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Spending lots, selling none. Google ads.
Hey there!
I have a board game store. I have spent upwards of $1000 on google ads, and had absolutely NO sales.
I have had sales from reddit, and followers from facebook.
Can anyone lend me some advice? Should I be just using facebook ads? Google ads?
Whats a good place to start? -
1 Reply
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What is your site? Sometimes the issue can be the site but not always… good to rule it out though.
What did you try on Google ads? Over what period did you spend the $1,000… was it 1 month or 3 months? I would imagine [Google Shopping ads](https://www.takesomerisk.com/tag/shopping-campaigns/) would do really well for what you sell. You need to make sure you have a really well built shopping feed.
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wrong platform for what you sell, you want facebook and reddit ads
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Could be a hundred reasons. Your budget could be too little for your market. Your landing page could be not well optimized but most likely its possible that Google ads are not setup properly especially if you’re doing it yourself by googling stuff.
There’s so much stuff in Google Ads you need to hire a specialist to get better results. Oh and lastly it is possible that Google ads are not the right platform for you. Do people search a lot for your products? If they dont search for it on Google then ads won’t help much. Maybe discovery and display ads but primarily Meta ads could be best bet. Again its not straightforward you need to properly study this and decide.
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“Whats a good place to start?” pay someone who knows what they are doing to consult for you. Teach you what to do, set up some accounts the right way, check measurement, show you how to make good ads etc. It will cost you around 10k, but then you’re not throwing away a grand every month.
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When it comes to Google Ads there are a few simple ways to determine if it is a viable channel. Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:
1. Are you targeting the right keywords? For example “board games” is a bad keyword and “buy Ark Nova” is a good keyword to target
2. Are you targeting the right Geos? Only target the Geos where previous customers have bought games from you.
3. Are you sending traffic to the right landing page? Make sure the keyword searched matches the landing page they land on.
4. How good is the user experience on your landing page? Is the landing page doesn’t convert well then traffic won’t matter. This is all about conversion rate optimization (CRO). -
You’re gonna have a hard time making much money on PPC ads here. The CPL is too dang high. What landing page are you taking people to–your homepage?
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I am very far from games planet…
However one question in my mind that your website did not answer .. what are these games ? Digital, electronic or physical?
I think the issue in both cases might be the content and competitive features…
I suggest you add higher quality images , maybe some videos ? Also if you show counties you deliver to , maybe add some offers and some cross selling for a discount.
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I need a lot more information to say anything.
What did you do so far? What keywords have you targeted? What campaign type? Bidding strategy? What do your bids look like? What’s your Cost Per Click? How much are you spending per day?
Are you using Standard Shopping? PMax? Search?
Truthfully, depending on the cost per click of your niche, $1,000 in total spend might be too little to have meaningful data to optimize with!
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ppc is probably too top funnel and broad, you should probably try google shopping ads
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You could be doing lots of things wrong and you likely are.
What are the keywords? If I’m looking for Pokemon trading card games, I want to see an ad about that. If you are just bidding on “pokemon”, you’ll show up for all kinds of searches and some of those will click your ads but their intent was not likely to be buying anything related to Pokemon. You need to be specific in your keywords.
Next, your ads have to make me want to click the ad and find out more, create curiosity, an incentive to buy from you. Then, you need to take me to the proper page when I click. I’m guessing you are directing all clicks to your home page, which could be better by the way. Well, you are not going to get people to search your site when they already told you in Google what they want and they’ll leave without buying thus wasting the money you spent getting them there.
Going back to keywords, be very specific. You don’t sell Pokemon cards. You sell Pokemon Abomasnow cards. Use that keyword, land them on that page and do the same for each of the hundreds of Polemon creatures out there, provided you have that card of course. Same for all other products you carry.
As for Facebook, I assume there are groups that discuss the kinds of products you sell. You can also do the same and find websites that are on Google’s ad network. A shopping campaign might work well for you on certain products and I would definitely have a remarketing campaign. I would try to get their emails too while they are on your site, offer them something of value, in your case, maybe a newsletter. Reddit may have groups for board games so I’d check that out too.
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Pull an export of your search query report for all time, sort by impressions, and post a link to the Google Spreadsheet here or message it to me. I’m pretty sure the main issue lies in your keywords and lack of negative keywords.
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Bro. Not putting you down , don’t sell board games . Profit is small and ad cost is now very high.You won’t go too far. Find a product with higher price and profit to afford advertising .
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Your website could be improved upon. As for Google ads. Have you checked the search volume for Starwars Boardgames? IMO doing some keyword research on the products you sell and seeing what the average monthly search volume is, will help you decide whether it’s worth continuing with Google ads.
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Create a list of your highest profit, highest ticket price items and bid on those as your keywords.
When setting up your ads you should be using Google Shopping (Not search, display or video). I’m seeing other comments recommending Facebook Ads or other impression based ads. I think that’s not the most efficient channel considering you’re selling such specific products and you’re offering shipping.
Make sure your ads are showing up with the proper product images in the Google Shopping feed and are sending customers directly to the product page. (I.e. if I want to buy the Star Wars: Legion – Separatist Invasion Battle Force Starter Set, the ad should link [here](https://boxcatgamestore.com/products/star-wars-legion-separatist-invasion-battle-force-starter-set).)
I’d start with targeting your $100+ items. With $500/mo you’re not going to be getting many clicks. When you do get a click it’s going to cost you so you want to make sure that you’re getting that back several times over in revenue.
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Are you using the shopify integration with Google Ads? I see that your site is on Shopify so the integration should help everything work super smoothly.
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I run an agency that does PPC. I work with pretty big retainers to say this isn’t me trying to “win” your business.
But, im happy to spend 30m looking at your account and tell you all the things to consider/look into.
It’s either a website issue, or a google ads issue. But typically it’s pretty clear which one (or both) in just a quick peak.
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