Strategy Question

[nsusa]

I stumbled upon this niche a while ago decided to monitor it before jumping on it. I then build a site for it and pretty much tried to mirror one of the competitors who is in the top 6 ads (on search) consistently for almost any keyword I tried.

Well, I got great quality scores when finally kicking of my campaigns, but it is a huge financial money pit and I am not sure how the other guy does it.

1) The competitor is linking to a generic webpage that explains his product review process and reason for his website. From there the most visible links are cloaked affiliate links with images of the products - all highly visible on the left column. The right column has 4 product review links to actual product reviews. There is not actual product reviewed on the landing page.

2) I know I have to earn the trust and CTR first before coming closer to my real bid price, but even to get into the top 10 ads I have to bid $1.30 and more per keyword. To reach normal profibility I would probably need to be rather in the $0.65 range. Since I am promoting the same products as the competitor he must have the same price range I assume.

So, I don't know how he does it. Even if I would bleed for a week to get the CTR I need, I doubt my bid prices would drop by 50%.

Any ideas?

Chris

[artarmon42]

Really too vague to provide any real feedback.

But possibilities:
1) He's been doing this for awhile, and have a good idea of which keywords convert (i.e. less loss that you'd incur until you tuned)
2) He's got a good CPA
3) He owns the offer, and can afford to do this to gain mind-share

You'll find that answers can only be as precise as the information you provide :)

[nsusa]

I understand. Ok, as I want to learn this I'll be giving away what I am looking at.

Do a google search for
removed to be able to do testing Look for this advertiser:
www. removed to be able to do more testing. com

This guy is bidding much more on the short, easier to guess keywords - less long-tail. One thing you will find on his website - he has some links "disabled" or non-active and that way limiting where a user can go. Pretty smart way to drive a visitor towards the offer he wants to convert for.

So, what do you think?

Chris

[artarmon42]

That's a very impressive website.

See how he's #1 in the organic results of many google searches?
He's ranked really highly, so his quality will be very impressive (min bid $0.01 probably).
That means he'll probably pay very little (if I were to guess, as little as 25% of what you'd pay) to bid on any related keyword.

His CTR history will obviously be more than yours. So even if you were to have a better CTR than him, it may take weeks or months to catch up to him.

BUT the good news is that you don't NEED to catch him. You just need to get your website done nicely so google will give you a low enough bid, and then make sure your adcopy/CTR doesn't suck.

Summary: Copy what he does. Don't expect to "beat" him (at anything right now). Focus on tuning your campaign to be profitable. Then let the profits increase over time (as Google lowers your bids).

[nsusa]

Thanks for your feedback. Really helpful. He is ignoring the long-tail in many sections from what I can tell. I assume he probably does not get volume or enough volume from long-tail in this niche. Would you concentrate on the big traffic items or long-tail? Long-tail would probably take too long to build up campaign history.

[artarmon42]

If google, then short-tail (so you can get impressions in order to build history).

[nsusa]

Thanks for your help.