Our April 13 cold turkey from our Google AdWords campaign promoting Inkfast, our online ink and toner business was short-lived. While sales remained strong it was the knowledge that we’d sell more to new customers which brought us back to the nipple of Google. What we have learned is to be smarter about when to run the campaign. There are more tyre kickers at certain times of the day. Having now tested Google against a radio (3AW) and fax (3,000 numbers) campaign, I know we’re getting more sales per dollar spent with Google than elsewhere. No wonder advertising revenue is challenged elsewhere.
I reckon it’s great to hear that you’re testing other media – regardless of what the mediums trialled are – rather than simply finding something that works and forever doing only that.
On the flipside, I personally am not surprised that AdWords (or SEM generally) is that much more effective. Yes, of course there might still be lagged sales activity from the radio & fax to come, but it’d be minimal, and you’d never be quite sure of its origin, or magnitude. Compare this with PPC search of course …
The other online area you might want to investigate is cost-per-action campaigns with some affiliate networks? Works best with a high margin product like fin. services, but it can also work with higher volume, lower priced products as well.
Andrew, We’re also playing with Yahoo and Sensis but it’s Google which delivers the sales volume. The cost per sale is around the same for each. we’re looking at cost per action campaigns but have not found a company we’re comfortable with yet. (Someone we trust.) Mark