Ask HN: How to not get burned with Adwords and PPC?

I think the important aspect is having highly relevant keywords.<p>When clicks cost money you need to filter down to the most likely to convert users.<p>Google often tries to push 100's of keyword ideas on you in order to get your CTR up. That's when you're paying for empty clicks.<p>If you only get 10 clicks per day but 9 of those convert - that's way better than having 33 clicks that day but still having only those 9 convert.

If you have the time to review your accounts performance on a daily basis, do not do automatic bidding.<p>Competition is very high for website hosting, so what you'll need to do is create a long tail of keywords with the keyword tool.<p>AdWords can be very bloody, but it is very important at the beginning to get good data on your ads and keywords. Make sure your conversion codes are working too. You'll have a big spend in the beginning because you dont have a good Quality Score. Its a game of patience, and don't go broke! But keep in mind for the first few weeks your cost per acquisition will probably be twice as high as it will be after that.<p>Your cost per day chart should look something like this at the start. -- - - -- -- --- -- ---- --- -- --- ---- ------

Every online business faces the same issues. You have to have very deep pockets to play PPC that's a given.<p>You can test the water fairly cheaply by literally monitoring. There's plenty of advice out there on what rates to bid at, but don't expect huge uplift in conversions. It's notoriuously difficult to get high returns and what you currently get is way above the accepted norm.<p>I'm currently building an app to address exactly this difficulty although its chicken and egg - I will still need the high level of visibility for the promise to be realised. The advantage I have is that I only have to raise my app's user base and B2C client's such as yourself would automatically benefit without having to do anything.<p>Should be nice when I launch it...

Pick up a good book on adwords. Getting little bits of advice here and there isn't a substitute for understanding adwords and the strategies that work.