experience with google. I do have a question though, you say you have to spend more than the credit, it's not enough money to get traction. How much do you need to spend for it to be worth it? I didn't even list how much the credit is, which actually it's just matching credit anyway, and it's up to $150 dollars. Meaning $300 worth of ads.

I mean spending $150 dollars you really need to see some type of return for it to even be worth it anyway. And really if you can't see return on $50 (100 dollars of ad credit) why would spending more bring you a return in that case? Mathematically I am just not seeing it. 

I think my time and resources are better spent getting some feature updates done right now anyway, but would still like to know more for the future when I feel like it's more ready. Though if the return is so low that you have a spend a ton for it to even make a difference, seems like my money is better spent on more resources anyway.

 
@anoua

I agree with you. If you're spending $50, why spend more if that didn't work? It's honestly a huge part of why I left that job. 
The thought process was "show them how many clicks they're getting, even if they're not engaged clicks". $50, for example, could get you clicks, but they might not be engaging clicks.

As far as what to spend, it really depends on what you're looking to achieve, your target market, and the keywords you're choosing. Some keywords cost significantly more than others, so you'll blow through your money faster, but you'll get better results. 

I know it's not at all relevant, but a great example is "mesothelioma". It's very rarely rivaled as the most expensive word in Google ads. Why? Because people look for "mesothelioma" very rarely, and when they do, they're generally looking for a settlement attorney, and those cases are incredibly easy to win. It's a very niche word, so it costs much more ( $320 per click, give or take). 

What I'm trying to say is, look at your keywords, try to figure out what exactly you need. Take that cost and work with it. Remember that not all clicks will generate any kind of return. I'm not sure what the average CTR is for petsites, unfortunately. 

Even being trained "certified" by Google as a company, I still find that word of mouth, affiliation, and niche ads work better when it comes down to it. If you're not a large company, there's not a lot of reason to put money into it, if you ask me.

 
I use both the Adsense to show ads on my site and I've paid to have them run my ads. What I've learned is that the more you pay per click the better your results are and the more targeted they are. The less you pay the more random the results are. Having good keywords helps but it doesn't help as much as higher PPC does. You can also run tracking campaigns to figure out how many people are staying per the keywords and targeting you're using.

As far as showing google ads on my site, I've had a lot of success with that and you can see some of my numbers here: https://jadendreamer.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/why-using-google-adsense-really-does-make-ense/

 
I've been trying to get adsense on my site for years and was inspired to try again after seeing this thread, but have had the same issues of no ads appearing on the site in spite of doing everything right (from what I've read). The site is verified, the code is in the header. Anchor ads appeared for 2 days at one point. Google then suggested adding other ads so I turned some others on to see how it went, but they got in the way of players' activities, so I turned them back off (leaving the anchor ads on) and bam, it's all gone. Been waiting a week and still nothing.  

Has anyone else had trouble getting ads to appear on their site? I've researched this extensively and am still completely baffled as to why I can't get the anchor ads back. 

 
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This thread isn't about Adsense being applied to a site, but about using google ads to advertise. Didn't realize the name was different, but corrected it now. I have not personally ran into issues with ads appearing when using Adsense. But I think it'd make more sense to create a new thread about it, and it might get more attention.

 
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