I've run Google Ads for 2 weeks. Is this normal?

It’s your product most likely. Why do we need another finance tracker? Why now? Why is it better than a typical bank tracker? Better than expensify? For B2C ads those ad numbers are not horrible, but you’re likely not converting for the above reasons. Sorry to be harsh, but it’s the truth. Best of luck with things though!

Yeah either.

1. You're doing Google Ads badly. If you've not done serious training then you probably are. There are tonnes of gotcha's nowadays with Google Ads interface and it's a competitive environment. I take over the ads for very big successful saas companies who nail most of their marketing but were doing Google ads very badly still. It's a huge learning curve to work through.

2. Maybe the product landing page is ok but the actual core value proposition just isn't strong. People just don't want it.

3. A mix of both.

I did this blog that could help with the former https://snowballcreations.com/google-ads-guide-for-b2b-tech/

I have done google campaigns for over 2M in budget ,
what type of campaign did you make ? search ? what bit strategy ?

Hey Gabor!

Couple quick thoughts...(some of the techniques that I go back to, from my startup time, where I was spending over 1mm/month in google ads😬 - and still every dollar had to count).

I know it feels like, "I'm burning cash and not getting enough out of it"...but, part of the challenge we all go through at this stage of a campaign, of this size, is that there's not a lot of data to give you any confidence either way. I can't see inside the ad campaign, however, with even 1 single keyword - Google is going to throw as large an audience as they can at you.

• Dive into the campaign and narrow it down as much as you can.

-- Look for adjacent keywords that are not what you had in mind and turn those into "negatives" so that your ads won't show for those terms .

--> For ex: if you were advertising a power washing service, and you found that under the ad groups, they were also serving your ads any time that someone searched for chemicals to use in their own power washer, or husquavarna power washers they could buy at Home Depot - you know you're not going to sell to those people. They are doing your service, themselves. Those terms are just burning cash, hurting your overall scores, etc..negative them out. And you will most like need to do this in waves, every day will produce more terms that triggered your ads, that you don't want.

• With this type of product, you may need to get a little more time in with these people before they trust you and before they are willing to pony up some cash. With that in mind, could you add some kind of free tool on the page that would help them engage and get something of value from you (that also puts them on your email list ideally) -- that way, you're giving before getting, so to speak. It will also give you additional, "Free" chances to sell them later. This is very different than offering to let them use it for free.

--> This could be an example that shows them how they can start saving money, or how much, with their specifics in mind. It could also be some kind of download. People are more and more wary - so, it's gotta be useful. Keep asking, "what could I give them, what do they need, what can I add to this that helps solve a problem I think they have, how can I make them see it?"

• When spending and testing, my rule of thumb is typically to throw 1,000 visitors at a page before I trust the CR%. Again, I realize this is a tall order on a small budget....so, when dealing with small budgets, myself I take the kitchen sink approach early on, (make many changes) and once I get to a marked improvement, I may start looking for ways to peel back so I can see what caused the change. There's no quick answers here, sorry.

• Don't get into their new product "Performance Max Campaigns" - the AI driven product. Until you have good, converting data. All it does is rotate images, copy, headings across various Google owned platforms - YT, Adwords, Maps, Gmail...which sounds like a dream. Problem is, they're not there yet on telling you what worked where. Easy way to burn cash for a new account. Sounds so tempting. Exercise in frustration until you have things humming! Just a word to the wise.

• Clean up spelling mistakes - I just noticed the one, in a headline "Beatufil Themes" - it erodes trust fast. Gives people the impression that it's not solid, it's new, not ready, not sure if they should trust it.

• A suggestion outside of G-Ads...This feels to me like this is the kind of product that needs to be marketed through trusted channels. "Earned traffic", in other words. Can you find a few key, trusted, long-time-audience-building financial bloggers/influencers that you can partner with? You may need to give away a large portion of your $5/mo to make it worth their while, but, the long term value of that could be significant. They'd point their audience to you...I'm thinking sites that feel like ThePennyHoarder.com (but, maybe not them specifically - been around a long time, will have lots of tried and true bread winning partners already).

• When it comes to landing pages. I know we feel like we're pouring so much great stuff into them - it does this and this and this!! And it's like, how could they not sign up? 😆 But, the truth is, the visitor is scanning and often low on attention. You may want to take an approach that is over the top in being clear. make 1 point, with an image or phrase, then let them move further down the page where you make another point...kind of lead them from one thought to the next. Our landing page tools encourage us to pack it in, but the reader just doesn't digest it all.
  --> For example, on your site, it was only on my 3rd read through of the page, that I even noticed the very nice blue button in the top hero area that offered to let me try it for free. Try stretching the page down further, and then sprinkling in 4 more of those CTAs throughout. In between sections.

Also - if this is a new Adwords account - you're going to start getting calls from internal support team members, run my overseas 3rd party call centers, asking if they can help. I'd avoid those calls at all costs. If you get to a higher level of spend, you'll get someone who knows what they are talking about, but at the starting out point, the advice is so bad, & they're incentivized to get you to spend more $$$.

Just a few thoughts. Hope this helps.

I should mention, I dive into all of this, with a tight-knit group during an 8 week marketing cohort, (specific to product founders), where we cover traffic/page/offers/user growth experiments as a GROUP effort, with a lot of focused feedback, working with partners etc...starting later this month - feel free to check it out. I run those over at Simplify Launch.

Good luck!

-John

Thanks for the recommendation Gábor. I hadn't heard of this book previously. But there are some really handy learnings irrespective of whether you're a solopreneur or bootstrapping your business.

You would get more conversion if this was Android or iOS app.
With market niche like this user will like this to have as mobile app.

I can understand that if the offer is not a no brainer,, or its not reaching the right people at the right time...there is so much noise out there and breaking through that is hard.....for me it needs to be exactly what I am looking for to spend more than 15 seconds on it. Keep trying but ensure you have done your research and you can measure what you are testing.

That definitely doesn’t sound right. 1/223 that is like 0.4% sign up which is really bad especially it is a free sign up that cost ur users $0.

You really need to refine your targeted keyword and value proposition. What they see on Ads is it what they expected when landed on your landing page?

I would need way more context to help here, but more important than the clicks is what SEARCH TERMS led to those clicks! Always, and I mean ALWAYS take a look at the search terms that are generating clicks!

The NEGATIVE keywords, as you noticed, are as important, if not more, than the keywords themselves!

About the recurring visits, it is true that only a very small fraction of the market (about 3 to 4 percent) is willing to buy/subscribe RIGHT NOW, for the rest of them, inbound marketing is your friend. But for that page specifically, you shluld try and focus on the audience that is more likely to be on the 4 percent, since they will be already be actively searching for the product, they shouldn't be the ones that need more visits to make a decision!

If you need any help, I work managing paid ads for as little as 200 dollars a month, since I'm brazilian and our currency is pretty "weak" it's a fair amount for a contract for me and a cheap offer for most first-world countries's companies!

I think you could put some more work into your header.

"Start saving money by tracking your expenses"

Any company that makes an expense-tracking app can say that. What makes your company different? What makes you unique?

From reading it, to be honest, I couldn't see what made you different. I think if you focus on that, it could really take off. For example, maybe you are the cheapest way to track expenses. So you could change your header to say, "The most affordable way to accurately track expenses."

I could go on, but the concept is the same. What makes you different matters A TON!

Have you tested your site on slow internet? It took me several seconds to load it on my phone, which is generally longer than I would be willing to wait for a site if I don't already have strong expectations for it to be useful/important/interesting

Your landing page does not seem to be the problem for me, you are clearly describing what your product does.
Are you sure you're targeting the right people & keywords with your ads?