Some advice (I used to work on large £100,000/month AdWords campaigns):
* Start small, just like the author did. Try to spend as little as possible, either the 1p/click minimum or target the bottom of the page (position 9.9 so you're just "above the fold"). Cap your spend.
* Measure, measure, measure. It's not even worth starting a campaign unless your whole site is being measured in every way possible. Personally I'd recommend tailing the Apache logfiles in real time to start with, rather than relying on an analytics package. You can move to analytics later once you've got the deep understanding from the logfiles. Also, save those logfiles forever.
* Don't rely on Google's tools for choosing keywords etc. They seem designed to waste your money (no surprise there!). Instead, look at the natural and paid search terms people actually use -- by following those logfiles -- and generate your keywords and your negative keywords from there. Be careful with broad-match keywords. We tended to use exact match only.
* Don't use consultants, positioning tools etc. At least, not to start with. They're all expensive and won't be as good as doing it yourself. When you've got the deep understanding, then you can go with 3rd parties if you choose.
It's getting a feel at first for how people visit the site, what obscure search terms are used, where they go. Do the "visits" come from real browsers (are images and JS being loaded)? What bots are coming and can they navigate the site too?
Obviously this is not measurement by itself. At that company I wrote a suite of very detailed measurement tools, and we used commercial JS-based tools too (Nedstat, Urchin). My point though is you need to understand the logs first to even know what the tools are telling you.
It is better not to pre-focus on concrete metrics too early. Better have the mindset of a scientist trying to figure out an unknown phenomenon. Observe, look for patterns, ask the what-if questions, form hypotheses, try to verify them, etc. Not my direct experience, I just once helped a guy who started with this approach and needed some better scripts to gather and analyze more data. This is fun stuff, everybody should try it.
Some good points. I think the author was suggesting that speaking to customers may be more powerful than any adwords campaign. I know the author acknowledges (in other articles) that adwords was a lot easier and cost effective to use than it is now.
How do you go about doing that? Just decide on an amount upfront manually watch the balance? I didn't see any function to cap the total lifetime spend on a campaign or stop it once it hit a certain level.
Yes, although there's a trap here (or used to be, don't know if it's fixed): the spend starts at midnight and goes through to whenever it runs out, so you end up only advertising in the mornings.
All good points of course. But the idea is that when you're trying to do customer development, AdWords is a tool but not the best tool for learning. You can't ask a question, for example.
Great article - I really like the point about scaling;
>> At this point in my company it was far more valuable to land a dozen orders, learn a ton about what my customers really think, how they speak about their own problems and my product, and therefore figure out exactly how to thrill them and sell them. This part doesn’t need to “scale,” it just need to happen. The only way for it to happen is to talk to a lot of people.
Verify that there is a business to scale first. Scaling is one of those good problems to have. It’s also a very different problem than you have at the beginning.
"Verify that there is a business to scale first. Scaling is one of those good problems to have. It’s also a very different problem than you have at the beginning."
I think that your final line sums up the approach nicely. Speaking to your customers will tell you more about their needs and likely help you build a better Adword campaign.
I might be crazy, but I like doing cold calls -- and I'm a "technical" guy.
In my case I believe strongly in what I'm selling and I know there are gaps between the stuff I work on and people's ability to use it -- so I know (i) I've got to understand what those gaps are, (ii) it will take calendar time to make sales.
I've been doing marketing for a while. Mostly for my own businesses. After some painful trial and error I found out that direct marketing is usually the more effective choice for a lot of businesses (including startups).
Adwords might seem direct, but its not. It is marketing at large, and depends heavily on things that are out of our control. Software like ad-blocker makes things worse.
Yet, the do work as a combination with direct marketing. Approach them as you would a radio ad on a small station.
Now, cold calling. There is nothing like selling over the phone. It just works, and repeatedly.
I will always try to work into any campaign some kind of calling program. It allows you to break the ice. People do respond well to it and response ussually raises significantly.
Problem with cold calling and phone marketing is that people approach it wrong. They let the prospect take control of the conversation. They call with just some script and maybe behind a computer.
I don't. I prepare as if going to battle. Everything I might need is close and ready. Pen, notepad, calculator, specs sheet, the actual product, at least 2 scripts, the computer connected to the net with DDG ready to go, etc.
I take command of the call and just set out to conquer. Now, I hardly ever sell a product on the phone anymore, but I sell the appointment which will ussually lead to the sale.
Getting an appointment with everyone you cold-call sounds like you're simply delaying the subject from turning you down. Surely not all of these converted?
Are you creating too wide of a funnel and causing a problem further down the line in lost time pitching to those who you wouldn't let turn you down on the phone?
20 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 70.9 ms ] thread* Start small, just like the author did. Try to spend as little as possible, either the 1p/click minimum or target the bottom of the page (position 9.9 so you're just "above the fold"). Cap your spend.
* Measure, measure, measure. It's not even worth starting a campaign unless your whole site is being measured in every way possible. Personally I'd recommend tailing the Apache logfiles in real time to start with, rather than relying on an analytics package. You can move to analytics later once you've got the deep understanding from the logfiles. Also, save those logfiles forever.
* Don't rely on Google's tools for choosing keywords etc. They seem designed to waste your money (no surprise there!). Instead, look at the natural and paid search terms people actually use -- by following those logfiles -- and generate your keywords and your negative keywords from there. Be careful with broad-match keywords. We tended to use exact match only.
* Don't use consultants, positioning tools etc. At least, not to start with. They're all expensive and won't be as good as doing it yourself. When you've got the deep understanding, then you can go with 3rd parties if you choose.
Obviously this is not measurement by itself. At that company I wrote a suite of very detailed measurement tools, and we used commercial JS-based tools too (Nedstat, Urchin). My point though is you need to understand the logs first to even know what the tools are telling you.
How do you go about doing that? Just decide on an amount upfront manually watch the balance? I didn't see any function to cap the total lifetime spend on a campaign or stop it once it hit a certain level.
* Always choose geographic and language settings properly.
The number of accounts we would review where some (eg.) UK-only business was just throwing away money advertising worldwide ...
Again, Google could provide better tools for targeting adverts, or make the location options clearer, but it is absolutely in their interests not to.
>> At this point in my company it was far more valuable to land a dozen orders, learn a ton about what my customers really think, how they speak about their own problems and my product, and therefore figure out exactly how to thrill them and sell them. This part doesn’t need to “scale,” it just need to happen. The only way for it to happen is to talk to a lot of people.
Verify that there is a business to scale first. Scaling is one of those good problems to have. It’s also a very different problem than you have at the beginning.
I think that your final line sums up the approach nicely. Speaking to your customers will tell you more about their needs and likely help you build a better Adword campaign.
In my case I believe strongly in what I'm selling and I know there are gaps between the stuff I work on and people's ability to use it -- so I know (i) I've got to understand what those gaps are, (ii) it will take calendar time to make sales.
Adwords might seem direct, but its not. It is marketing at large, and depends heavily on things that are out of our control. Software like ad-blocker makes things worse.
Yet, the do work as a combination with direct marketing. Approach them as you would a radio ad on a small station.
Now, cold calling. There is nothing like selling over the phone. It just works, and repeatedly. I will always try to work into any campaign some kind of calling program. It allows you to break the ice. People do respond well to it and response ussually raises significantly.
Problem with cold calling and phone marketing is that people approach it wrong. They let the prospect take control of the conversation. They call with just some script and maybe behind a computer.
I don't. I prepare as if going to battle. Everything I might need is close and ready. Pen, notepad, calculator, specs sheet, the actual product, at least 2 scripts, the computer connected to the net with DDG ready to go, etc.
I take command of the call and just set out to conquer. Now, I hardly ever sell a product on the phone anymore, but I sell the appointment which will ussually lead to the sale.
Are you creating too wide of a funnel and causing a problem further down the line in lost time pitching to those who you wouldn't let turn you down on the phone?
TL;DR did you over-optimize your cold-call?