How I Spent $20 on Adwords and made no money

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highlifelight

highlifelight

Mmm what you say?
Apr 5, 2007
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I thought I'd throw this out, given that my idea failed, not completely sure why, thought maybe I could get some constructive criticism. Be gentle :)

I wake up Saturday morning, and bring up Drudge Report. They're reporting that Paris Hilton is going to jail. I immediately remember those "Free Winona" t-shirts that got sold after Winona Ryder got caught shoplifting, so I swing into action.

I come up with a simplistic "Free Paris" design, and put it on six different t-shirts on cafepress. You can view them here for reference. I did it in about five-ten minutes while eating breakfast.

I then jumped on Adwords and put together a really simple campaign to promote the CafePress store. I chose these keywords and bid $.35.

paris hilton
paris hilton jail
paris hilton jailtime
"free paris"
"paris hilton"
"paris hilton jail"
"paris hilton jailtime"
[buy paris hilton t-shirt]
[free paris]
[free paris t-shirt]
[paris hilton jail]
[paris hilton prison]
[paris hilton t-shirt]

I also shut off the content network. Here's the ad I used.

[SIZE=+0]$10.00 "Free Paris" Tee[/SIZE]
Support the unruly heiress with a
hilarious t-shirt - "Free Paris"!

So anyhow, long story short, blew through $20 without a single sale.

Hope somebody can point out my blatant mistakes so I can be more profitable next time.
 


kaveman said:
make uhm funny, like on the back put in small print "i miss that slut"

edit: or turn the whole thing around "Keep Paris Locked
Up"
Click to expand...

I did all of it in less than a half hour with my old lady yelling at me because we were going to be late the heart walk.

I'm sure I could come up with something funny now, but at the time it wasn't a concern. I'm not too bright.
 
highlifelight said:
I did all of it in less than a half hour with my old lady yelling at me because we were going to be late the heart walk.

I'm sure I could come up with something funny now, but at the time it wasn't a concern. I'm not too bright.
Click to expand...

The heart walk? is that a "walk for diabetes" type thing? LOL

About the campaign. Yeah the shirts are kind of lame, but it was time sensitive. At least you got initiative.
 
highlifelight said:
I did all of it in less than a half hour with my old lady yelling at me because we were going to be late the heart walk.

I'm sure I could come up with something funny now, but at the time it wasn't a concern. I'm not too bright.
Click to expand...

well then stop being a fuckin douche and go do it. You answered you own question. You failed cause you didnt put any effort in, simple
 
hah, i thought of this idea too.... i wouldn't be bidding that much for p. hilton shit... and i would have made it more targetted with a lot of negarive kwds.
 
It's targeted to the wrong people. Your bidding on the wrong words.

Your targeting the following people....
-People wanting to know just news about Paris in jail.
-People that hate Paris and want to know about her in Jail.
-People that love Paris and want to know abour her in jail.

The people that are looking her up aren't necessarily in her favor, they may hate her. Go for the ones that are supporting her by removing the other two.
 
BeerHat said:
The heart walk? is that a "walk for diabetes" type thing? LOL

About the campaign. Yeah the shirts are kind of lame, but it was time sensitive. At least you got initiative.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was a charity event for cardiac health. Not a terrible way to spend a Saturday morning. Just not awfully exciting.

The time sensitivity was what I was trying to exploit. It was an experiment, really.

kaveman said:
well then stop being a fuckin douche and go do it. You answered you own question. You failed cause you didnt put any effort in, simple
Click to expand...

You're right, I didn't put the effort in. I'm still pretty new and I'm trying a lot of different things. With that said, I didn't expect to come back to my computer hours later and expect to be a millionaire. I just wanted to see what would happen.

I thought this was an interesting story, so I wanted to share it and get some insight to go along with what I already learned. I think the story might prove useful to others on the board with similar ideas. That's it.
 
bmurph said:
It's probably because the effort put into the campaign was minimal, as well as the fact that a lot of people these days really just don't like Paris Hilton.
Click to expand...

I considered the overall dislike for Miss Hilton. That may play into it. That's a strong argument for the previously proposed anti-paris shirts.

engaged said:
hah, i thought of this idea too.... i wouldn't be bidding that much for p. hilton shit... and i would have made it more targetted with a lot of negarive kwds.
Click to expand...

You know, I actually did put in a bunch of negative keywords, but I don't see them in my adwords account right now, strangely enough. I tried to exclude all the people searching for pictures of her. Wonder what happened there.

And you're right, the .18 per click I paid was probably too high.

smash said:
It's targeted to the wrong people. Your bidding on the wrong words.

Your targeting the following people....
-People wanting to know just news about Paris in jail.
-People that hate Paris and want to know about her in Jail.
-People that love Paris and want to know abour her in jail.

The people that are looking her up aren't necessarily in her favor, they may hate her. Go for the ones that are supporting her by removing the other two.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I guess I wasn't sure exactly who I was targeting. Who would even want one of these shirts? Instead of taking the time to figure that out, I plunked down keywords and let 'er go. Won't make the same mistake again.
 
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