Only $100.00 Per Click

[The New Guy]

I checked my Google PPC ads for the first time in three weeks, because my lead volume had slowed.

I don't know who has this kind of money to spend on clicks, not leads, but just on a click to view an ad, but here are some of the bid amounts I'm seeing.

Life Insurance: $54.00 for first page bid estimate.

Affordable Life Insurance Quote: $87.00 for first page bid estimate.

Best Term Life Insurance Quote: $100.00 for first page bid estimate.

Health Insurance: $23.00 for first page bid estimate.

Affordable Health Insurance Michigan: $31.00 for first page bid estimate.

Anybody else seeing these kind of numbers?

I'm going deeper into long tail keywords to try to find some cheap clicks. I now have a list of 1120 keywords I utilize.

 

[HomeService]

Maybe the big .coms run these prices up....

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Noticed it. I'm currently bidding on PPC for certain keywords. Some related to health insurance quotes almost overnight went from $4 to $6 per click to $16 to $22 per click. Something's amiss.

 

[Mark]

I checked my Google PPC ads for the first time in three weeks, because my lead volume had slowed.

I don't know who has this kind of money to spend on clicks, not leads, but just on a click to view an ad, but here are some of the bid amounts I'm seeing.

Life Insurance: $54.00 for first page bid estimate.

Affordable Life Insurance Quote: $87.00 for first page bid estimate.

Best Term Life Insurance Quote: $100.00 for first page bid estimate.

Health Insurance: $23.00 for first page bid estimate.

Affordable Health Insurance Michigan: $31.00 for first page bid estimate.

Anybody else seeing these kind of numbers?

I'm going deeper into long tail keywords to try to find some cheap clicks. I now have a list of 1120 keywords I utilize.

I have used Welcome to AdWords in the past. I just picked my local area and only bid up to like 50 cent to 1 dollar a click.

My ad showed up thousands of times for free. I only paid for when someone clicked on the ad.

Within on time at all, they was trying to raise the price on me to $5.00 a click. The price kept jumping up, and by the time it ended, it was not worth it any longer.

I think that it must work for some people, just not me.

I'm not sure what a PPC Ad is, but at those prices, it better be worth it.

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Maybe the big .coms run these prices up....

Of course they do.

When you have financial muscle, you can squeeze the smaller players...

 

[Aaron_4SIGHT]

Hey New Guy,

It could be because of the quality score Google's assigned to your ads. They create a quality score based on their estimate of how likely your ads are going to get clicked on and how relevant your landing page is.

Think of it like this: if ad X has a click-through rate of 10% and ad Y has a click-through rate of 2%, the chance of ad X getting clicked on and Google making some money is 5 times ad Y getting clicked on. So a $10 bid for clicks on ad X is roughly equal to a $50 bid on ad Y.

Quality scores are tied to each keyword and you can view a rough estimate of them in adwords on the Keywords tab under Campaign Summary. The best thing you can do to improve a low quality score is work on improving your click-through rates and make sure that the keywords you are targeting appear on the landing page.

Of course, it could also be big .com's driving up the price! But at $100/click, I hope they are smart enough to find better ways to spend their money.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Aaron

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Google is indeed trying to ramp up on the user's positive experience. If your site is not directly related to your keywords as judged by the bounce rate, among other things, you're going to find your cost per click go nuts.

You can try to fool Google by getting clever, but you're not going to fool the consumers who click. If they're punching right out of your site because it's not what they're looking for Google is looking to punish.

 

[mcday]

if you need help with your Google ppc, hit me up. I would be happy to give you a few pointers.