AdWords Tips for New Users

By Jo Mark

We've all heard the horror stories about Adwords. The one where Joe FirstTimeUser jumps into the program with little on no knowledge and winds up losing thousands of dollars with few or no sales to show for it. If you have never used Adwords before and want to start your first campaign, the following three words can save you big bucks: Research, Research, Research! Use the information below as a starting point in your quest for knowledge.

Before jumping right in with both feet, make sure you take advantage of the many tools, both free and paid, that are available. A small investment in time and information now can save you lots of money and heartache later. You can find many resources by doing a search online. Make sure you take advantage of them before committing your hard-earned money!

Start small. I've seen some information suggesting that you start your Adwords campaign by allocating $100 per day. What??? That may be okay if you are Bill Gates, but it is not appropriate for the rest of us. Allocate just $5.00 or so per day. Let it run for a couple days and then re-evaluate. If it isn't working, you only lost $10. This would be an acceptable test. If you are making money, then do a bit of tweaking and try again. Never commit more than you can comfortably afford to lose.

Never get into a bidding war for keywords. Start out with low competition keywords to keep your keyword costs low. Unless you have a very high priced product that converts extremely well, it is unlikely that you will make money if you are paying $5 or $10 per click.

Consider some of the smaller pay-per-click companies. Costs can be significantly lower than those of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Of course, you may not get as much traffic either. Consider some of these smaller companies if you thinking about initiating a campaign. Many people make quite a good living using Adwords campaigns. Using the 3 R's (Research, Research, Research) and the information above, you too can make money.