Hi Gino,

that's a question that I have a fair amount of data on from across several sectors over the last five years. And the short answer is yes.

The long answer is that some sectors are tougher than others. But true ROI happens after Adwords have done their job. If you are getting clicks then Adwords has done its job. To convert that to revenue means the landing page and sales process must do its job. That's where my clients and I spend most of our time before we even look at Adwords.

Your follow up question is also relevant. I have always been amazed at how many more people click the ads before the organic. Maybe because I don't tend to.

But the difference with the ad and the organic is that the ads are far more agile when testing. You can test any number of ads simultaneously and discard poor performers quickly.

In short, make sure your landing pages convert prospects to clients before using Adwords. Otherwise you'll burn through a lot of money figuring it out.

Hop this helps.

Graham

Hi,

Didn't work for me. What happened was:

Job requests

'Column fodder' - Companies wanting quotes but already decided on their chosen supplier and often quite unethical

Cost driven - never a happy place to play in

No issue with the service provider - worked hard and professional but they all confuse ranking in Google with sales. For some businesses this is the case but not for mine - corporate video production.

A business needs to assess its fundamentals. I always have a personal relationship with my buyers and this means impersonal IT searches are not the best way to start that relationship. For other businesses eg Winnings with white goods the Google ranking is critical to their competitive position.

The internet is not the answer to all questions.

Cheers,

Stephen

My experience is not as wide as Jayson's, but I would agree with his basic point as I understand it - most Adwords accounts do not deliver ROI because they are not set up and managed properly.

One of my clients had Adwords set up by another agency.  The goal of their site is to generate leads.  There are 4 lead generation mechanisms on the site - only one of these had a goal set up, and it was incorrectly configured.  There was an Adwords campaign targeted specifically at mobile devices, yet the site was not optimised for mobile, and 80% plus of mobile visitors bounced right off again without clicking on anything.  I could go on but I won't...

I do not claim to be an Adwords expert but these are my 'from experience' pointers:

1. Are you offering something people would search for?  Can you make a good guess what they might enter in the search engine?  If yes, give it a go - on a small budget so you don't blow a fortune.

2. Do you have a decent page for when people click through?  Include a 'half-way house' option like a newsletter or download to get contact details if they’re not ready to jump right in.

3. Make sure you have goals set up which you can track.  Install Google Analytics.  Have a 'thank you' page when people submit a form and track the number of times that page is viewed.

4. Make sure you understand match types.  (https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497836?hl=en-AU).  Try 2-3 word keywords on phrase match as a good starting point.  Alternatively, if the order of words might switch around ('candle making' vs 'making candles') try broad modified match.

5. Make sure you consider some basic negative match keywords - ie you don't want your ad to show when someone's search includes this term.  Common examples are here http://www.whitespark.ca/blog/post/5-must-have-negative-keywords-for-small-business-local-adwords-campaigns

6. Track your bounce rates – ie when someone clicks on your ad, looks at your site and leaves.  If it’s high, then you need to fix a) the keyword or b) the ad or c) the page people land on.

7. Take any info and advice from Google with a pinch of salt.  They make money every time someone clicks, not every time you get a lead / sale.  (Why do you think they suggest you start off with 'broad match' keywords???)

8. In Google Analytics, you get reports on what people actually typed in when they were searching, both paid and organic search.  Use these.  Look for high bounce rates – what can you add as a negative keyword?  Look for high conversion rates - is there a new keyword you should add?  Or a keyword you should give extra budget to?

Gino,

Hasn't worked for me, zero ROI, for a variety of reasons (eg, Google struggles with the difference between a noun and a verb, not good for revolutionary products or services, so-called "online marketing guru's/charlatans" think a lower cost-per-click rate is better ROI than making a sale).

Jon

Hi Gino,

If Adwords is well segmented, integrated with website conversion etc.. the success rate and ROI is very high.. only exceptions is industries where cost per click is too high compared to the net margin a client is making from sales

The popular thinking 5 years ago, was that 80% of people clicked on organic listings.. however, with the growth of mobile, site links, product listing ads means  the % of google paid traffic has grown exponentially the past 2-3 years...

Every website trying to grow sales should be investing on both SEO and Adwords... the % and $ allocation varies from business to business.  My 2 cents

Based on my experience across some 500-1000 adwords accounts in many industries, I would suggest that at least 75% of the adwords accounts I've seen (either self managed or with other adwords agencies) don't make money.  Most common reasons would include: Not having basic tracking in place,    Business owners that say - I just need to be in the top of Google,    Delegating the task to the office junior to look after the adwords account   Poor quality online marketing companies - that lack expertise to fully understand & service your business      What sort of returns would an advertiser expect to get if they recorded video via an iphone and put together a TV commercial in their spare time, then posted it in prime time TV advertising slots.  They would be disappointed no doubt, as well.  Google adwords is the only method on Google, that provides advertisers the ability to target exact search terms, with specific ad copy and direct users to nominated pages. Even better, you decide what you are willing to pay to be on the front page of google in 1 minute.  Those that understand it should make money in majority of industries.  Particularly if you are not paying a management fee, that does change the landscape sometimes with smaller advertisers & in some niche markets.   Areas to avoid for Google adwords: ecommerce - low margin products, poor quality adwords management companies & high CPC markets with low margins.   To answer your second question:   It does not matter if buyers click on adwords or organic.  It matters that you can effectively measure that all of your marketing activities are delivering positive ROI. Whilst I've seen instances when ranking #1 in organic and #1 in adwords you can gain as much as 60% of the market.  This would (for sure) attract most buyers.   CTR's would suggest that top organic rankings still outperform top adwords rankings.  But given all the panda & penguin updates, businesses have lack of certainty have with shrinking organic rankings (above the fold).  This will continue as the days that SEO dominated google search volume will become a distant memory.  Google will continues to push towards a paid model, to keep their share holders happy. If an adwords account is complimented with web experience designed to maximise prospect engagement you should be attracting potential buyers profitably.  This ideally should be well above organic traffic conversion rates.

Interesting discussion here and some great take aways. @Steve Gray @Gino Lancaster @Stephen Pearson @Ewan Watt @Jayson Rodda @Bridget Holland Thanks for the contribution.

We expect to see a great reduction in the cost per lead for our customer. We took over an account recently that was set up by a competent agency before us. Although it was very robust no decisions had been made on the numerous split tests. Making a decision on split tests we find is a common mistake. Lots of agencies set up split tests but forget to declare a winner. 

Kind regards
Scott Shorter - https://www.scottshorter.com.au/services/sem-internet-advertising/adwords-management-consultants/

@Hatty Bell 

Yes this is often true. I'm sure everyone who has ever setup a split test is probably guilty of it to some extent. 
As soon as you have a good statistical significance you should make a decision to get the benefit of it!

Kind regards
Scott Shorter