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Ask HN: Is Google Traffic Estimator useful at all?

1 points by pdx ↗ HN
I have been tearing my hair out, trying to find a product niche that I can actually make a living on. Every idea I throw into Google Traffic Estimator, shows me extremely low 'daily clicks', even when I set a Max CPC of something insane, like $500.

Finally, after months of it shooting down every startup idea I had, I decided to do a sanity check.

I used to work for a company that sells a line of shaft encoders for motor position measurement. This company is extremely profitable, employing 30 or so people, brand new building, etc. Almost all of their sales are internet sales.

I told Google keyword to come up with a list of keywords for me, from their website. The list included all the words I would have used, having worked there, I was very familiar with their product line. Plus it found a bunch of other keywords that looked right to me, but that, being only a human, I had forgotten.

I took that list of 100 keywords, and fed it into Traffic Estimator with a Max CPC of $500, so I could see just how much traffic I could buy with those keywords, given an infinite budget. I was informed that I would get 130 daily clicks for those 100 keywords.

Given any reasonable estimate of conversion rate, and given that their average product is less than $200. We know that 130 clicks is laughable. Even with a conversion rate of 14%, which is 1800flowers type of conversion rate, you're still looking at daily revenue of only $3600. That's only $1.3MM a year revenue, which for 30 employees, brand new building, etc., is laughably low. Plus, I'm being extremely generous by saying average sale of $200 and conversion rate of 14%. For my own projects, I feel uncomfortable planning for anything above 4% conversion.

So, this is actually encouraging to me, since even a very successful company, according to Google, shouldn't actually be able to generate sufficient income to survive. That means all those ideas I rejected, can now be re-evaluated, but now that I distrust Traffic Estimator, I am casting around for ways to get my answers.

Google Traffic Estimator seemed like the right tool to do this sort of analysis. Does anybody have any ideas how it failed me, and how I can use it effectively to sort through my ideas and work on the one that stands the greatest chance of success?

6 comments

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adrianmn
Spy on competition with tools like semrush, keywordspy ...

This tools while not 100% accurate will allow you to see what words they are bidding on them and about how much they actually spend.

pdx
Thanks. However, I'm more interested in evaluating a market to see if I want to enter it in the first place.
adrianmn
In this case this tools are even more useful, provided it is not a new niche. With semrush you can see both seo potential and the paid traffic available.

In case you want to test a lander page keep in mind that adwords considers also ad ctr and lander quality score and that can be a reason for you not getting any clicks or very expensive ones.

pdx 

    In case you want to test a lander page keep in mind that 
    adwords considers also ad ctr and lander quality score 
    and that can be a reason for you not getting any clicks 
    or very expensive ones.
Tell me more about this. I have heard something like this before, but it didn't make sense to me for two reasons.

    1) Until recently, traffic estimator worked, even if you 
    were not logged in, which, seemed to negate the idea of 
    them using site quality in their analysis.

    2) Even when logged in, I don't ever actually link my ad-words account to any 
    specific site, and using traffic estimator or keyword 
    tool, I'm never given the opportunity to tell them which 
    site I'm buying ads for, or even which campaign I'm buying 
    ads for.  I have multiple campaigns set up for different 
    sites.  How would it know which campaign/site I'm 
    researching keywords for?
pdx
I just found this

http://searchengineland.com/google-tweaks-keyword-tool-and-t...

    The Traffic Estimator will now be available only to 
    advertisers logged into their AdWords accounts, because 
    it will begin using each account’s performance history 
    to come up with its traffic estimates. The standalone 
    Traffic Estimator is being retired.
If this is true, than it seems to reconcile all points of view. Traffic Estimator gives different information based on past performance of the adwords account, so if you've had unsuccessful campaigns in the past, it assumes you'll be unsuccessful in the future. It does this using the success rate of the account itself, rather than looking at any particular landing page quality, which it can't do, since you're never asked for that information.
adrianmn
to test interest in your product use bing ad center to buy the traffic - cheaper and much easier to setup.

to estimate how big the market and competitors are use the spy tools.