This has been discussed earlier but I didn't really have any good data available at that point. Now my initial tracking suggests that our Google Adwords campaign is generating about $.15-$.18 in net revenue per click.

Someone claimed earlier that they had very low success with AdWords, so I would be interested in hearing about positive and negative experiences, just to gain a better understanding of how this kind of marketing works.

When you advertise on other sites/adwords, do you use any kind of 3rd part software that tracks the visitors stats (country, i.p etc) and if they purchase or not?

Always depend on the success of your game. While they can get the clicks for you, they don't guarantee any downloads, much less purchases. It does get rather expensive after a while.

Originally posted by Salman
When you advertise on other sites/adwords, do you use any kind of 3rd part software that tracks the visitors stats (country, i.p etc) and if they purchase or not?

Custom tracking code built into the site. Cookie based. Does give quite accurate results but doesn't cover everything (what would ..)

Rather than start a new thread, I'm reviving this one to ask if anyone else has had success with Google Adwords? I just ask because it seems like a good way to generate traffic, but if it fails it also seems like a very expensive venture.

One good thing about google is that you can target specifc words.

Choosing some very specific words which most likely will result in sales, means that you can limit the number of clicks more easily.

Figuring out what niche your game in is the hard part. Google can be a good way to figure that out though, because of how you can target specific words. To do this effectively you need to be able to track a user from when they click until when you get a sale.

Once you have found very effective words you can then use this information to find other places to advertise(that have a good chance of working well).

Another good use of this targeting is to make up different webpages, with different sales pitches depending on the type of user you think you will get there.

Can be a very expensive way of doing it though :)

If you do try it out, maybe try the words "harry potter wizzard game", and the related words.

Have fun!

The tricky thing about Google Adwords and other places where you can purchase search keywords is that you have to keep in mind, you're getting one visitor per click, not one download. That user still has to successfully navigate your site to your download page (and then decide to download the demo!).

Before you may have just been trying to get a good conversion rate for downloader --> buyer. To use Google Adwords effectively, you'll have to work on getting a good conversion rate for general site visitor --> downloader. It's not easy. You'll have to stream-line your site and constantly make modifications until you hit the right formula. This could get expensive depending how long this takes you.

Here's a rough example of what you need to do.

1.) Find out your conversion rate for downloaders to buyers. To make things simple, let's say your conversion rate is 1% and your game costs $20
2.) Set a number of downloads you'd like to achieve with the campaign. Let's say we're aiming for 1000 downloads.
3.) With your current conversion rate of 1%, this will get you $200 in gross sales. So basically 1 out of 100 downloaders will buy your game.
4.) So we now know our initial goal is to get 100 downloaders with Google Adwords without spending more than $20, since approx. 100 downloaders equals one sale.
5.) Evaluate the price of your Adwords. Then start tracking visitors (invest in some decent tracking / log software)
6.) Determine how many of your Google Adword visitors convert to downloads.
7.) Look at your campaign goal (1,000 downloads) and see how much it would cost to achieve that.

Unfortunately, for it to be profitable you'll need to have an extremely high conversion rate from Visitors to downloaders. Because let's say you get 150 clicks at 15 cents per click, that's $22.5 right there. And those 150 clicks are 150 visitors, NOT downloaders. You still need ~100 downloads to get a sale, remember? 100 / 150 is 66% So if less than 66% of the Google Adword visitors don't download your game, then you're losng money.

It's tough to generate profit from Google Adwords and similar avenues unless the price of your product can overcome all the conversion rates. The real benefit of Google Adwords is generating awareness for your website and company. If you're fortunate, it will help increase your regular site traffic after your campaign is over.

But for shareware games, I discourage trying to make a profit off Google Adwords unless you have a kick-ass website and have everything streamlined to the 'T' and still it's tough. I haven't used Google Adwords, but I've used Overture in the past. I'm assuming they operate similar? I recommend using Google Adwords and similar programs in your first few months while you try to build up exposure. Just watch your costs.

PS.
I should also mention, the type of keywords your select and how targeted your visitors will also affect your conversion rates across the board.

A general assumption people make, when dealing with advertising on this board, is that their game sucks.

Well, if you have 1% conversion you'll almost never find advertising worthwhile. However, a 2% conversion changes everything.

it is possible, and in fact, quite likely, to generate some traffic on google for say 8 cents a click.

If your conversion is 2% and you are making 20 dollars per sale.

You need to generate 50 downloads in 250 clicks. So 20% of the visitors have to download. Any higher and you are making a profit.

Granted, many of the persons reading this don't have the type of game that will make it profitable to use AdWords or many other games, but it is important to do the calculations for yourselves, rather than just assume advertising is not right for you. AdWords minimum is 5 cents per click. I've never used them, but I bet even at 5 cents a click you could get some impressions/clicks.

At that price, even a 1% conversion only requires 25% to download your product.

Keep an open mind, if there is one thing I have noticed (and all my posts reflect this) its that advertising scares the crap out of a lot of indies... and it SHOULD. You can lose every peny you put into advertising unless you know the 'rules' first. It doesn't take a team from an ad agency either, it just takes a little common sense, a little knowledge about your buyers, and a little trial and error to get it right.

Joseph Lieberman
Proponent of Internet Advertising

Joseph Lieberman
Proponent of Internet Advertising [/B][/QUOTE]
>Keep an open mind, if there is one thing I have noticed (and all >my posts reflect this) its that advertising scares the crap out of >a lot of indies... and it SHOULD. You can lose every peny you >put into advertising unless you know the 'rules' first. It doesn't >take a team from an ad agency either, it just takes a little >common sense, a little knowledge about your buyers, and a >little trial and error to get it right.
I think it scares the crap out of programmers :) Developers are used to On-Off states. It's either a one or a zero, it either works or it doesn't. Marketing is not a binary system. It can give you a 1 as output one day, give it the same input another day and it might give you a 0. Joseph is right that you need to know the rules first. Just like you didn't write your first killergame after you installed that Visual Studio 6 C++ environment. You will not have a killer marketing campaign the first time you use Google adwords. Just like it took you a while to get to know your development environment it will take you some time to get to know the marketing environment. Just like you needed to read some books about C++ you will need to read some books about marketing. Marketing and developing are different ballgames. But mastery of both is required to get some return on investment. No need to procastinate cause for mastering marketing you can leverage the same kills that enabled you to master game development. Reading, studying, asking questions, learning from others they all apply to mastering development and marketing.

Success,

Kris
____________________
http://www.jerboa.be/website/nl/winapps.asp?menu=3&deeper=0&ref=dex
We dont write games, but we do write business apps that compete with the big MS - so a lot of the same rules apply - write software that the customer loves - inform the customer that the software exists - entice the customer to pay for the used software.