Before you even launch an Internet business, you can use Google Adwords to determine whether there is a market for what you are proposing to sell.
For example, to test the market, you could offer a free report about your proposed topic from a one-page website. Then send traffic to that page using Google Adwords. If nobody is interested in downloading your report, or you cannot seem to get enough click-throughs, then that could indicate one or several things:
- The market is not yet ready for your product.
- You are marketing it from the wrong angle.
- Your landing page is not making a compelling offer.
- You are marketing it to the wrong people.
Here’s a real-world example:
You may have heard of a book called The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. This book has become a best seller. Tim Ferris is a shrewd marketer and he knew the title of the book would have a huge impact on whether on not it was a success.
So, he did some testing using Google Adwords, with ads for the book before it was even ready for the market, to see which ads brought in the best response.
He tested several titles, including some along the lines of being able to sit on the beach and make money, etc.
“The 4 Hour Work Week” was the Google ad that got the best response. So that’s what the book was called. Tim Ferris believes the book would not have been a best seller if he had used a different title.
You need to bid high, initially
When opening up a Google Adwords account, many people are hesitant to spend a lot of money to get a high position for their ads. This is a mistake because you need to get a high enough position initially to get enough traffic to test your offer and see which ads are effective.
After awhile, you can revamp your ads, keep only the best ones, and then slash your bid price. The ineffective ad groups or keywords will be disabled due to quality-based minimum bids and the winners will keep displaying.
To minimise your initial losses with pay per click, it’s worth taking a couple of weeks to do serious keyword research and market analysis before jumping in.