This is part 2 of online advertising adventures.

In October 10, I had a coupon that I purchase from eBay that allow me match up to $150.00 advertising credit for every dollar I spend. Well this is what the eBay seller had in the description:

To earn the credit: After entering the code, your advertising campaigns must accrue costs of at least 25$, excluding any taxes, within 30 days. Making a payment of 25$ is not sufficient. The tracking of advertising costs towards 25$ begins after you've entered the code.

Just one cautionary tale, although I put a budget of $1.00 dollar a day, some days cost were like 95 cents while some days were like $1.03. Google Ads is not perfect at stopping exactly at your budget, so give yourself an error cost of 1% when doing these campaigns.

In theory I could have spent $5.00 dollars in online advertising, but I think that is too much money for advertising a niche app. At the end my budget was only spend like $1.00 a day. If you think that is too much, you can do 50, 25, or 10 cents or anything you want. Just keep in mind about diminishing returns. For example, my budget was like $1.00 a day and if I spent $2.00, my traffic would go 99%, $5.00 would be increase of 433% of traffic, etc.

As I was saying, my budget was like one dollar a day and setting up the account at Google.com/ads was simple. You just need to have a credit card or bank account to get started.

Unlike BingAds, I did not like how there was not prepaid option as just adding money and just stop the campaign when you run out of money. The campaign only stops when you set up an end date or when you have accumulated $350.00 worth of debt. So BingAds wins a round in budgeting and not overspending.

When Google asked to describe my business, I just posted it was an education website (I don't know, an Android app website maybe?) and choosing the right words were tricky. Note that this was simple campaign and I chose not to do the expert thing of buying keywords.

So, keywords planning is choosing the right words or phrases that your ad will appear. For example, some keywords can be as little as $0.05 and some words can fetch up to $20.00.

I noticed that some keywords in foreign languages cost pennies while English in the United States were like in the dollars.

Next, it was designing the ad with the right message. I think I did a good job, but I looking back I should have put some premium keywords in there and check to see if it improves my traffic. Maybe next time.

I like how Google Analytics works with Adwords and makes reports from your campaign. The reports describe how your goals go good or bad. I wish Microsoft had similar feature with BingsAds and Webmaster tools, because BingAds can't analyze your bounce rate, sessions, etc.

Google Ads and BingAds were easy to set up, but it was tricky to find the right words to target your audience. What I did was to do a simple ad campaign with Google Ads and use keywords in the BingAds. At the end, I believe you need to use both services and find patterns. I think from October 12 to November 12 was busy period for me as I just keep track of what worked and what didn't. I believe that online advertising is a full-time job that requires people to analyze traffic, conversions, and cost. Sometimes the best campaign is having a good product and people recommend the product by word of mouth.

Now after 30 days, I have $30.12 (an error of %1, see above) of ad credit, so I don't know what to do with it. Anyway, talk to you later!

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