[Warren Aldridge]

Adwords is a bidding system so the more hoohahs and whoop dee doo's  there are about Adwords, the more competition you get and the more you will pay regardless if your campaign is setup correct or not.

There are a lot of big organisations dropping Adwords at the moment, like Ebay for one

With all the updates Google does with organic rankings, people are being driven in droves onto adwords which is what Google probably want      ££££££££ ££££££££

[Warren Aldridge]

20 clicks a day with 1 job from that is very low

Have you worked out how much you are paying to gain a customer???

I'm pretty sure its not very economical at $2 per click based on your conversion rates

This is an avenue you need to drop. Its alluring because once its setup it sits on auto pilot but the numbers are not adding up

[Buckland]

Joe

You say this earlier in this thread: "Ive experimented briefly with an advert in a local newsletter but didnt have much success. I dont think I had a single enquiry from it."

I run ad words campaigns but dont spend enough to get me out of the sidebar very often into the top three - I have good organic results and I advertise my website in the newspaper - In fact I sort of changed the company name to allow me to do this - I advertise ON THE FRONT of the local freesheet and it is consistently good money spent - I have been on the front of the local freesheet with my url advert for over two years - newspapers is not like turning a tap on and off you are getting the public to accept you as a fixture - then when they need you they have some recollection of seeing an advert on the freesheet about carpets - newspapers still work but only if you get a good position

[Simon Gerrard]

Joe,
We had a similar situation in Southampton where the Adword advertisers were all at the cheap end of the market and the only way to compete with them was on price, which we did for a bit. We got a lot of calls but ended up with people fussing over a fiver. We then stopped adwords, took the prices off our sites and put them up to normal and relied on our websites and the call count went down a bit but business went up.

The illusion is that people want cheap and that the only way to compete with a competitor is to beat him on price - both are totally and utterly wrong.
Don't get transfixed by what your competitors are charging, if they want to work for nothing, let'em. There are plenty of people in Norwich that will very happy pay the going rate for a top quality job, all you need to do is point your advertising towards them. These type of people won't buy from the cheapest, they've tried them in the past and learned their lesson.
I'm not suggesting you charge top end prices but you should let the price you charge be dictated to by your competitors.

Simon

[Craigp]

Warren A, thats right, I notice that yell.com are now doing well on page 1 and gumtree is, plus maps, its all to knock us off first page and drive us into adwords

[AshWhite]

Joe, I'd gladly take a look at your campaign to see if I can give you some pointers, at no charge.

Info@pagecrest.co.uk

[Craigp]

Ash... can you look at mine please..

[AshWhite]

As long as you mean your Adwords, yes of course 

Email the address above with your customer I'd and I'll take a look later.

[Craigp]

email sent, many thanks Ash.

[wynne jones]

email sent, many thanks Ash.

Notice he hasnt answered your question Ash. 

[Craigp]

lol Definitely my adwords. 

[Carpet Dawg]

Your inbox is going to be full of people wanting to show you there's thiers Ash!  

[jim mca]

Joe

I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click

[Mark Blazey]

Ah Joe, chin up.

Hope you feel more positive this evening. It was nice to meet you yesterday.
Like we said we'll help you if we can.

Best wishes Vicki

[Joe W Brown]

Joe

I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click

I hope so. Leaflets arriving tomorrow, so I will soon find out

[Joe W Brown]

Ah Joe, chin up.

Hope you feel more positive this evening. It was nice to meet you yesterday.
Like we said we'll help you if we can.

Best wishes Vicki

Thanks Vicki

[david@zap-clean]

Joe

I am with Simon throwing money at a dead market is suicide would you not get a better return from dropping your own leaflets than ad words at £3.50 a click

I hope so. Leaflets arriving tomorrow, so I will soon find out

Leafleting works for me - though it's a tough way to get new customers.
1 days hard leafleting = approx 2 new jobs (in my limited experience)...
Don't leave any gates open.

[bennymon]

My next batch of leaflets should be here next week .but I've not had a carpet cleaning jub for 8 days its never been this bad    del

[david@zap-clean]

My next batch of leaflets should be here next week .but I've not had a carpet cleaning jub for 8 days its never been this bad    del

How it picks up for you soon.

What have you been doing during the quiet times?  In Feb I spent nearly 3 weeks learning/playing with Adwords & SEO & web development... and trying to avoid going out into the cold, leafleting.

[neil 47]

Benny  you live in a highly populated area and you have no work ?

Do you go out ?

I tend to talk a lot which can be a pain sometimes but usually i pick up a good few jobs like that ,

I tend to live and breath carpet cleaning which in turn leads to work i have hundreds of photos of jobs we've done and i use these in ads all the time

we stick local and saturate advertising in that area regular instead of spreading to thin .

i haven't paid for advertising for over a year now but work hard at all the available free ads available or leaflets i have left just delivering 10 where ever im working ,picked up two jobs in one day doing that and both within 100 yards of each other .