Specifically, Ad Words. I still love the Google channel.

Last January was a record breaking month for sales for Urngarden, however, due to a heavy advertising schedule, our bottom line was less than impressive.

Phase two of the Great Google Experiment consists of monitoring first quarter activity without running an adwords campaign or advertising on Amazon. This was a scary proposition, but the good news is that we’ve already surpassed our Jan. 07 sales with zero dollars spent on adwords.

February will be interesting.

We also made changes to our distribution channels and unfortunately it’s starting to feel like a divorce. At the time, it was strictly a business decision. Now, it’s become personal. The firm we contracted with last year provided excellent service, and we wanted to leave the door open for future partnerships. Did you just hear the door slam? I’m not going to get into specifics, the whole thing is rather tedious and kinda sad.

That might be another post.

Mary Schmidt said it best in her Small Biz Snafus post,

“As I noted to the owner, it’s not my job to make them profitable.”

Two Words For Today: Own it.

The Great Google Experiment:

The results are in from a year long experiment with the Google Adwords. Fact: Google Adwords delivers traffic, but is it a good return on my investment? I’d have to say no. We’ve been measuring the results and trying to find a happy medium with an effective return. That has not happened yet and I’m not sold on adwords for the product that no one wants to buy.

We attempted a small campaign when we first started urngarden v1, but the real problem was organic listings. We hired a professional to create an ad campaign and optimize the site. Reports reveal: SEO good. Article submission, very good. Google Adwords, hmmmmmm.

A heavy schedule for the first few months (too long) of the campaign, delivered the visitors and even surpassed traffic on the busiest venue I sell on. That was one of the goals. However, the sales from the CPC did not justify the dollars spent on adwords. Ah, but the information has been priceless.

Informal surveys from clients on how they land in the garden: Most have answered that they don’t click on the ads on the right side of the page, nor do they click on the top two listings. Or, if they click, they don’t buy. At least not enough to justify the ad spend. The hard numbers support this. Personally, when I’m google-ing my eye doesn’t even travel to the right side of the page.

Some marketers say “adwords lend an air of credibility”, I look at it as an expensive image and brand building campaign. So, I guess I need to repost my call for a service monkey personal assistant who will work for food.

Thank you for your patronage. Have a great week!