Google Adwords

[just chippen away]

Does anyone use Google Adwords? also how deep is you knowledge of Adwords?
I am wondering if we can get something going by helping each other to get the best use of it to work for us.
Key words, daily budget, or what ever we can come up with...

I try to keep track were my customers here about me, I see clicks and had a good size bill on Google but and not sure if it was from the clicks. All I know I am charged for clicks.

Just wondering if anyone has a better in site on Adwords.

[Frank EU]

Yes, we indeed did use AdWords. And I would say: we used it big time. For some 18 months. So one could say that we know how it works.
There were months where we ended up paying $2000 per month, that was insane -so we stopped doing it.

You know, the problem with AdWord-like advertizing programs is that it can easily become a rat race, where the deep pockets win the match.
And here's why: when AdWords experiences higher (better for them) prices, for the same ad-location, the minimum price per exposed ad goes up, sometimes it goes up dramatically. We just don't want to be part of that greedy game and decided to stop using AdWords. Since we are a Repair Only vendor, we not only clearly used Repair Only, but added also No Replacement and No Glass Sold, so we already made that clear in our ad, unfortunately we still got silly people calling us for replacements. Can't they read or what? And we REFUSE to cooperate (thus refer) with replacement companies to make money with refarals, we just don't find that very clean for a Repair Only vendor (repair only is repair only!). And what really annoys me is that people call on our toll free lines, free for them, but we are paying for the call. Despite the clear text in our ads. Do not give me that we have the opportunity to be talking to the callers and educate them, that's fine and indeed I do understand that perfectly, but we are concentrating on fleets only and are not really keen to be doing non-fleet work.

We'd rather invest our monies in other marketing methods. Just my two cents.

[just chippen away]

Frank
I do appreciated your input here. I may even shut down the Google Adwords tonite. If it was pay per job, It would be a good 100% return on my investment. But not being able to track the clicks, It does not look feasible with out braking the bank to hit the pages.

The small adds are as follow:

Windshield Repair "ONLY"
bla bla Windshield Repair
City , ST.
Phone
WWW. Company site. com

also

bla bla Windshield Repair
Windshield Repair "ONLY"
City, ST
Phone
WWW . Company Site . Com


I am just seeing if anything works or not.... I can and will most likely do more on my own like you said and did... Just have to see if it is worth it or not. I am doing other things on line that are free to do and hole to pay off...

Again thanks for your input....

[just chippen away]

I just looked at my add.'s No phones viewable... They would have to click to get the Phone number....

[paulrsf]

I had been using AdWords for the past five years with great success for a retail business that I owned. Recently, I started using AdWords for WSR. Rather than relying heavily on Adwords as we did with our retail business, we use AdWords as another source for generating income. AdWords allows for scheduling ads to appear locally in any market so you don't end up advertising WSR services in New York, when you are in Oakland, CA. The average cost for us per month is very low; about $25. The ads have been generating 2-5 repairs per month, which translates to approximately $70. per repair. The extra revenue and the exposure is well worth the cost of the ads. Google has a terrific tutorial that will help you create an effective ad with the best keywords, a suggested budget, and a variety of online reports that will allow you to see how effective your ad is. By monitoring the reports you can make easy adjustments to your ad that will effect the results. Hope this helps.
Paul