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1st Google ads campaign: $206 spent. Our expensive lesson

excited and enthused we launched WellyBox 1st Google ads campaign.

The numbers

$50 per day
4.5 days running and stoped
1.36K impressions
50 clicks
CPC $4.12
5 conversions (new users - trial period)

What did we learn?

set up your tracking pixel right!
1st of all, our tracking pixel was not working. We know about the conversion due to our inside system, so for Google, we have no conversions.

Improve your Quality Score (QS)!
After 4 days our QS was 1/10 in every parameter and keyword. How? we asked Google. This is what Alexander from Google told us:
Target only 1 country per campaign (We were targeting most English speakers countries - US,UK,AU,CA etc.)
Add negative keywords.
add more ads (we had only 2).
make responsive ads.

What's next?

So now we are optimizing the campaign while fixing the tracking pixel.
We paid $41.5 per user, which is way more than we want to pay - we are basically losing money right now. BUT, it's gonna change soon!..... hopefully:)
To be continued...

  1. 3

    when you build up a campaign , start with enhanced cpc , don't let google spend your money with other bidding strategies
    set a max bid of around 1 usd see what happens and on what keywords the volume is
    experiment with advertising Copy

    next setup conversion tracking to measure conversions of people singing up
    once that is done, you can start thinking of letting google automate your campaign with CPA (only on the signup action as a conversion), not sooner. you need at least about 2 weeks worth of conversion data and google ads itself will tell you when its ready by recommending it.

    when this is profitable , at your pricepoint that will not be easy , you can move your conversion to only count people having payed for example, but as that volume of people will be a lot lower , you will need bigger budgets to make that possible

    good luck

    1. 1

      Thanks for the advice:)

  2. 2

    It will change soon for sure. That CPC is too high. You need to remove all the catchment terms that are not relevant for your business and bid against some less competitive terms.

    1. 1

      Actually, we've already optimized and now it's indeed lower.

  3. 2

    Interesting. Who is your target audience?

    1. 1

      Mostly freelancers and small business. Also can be bookkeepers and accountants.
      Our 1st campaign was around the word - track receipts. sooner we will add some more phrases.

  4. 2

    Thanks for this information, I am considering the paid ads options for our launch and it seems quite an art.

    1. 1

      It is. We are learning it as we speak! So if you have any questions feel free to ask:)

      1. 2

        I would be interested in knowing your experience and comparison with other paid advertising, such as Reddit and Facebook if you have used them. I really like the clear and succinct way you have presented this.

        1. 1

          Thanks! We are advertising on Facebook. haven't tried Reddit yet. Facebook works fine for us, but I really want to collect some data and compare between the 2. Have you tried Reddit ads?

          1. 2

            Thanks for the reply @DorSharon123 . Reddit not yet, it was something I set up an account for, my thinking being that subreddits are very targeted. However I have seen one YouTuber saying that they did a trial with $250 and they had no results. Then again several people saying that it is a 'powerful' tool. It is known that Redditors have a distain for for advertising so curious to hear any positive anecdotes. I expect it works for some products but not others.
            We are thinking to use facebook too. I was also interested in your comments about Quora being a good free channel. Our product, Habit Daemon, would have a natural fit for when people are making New Year's Resolutions, so we plan to have an MVP on the App Store and a marketing push then. I'll post here if we have any significant results.

            1. 1

              Sounds like you have a great plan.

  5. 2

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      Thanks for the advice. We are trying to optimize it right now, creating a new landing page and target by countries. We didn't add a broad match but still google sent users to our ads with wrong keywords sometimes. Do you know how can it be?

      1. 2

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

        1. 1

          Thanks! Join the group https://www.indiehackers.com/group/ppc
          you can contribute a lot here

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