My Store Update: After One Month
As they say…the first month is always the most difficult.
A Brief Overview
- I ran my first Google Adwords ad on April 3
- My budget started at $15.00 a day
- Averaged 15 to 25 clicks per day
- CPC (Cost Per Click) averaged $0.80+
- Made 9 sales total
- Majority of clicks came from ‘mobile’
- Twice I adjusted my Max CPC
- Added a second ‘Campaign’ separating ‘mobile’ bids from ‘desktop’ bids
- VERY happy I joined Anton’s Drop Shipping course.
My Methodology
Throw as much sh*! against the wall as I could and see what sticks…
(let the ads run and learn as I go)
Two Methods of Starting a Google Adwords Campaign
Method 1: Turn on the spigot (large budget) to get as much data as possible.
Method 2: Let your ad budget trickle (small budget) and slowly increase.
Method 1
‘Turn on the spigot’ is very subjective because a ‘large’ budget to some may be a small budget to others.
If you have a very small amount of working capital, this probably isn’t the method for you.
Pros:
- You can quickly see what ads (products) customers are searching for / clicking on
- Optimize those pages quickly (80/20 Rule)
- You can quickly find what words customers are using to click on you ads
- …and add ‘non-commercial intent keywords’ as Negative Keywords in Adwords to prevent non-buyer from seeing you ads
- EXAMPLE: ‘How to build XYZ’. These people are seeking plans to make XYZ, NOT looking to buy from you
Cons:
- You will burn through a lot of money quickly
- Your likely to take a loss for the first month (paying more for ads then is needed)
Method 2
Pros:
- You can start your store with very little money
- You can see if you can reach your budget bidding very low
- (is there room for low bids in your niche)
Cons:
- To make informed decisions (what works / what doesn’t) you really need a large data set
- You might make changes that turn out to be wrong…once more data comes in
- You’ll start out with minimal sales and this could become quite disheartening.
What I did…In My Humble Opinion
As I stated before, a large/small budget to me might not be large/small to you.
My month one budget was $450 ($15 per day). To me, it was middle of the road.
I started making adjustments between weeks two and three. To be honest, I think it was a bit too soon because I don’t think there was data. That said, this was my first month and I am new so I was winging it quit a bit.
Changes You SHOULD Make Within First Month
- Find non-commercial intent keywords (in Adwords) and add them as ‘Negative’ keywords.
- Optimize ‘product pages’ that are drawing traffic (customer clicks ad that leads to specific products).
To find out what product pages are being visited the most:
- Go into your Google Analytics account > scroll down to ‘Behavior’ > click ‘Overview’
- Click ‘Page Title’ and the Top 10 pages will show.
- Optimize these pages first (ignore the pages not being visited often)
- Note: If you ‘turned on the spigot’, click the ‘view full report’ for more product page to consider optimizing.
Changes You Should NOT Make Within First Month
- Adjust bids in Adwords (unless after two weeks you aren’t reaching you daily bid limit).
- Turn off/on mobile/desktop ads completely. Mobile ads don’t convert as well but those mobile ads visits may turn into a sale when the customer revisits your site from their desktop when they are ready to make a purchase.
As you can see, I made drastic changes without enough data and it cost me MANY CLICKS and my max ad budget wasn’t met 8 out of the last 30 days.
My Statistics (Results)
- After 30 days, I had $4,100 in total sales
- I averaged 20+ visits per day
- NOTE 1: I removed mobile ads all together (majority of my ads came from mobile thus I had a LARGE drop in visits)
- IN BETWEEN: Turned mobile ads back on
- NOTE 2: I adjusted my bids so mobile was turned on but at a low max bid
- AFTER: I ratcheted up my mobile max bids because that was where the traffic was coming from
- TAKEAWAY: Simply turn on your ads ad let them run (at a minimum, for the first month)
Number 1: As stated before, I split my my campaigns into to in order to bid mobile & desktop ads separately
- I’d wait for a month or two before doing this so you have more data to work with (mistake on my part…see dips in traffic above)
Number 2: My CTR (Click Through Rate) is a bit low at 0.81% which could cause Google to charge me more for ads in the future.
- Google charges advertisers under 1% (in general, depending on niche) CTR more for ads so definitely tweak ads to compensate.
Number 3: My average CPC (Cost Per Click) is a little high for my liking (this number is VERY niche specific).
- Lower CPC = Higher Profit. I wouldn’t worry too much about this until after month one (unless your meeting you max daily spend every day).
Number 4: I am under the $450 I budgeted for the month.
- This is partially because of the bid adjustments I made prematurely.
Number 1: My ‘Conversion Rate’ of 1.46% isn’t bad for Month One but good stores are usually 2.5% to 4%.
- This, I suspect, will increase as I optimize more product pages and my ads are also optimized.
Number 2: Worth noting, the majority of my ads were being showed (and clicked) via Mobile ads.
- I think even though mobile ads don’t convert as well (1/3 compared to desktop), customers may return later via desktop.
The Bottom Line (after one month)
- $4,100 in Total Sales
- $380 in Ad Costs
- NET: My profit margin was roughly 15% or about $600.
$600 in Net Profit after month one…Not Bad!*
Shopify monthly fee ($23) and Grasshopper phone fee ($18) not included.
What About Your First Month?
How did your store do after one month? Share with the community in the comment section below.
