Comments on: When Not To Choose Adwords

By: Shel Horowitz

Shel Horowitz — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:56:40 +0000

Both as the author of a book on ethical marketing (Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First)/founder of the international Business Ethics Pledge (http://www.business-ethics-pledge.org) AND as author of a low-cost marketing manual for authors, Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, I commend you.

Not just in SEO but in any form of marketing, it’s our obligation as the hired experts to steer the client toward those methods that are appropriate to budget, to the client’s personal style, and to the desired outcome.

As for what this client should be doing instead…there are soooo many options! I’d probably do a lot of online networking, joint-venture proposals, book excerpts, and more. Of course, I am saying this without knowing much about the particular situation; when I write a full marketing plan for a book, I spend about three hours on it.

By: Analytics & Adwords Makes Sense » Blog Archive » Marketing Your Product Through Social Media, How?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:29:32 +0000

[...] Your Product Through Social Media, How? Due to the massive response to our last post about when to use adwords, I’ve asked a few friends to put together guest posts that describe how to market a book, or [...]

By: Bob Tell

Bob Tell — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:06:50 +0000

I’ve been advertising my book, “Dementia-Diary,” with adwords on and off for almost 2 years. My campaigns are now on permanent hold. It’s been a financial failure with zero benefits to offset the money down the tubes. I learned the truth of the above articles the hard way. In my opinion, there is no way to make money on most books using Adwords.

By: Sally

Sally — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:29:48 +0000

This was a great post. I found out about it through John Kremer’s newsletter. There has been so much conflicting advice about Google adwords, and I have actually been plotting my very own google adwords campaign – sales page, ad copy and all. I even fought with my husband over the notion of weather to use a squeeze page, so that even if a customer didn’t buy, there would be a likelyhood of at least capturing their email address if they opted in.

After reading this post, I realized that my book, priced at $14.95, would probably not be a good candidate for google ad words. I was drawn in by one of my JV’s claims that she nets approximately 5-$7000/month with google ad words, however, she spends about $3,000 on the adwords themselves. That’s still a profit of $2-5,000/month. I was salivating. But I had to remind myself that she was selling a much higher-priced ticket item price point of $77. So that makes sense that it would be worth it for her.

So… tonight I worked for the last 6 hours starting to put together the beginnings of my very own “back end product” at a higher price point. That is what all the internet guru’s are espousing anyway! The book is a calling card. You write the book to sell the workbook. You write the workbook to sell the home-study course. You write the home-study course to sell the workshop, to sell the seminar to sell the retreat, etc. etc. etc.!!!

Thanks all – this is a fascinating topic!

By: catpickett

catpickett — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:10:01 +0000

DazzlinDonna has a really good point — for some companies, it’s all about brand awareness and not clickthroughs or conversions. That’s why it’s so important to sit down with your client and understand clearly and specifically what their goals are. From there, you can not only determine whether or not AdWords is the way to go, but also perhaps come up with a few other alternatives for them to consider.

I didn’t know about Google Grants either – thanks!

By: admin

admin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:05:44 +0000

Thanks for emphasizing that Donna, the last thing I would want to do would be to detract from the typically under- appreciated brand development value of PPC.

It is so important to develop the long term view with reference to the true value of Adwords. Keyword performance data, brand awareness, measuring user response to messaging, etc.

By: DazzlinDonna

DazzlinDonna — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:49:19 +0000

Definitely good advice, although some might consider the profit loss acceptable in order to gain a bit of brand awareness. Still, when dealing with folks who are not experts, the best thing to do is make sure they really understand everything so they can make an informed decision.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:51:28 +0000

That’s a great point Kyle, I believe there is always an upside when you go out of your way to give good advice. Of course, the person receiving it isn’t always pleased to hear it.

But as you say, in the long term it always pays off.

By: Kyle Wegner

Kyle Wegner — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:33:34 +0000

You absolutely made the correct recommendation here, though I think it was less a matter of ethics and more a matter of good business sense. I do see how an unethical person may have implemented the campaign and ran with it just for personal gain, but in the long run that person is making a bad business decision.

Ethics aside, you may have gained a long term client from this advice. Friendly Lady may not be able to use your services to sell this particular book, or at least not solely with paid search, but she may have other offerings that fit perfectly in the paid search world. Because she knows you give honest, trustworthy advice, you can bet she will turn to you before she goes to another PPC outlet.

It seems to me that the long term gain of giving honest advice will most definitely be more profitable to you in the long run. Or, at least that’s how it would go in a perfect world…

By: admin

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:32:11 +0000

@mrjawright – That’s a good point you’ve got. Sample chapters in pdf might help it get indexed.

Getting it scanned by Google and included in Google Books might help it as well.

@MarkEckenrode – My thought is to find someone good to refer her to that can help her – preferably someone who has contacts and connections in the publishing world. If you have an idea of who I could refer her to that’d be great.