Google AdWords Specialists

I got hooked early. Subsequently I have been chasing that initial seductive encounter, but have not been able to relive the purity of that first heady experience.

Of what sensual delights do I speak?

Tight metrics. Concise analytics. Accurate ROI (Return On Investment) stats.
That’s the stuff I crave.

One of my first clients had a one item product line. He was selling a downloadable book. One item, one price, very little ongoing overhead or product cost. His only appreciable cost being his search engine marketing.

The simplest of Google AdWords conversion stats provided me with a wealth of information. If the cost per conversion was less than the purchase price of the book, my client was in the black; if the cost per conversion was more than the purchase price of the book, he was running red.

The tools for figuring out the profitability of keywords, ad copy, ad distribution methods, bid vs position, geographic targeting, etc were all right there in front of me in the AdWords stats. This was before Google bought Urchin and transformed it into Google Analytics. But my clients operation had so few moving parts that the simplist conversion metric shed intense light on the profit picture. It was bee-u-tee-ful, and spoiled me horribly.

Alas, such simplicity is very rare. Although my client base consists of small to mid-size businesses, their profit picture, whether they are offering products or services, is of course more complicated than a one item, low overhead, operation like the e-bookseller.

But the real challenge for me and my clients is the technical piece. I come from a marketing and strategic background. I got into search engine marketing not because of my technical proclivities but because I understood the power of search marketing from a conceptual point of view, not an engineering point of view.

Another factor that complicates this issue is that analytics and metrics are often the last piece to be fitted in the e-commerce puzzle. I am constantly dealing with websites and shopping carts that were not designed with the idea of measuring results, the way only online marketing can. Sadly, “Is the bank account balance growing or shrinking” seems to be the metric of choice for all too many small to mid-sized businesses. Which is of course the ultimate benchmark. But a bank account balance is fairly useless in determining why a profit column is red or black or where to make marketing improvements. Knowing where your profit picture stands does not answer the why, or the what next, aspects of that picture.

Well thought out metrics, on the other hand, as supplied by a concise analytics system can enable entrepreneurs on all levels to best answer those why, and what next, profit questions when it comes to marketing, advertising, and sales.

These considerations should be a source of constant dialogue between search engine marketers and their clients. Not only on the importance of metrics, but also how to muster the engineering resources to get concise, accurate, analytics in place.

When such dialogues bear fruit, it means satisfaction and growth for search engine marketers due to the increased profits enjoyed by their clients.

-T

Tom Hale
Internet Strategist-AdWords Specialist
http://ThomasCreekConcepts.com/