Comments on: Why are we clicking less on Google search ads?

New ComScore figures show increasing deceleration in paid-search growth at Google. What does that mean?

[mishmash0101]

Maybe they don't work....

The reason that people are clicking less is that most of the ads are useless. You search for red tennis shoes and you get ads for red high heels, blue tennis shoes, and brown shoes - but no red tennis shoes! Consumers have learned that most of the ads (from paid search) are a waste of time.

And the proof of this is the fact that the conversion rates for search terms ads are notoriously low adn getting worse. An advertiser will get lots of clicks (and fees) but very, very few buyers (on the order of 1% overall).

In response to the poor conversion rates, the advertisers try to get more bang for the advertising buck and in doing so, they dilute the ad target and the ads become worthless to the customers and they quit clicking. Its a classic death spiral!

Paid word search advertising is finally heading towards the death that it has always deserved. It was deeply flawed from the start but it was the best thing online. Time for a new approach.

[hutchike]

You don't know what you're talking about

...but you sure do type a lot of works anyhow.

[Megamania 2]

Adwords do work

I've worked in the search industry for 10 years. CPC (cost-per-click)marketing has and is a significant portion of what our clients and our own company rely on for generating new business.

We have hundreds of clients making very large dollars from CPC programs. Our company spends about $4000 per month on Google alone and generates between $35k and $40k per month in new sales.

It's true, some people ignore the ads. There is no formal study I'm aware of, however most of the industry uses a 50/50 number. Half of people do, half of people don't. The point is, that the half that do is a huge market.

It's also true, that many a company has lost money using a CPC program. We've seen the primary reasons for this being that they don't understand how to set up their account, write their ads, manage the program, create the proper landing page and website.

It seems simple, choose a couple keywords and pay for clicks. Actually, there are numerous unseen subtleties that can change your results drastically.

In the most competitive markets CPC is not cheap. On average we spend about $8 per click, we get about 20 clicks per day, we convert about 12% to leads or 2 to 3 leads per day. We sell about a third of those leads. Reasonably good marketing results.

Trust this was useful to someone..GB

[bvdon]

The problem is...

Google lets 'advertisers' play games with a NO RESERVE bidding
system. Publishers get screwed because they wind up getting
less than $0.05/click, and the visitor who clicks on the ad gets
taken to a come-on page that leads to an affiliate that pays a
very large sum, but has a very low turn-over.

I serve these ads all the time... I get paid next to nothing, and
the person who paid for the ad gets paid $75 for each sale. So
the advertiser only has to make one sale for every 1500 clicks.

If Google would simply set a minimum price for a click, then
they would get rid of the useless ads. In the meantime, the
publisher and the visitor all have a bad experience and thus, it
gets worse over time.

Please fix the problem, Google.

[delf76]

honestly...

In the 10+ years I've been using the Internet, I have never clicked an ad. I basically block them out. I expect that most other people do too... So, why is this a surprise?

[igl00lgi]

More by accident rather than on purpose.

As long as I have been on the internet, since 1994, I can think of maybe 3 times I have ever clicked an ad on purpose. I have click countless ads by accident and immediatly hit the back button.

[flathead50]

No surprise to me

Since I started my surfing career (right after Al Gore invented the
internet) I have deliberately avoided clicking on ANY ads. I can't
believe I'm alone on this. And now that the cost of living is
rising, in general wages are flat, and many companies are laying
off workers, why would anyone expect MORE folks are going to
be squandering precious resources on the services and
merchandise advertised on the web? A look at the statistics for volume of trash going into municipal landfills shows a
coincidental trend that matches the article's research - people
are being more cautious with expenses, are not using their home
equity "ATM" for discretionary expenses now, and haven't been
for many months. Consumers are generally not as foolish as the
government agencies. Spending money like drunken sailors got
us where we are right now IMHO.

[Eddywoo]

Uh-OH, Sound Like The Second Coming For Dot-com Bubble Burst Is Here!

Sure hope not!

[RoodparT]

and again.. a thanks to my guts..

I recently got an great job offer from Google but job would´ve been w/i the adsense programm. I turned down saying no thanks... I kinda have the feeling as well that this business modell will not last very long anymore; If advertising budgets will be shift over to a "new" type of online advertising (not those dumb adwords stuff) Google will go doooown since they still dont really make money out of their other (spy) appz like gmail and so on.

And I also agree with with the others here. I Never ever ever ever clicked one of those silly text ads. They are a: totally mismatching and b: I dont trust them to really give me the best offer.

Thanks, my dear guts; I am still awaiting the day the Blue "monopolist (of hearts)" will be replaced by something new. Way to scary what they are doing.