You already know that it’s easy to lose money on Google AdWords, yet I’m amazed by how many accounts I see that are not only losing money on an ongoing basis, but the account holders don’t even realise it.
When I walk them through how they’re losing money and demonstrate by how much, they’re sometimes/usually/often horrified and quickly make the required changes.
Chances are that some, many or even most of your competition are wasting money through their AdWords accounts. And that’s not good for you.
The only thing worse than a competitor wasting money is a competitor who doesn’t even know that they’re wasting money.
When your competition are happy to pay $5 per click and you’re only paying $1 per click, who do you think Google will favour?
Actually I take back when I said the only thing worse is a competitor who doesn’t know they’re wasting money.
There is one thing even worse.
COMPETITION WHO DON’T CARE.
When a small company invests their hard-earned cash in AdWords, the person handling the account will usually go to great lengths to keep waste down to a minimum. Let’s call him Andy.
Andy knows that every dollar counts, in fact some (or even all) of the AdWords spend comes from his own pocket.
Andy is keen to make more money, and so enjoys the challenge of learning how to work AdWords to his advantage.
When a not-so-small company invests in AdWords, they usually have a person or persons who are responsible for marketing, one of whom gets lumbered with the task of handling the AdWords account. Let’s call him Bob.
Bob has no real experience in this area, and probably doesn’t have time to develop his skills. As well as the AdWords account, Bob has a pretty hefty workload.
The result is that Bob does the bare minimum to keep the account jogging along, so Bob makes good use of Google’s many defaults and automatic features that make life easier for him.
Ouch.
Another not-so-small company also has a person or persons responsible for marketing, one of whom gets lumbered with the task of handling the AdWords account. Let’s call him Dick.
Dick hasn’t got a clue about AdWords, and Dick isn’t the sort of person to take his new responsibility seriously.
He has a lot of other work to deal with each day, and this is the last thing he wants.
But Dick can’t say no to his boss, and so is more or less forced to spend the minimum amount of time handling the account. Dick is very much a minimum amount sort of guy.
Dick’s ads are at best mediocre, his keyword matches and targeting are all based on Google’s defaults (ouch), and Dick’s bids are too high, but you know what?
Dick doesn’t care if the account loses money.
Learning AdWords is an unpleasant and tedious experience, and he’s not getting paid any more for this extra work.
Dick’s even admitted to some of his friends that he hopes the account does lose money, so that he can get back to doing whatever he was doing before. Probably very little.
Dick gets half of his wish – the account does lose money. But no-one in Dick’s company seems to notice or care.
They’re only spending $1,500 a week, so it’s good branding, right? After all what’s $1,500 a week? (Hint: it’s almost $80,000 a year)
You might assume that the more Dicks work for your competition the better, but in the case of AdWords you’d be wrong.
And there are too many Dicks handling AdWords accounts.
The question is what can you do about it?
The answer: watch this space for part two.
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