Google Adwords

[Tom]

Adwords are the converse of Adsense: you pay for Adwords and you profit from Adsense. Here is an intelligent post from the owner of an Agrotourism business in Italy who has spent $18,000 and is Disenchanged with Adwords (http://www.searchguild.com/tpage2254-0.html). To me, it is amazing that the owner of what one would think to be a modestly sized enterprise should have spent so much money on an Adwords campaign.

But here is a small advertisers report of the success from her Adwords campaign (http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=933). It is clear that advertisers need to keep thinking and keep experimenting if they are to profit from the Adwords system.

[David]

Very interesting points of view. I think that if I were spending $18,000 on advertising with AdWords, I might start low and experiment (as Cate did in your second link). There is obviously a concern about the accuracy of Google's stats and that clause in their agreement may put people off in the future. It's a bit difficult to tell on the basis of just 2 stories but it seems to me that as with all things on the web, you need to be cautious and experiment before committing large wads of cash.

As for AdSense, I can't praise it too highly - it has just made owning a busy website wothwhile for me. :)

[Tom]

Herewith some more user reports on Adwords: a marketing man (http://www.marketingprinciples.com/casestudies.asp?cat=458) thinks Adwords works well -providing you do your research. Google give keyword advice to customers who pay $10,000/month for Adwords (http://www.marketingprinciples.com/casestudies.asp?cat=458). Google explain this Premium Service (http://www.google.com/ads/overview.html).

I agree with David about experimentation and once read a fascinating book about catalogue marketing. The author saw it as an on-going experiment. It looks as though we all get the same catalogue (eg from Innovations) but in fact the whole thing is an experiment with different products for different areas and different page layouts. Its a pity that Google don't release the type of information (eg which pages are generating the most clicks) though would allow Adsense publishers to do this type of thing. I guess it will happen sometime.