AdWords - Are they necessary?

[lizaadams]

Does anyone have any experience with AdWords? I'm wondering if they're really necessary these days, or if word of mouth + social media is taking over. I listened to a interview with Ben Fischman, CEO of Rue La La and he said they never spent a dime on marketing. They got their customers via word of mouth. Thoughts?

[generationy]

Adwords and other Google advertising services offer a way to monetize their content when other larger advertising firms turn them down (due to their low traffic). It's a great way to make money for people starting out so definitely a must even in this day and age. Good luck!"_

[Splash]

No marketing tactic is necessary - just that act of marketing is necessary to make your business successful. What you need to do is identify a strong marketing strategy, and if it fits with the AdWords and other PPC tactic to achieve your objectives, then yes you should go for it.

What you need to remember is that marketing messages work the best when they are integrated across multiple channels. So try out social media, PPC, SEO, direct mail, email and even TV and radio advertisements to get your message built up and spread across the most potential consumers.

[rogercbryan]

I spend about $15,000 a month on Adwords. It amounts for about 50% of my business so in my mind... yes it is 100% necessary.

[Unix]

Dont use adwords its a waste of time and money. Ive had a campaign cost around £300 for a month and while pleanty of click throughs but no customers. i then advertised directly with a forum in my key demographic for around £80 a month and got a load of customers from this. Adwords just isnt targeted.

[Stone]

Google Adwords advertsinig platform is extremely powerful if you know how to use it. when Unix says it is not targeted I don't understand as you can be a lot more targeted in Adwords than you can on a forum, again it all comes down to knowledge.

In the internet marketing community there is a term called Google Stupid Tax and thsi is what you will pay when you play around with Adwords without knowing what you are doing.

Adwords is just Google's Pay-per-click platform and sure they have gotten tougher over the years however you can still use pay-per-click on facebook, linkedIn and a huge number of otehr places. It all depends on who you are targeting and your budget.

[nicolebeckett]

AdWords can be very expensive. If you have a small budget, you may only get a few clicks per day. However, AdWords can also bring you instant traffic while you work on your SEO strategy. If you can get enough business to offset your AdWords bills, it can be a good investment. However, unless you have a big budget and you're getting amazing results, I would only consider AdWords to be a temporary solution. The vast majority of searchers head straight to the organic listings.

[imacy-ray]

Depending on your capacity. If you are starting out you might want to stay clear of adword campaigns till you have sufficient information about the program. In my opinion, there are a lot of merits in using adwords rightly.

[Unix]

Stone you have a point i know very little about adwords or setting up a great target audience. But one of the key points of adwords is that its supposed to find the best places to put your ads. From looking around the net a bit i can see that it doesn't do very well.

I go on a gaming forum regularly that uses adwords and about 50% of the time the adverts are for loans or slimming products and other general non specific adverts where as an advert for a game would do really well there. Better than an advert for a slimming product anyway.

[GotLiveChat]

As seen above, there are people who are doing nicely using Adwords, and others well... not so good. If you use Google Adwords KEYWORD TOOL you can do research on the keywords you're interested in. It'll at least give you an idea what kind of competition you'll experience.
To not give it a shot is, IMO, a mistake. I think Adwords even gives you $25 to start out with so why not at least test it? Just be sure to set a max "budget" else you could end up with a large bill at the end of the month.

[TerjeSannarnes]

Of course, AdWords is a very helpful website advertizing solution that works effectively.

[louiecorp]

Hi,

What's your product or business about? For me Adwords is still the most powerful tool you can use to reach customers as their platform is very targeted. Adwords can give you the best cost per conversion if done right.

Let me know what you plan to advertise so I can give free help or you can check:

ppcacademy.com

[saemakhan46]

can i join adword without credit card??

[Brent_Dant]

I stopped doing SEM- Adwords...its very expensive for my niche

word of mouth is the best marketing tool

[SnG]

Used 80 dollars at adwords, it was a waste of money!