Google Adwords can be like a giant black hole in terms of losing money when advertising photography sites. In fact, by looking at Adwords campaign i’m pretty sure most photographers promoting their website through Adwords are losing money.

Why?

Well, there are many reasons but here are the most common one.

They are sending the Adwords traffic to the main homepage

Most adviertisers send the Adwords traffic directly to their main homepage, a splash page or other generic webpages they have on their website.They are hoping that the visitor will browse around and be so impressed with what they see that they immediately pick-up their credit card or call the phone number to place an order.

Believe me, it doesn’t work like that for any type of traffic and especially advertised traffic… You got maximum 1 minute and probably much less to grab the visitors attention, or else they’re gone, forever. And you just lost money.

The succeed with Google Adwords you need to send the traffic to a very specific page with a very specific purpose. That purpose is either to make them buy something immediately or even better, to grab their email address. Then you can continue to promote your services or photographs at your own will.

Let me repeat, you need to send them to a webpage with only one. You either

1. Make them buy something, or better
2. Get their email address

Let’s take a closer look at the two options.

1. Make them buy something:

If you want to make them buy something you need to be very specific what you want them to buy. If you just present them with a  portfolio of hundreds of images they’ll most likely get confused or procrastinate and say to themselves “I’ll think about it and come back tomorrow”.

Let me be clear, tomorrow never comes if you’re selling something on the web. A few hours later they either totally forgot about your website or they forgot how to find it.

You need to make them take the decision here and now, not tomorrow.

2. Get their email address

An even better option is to get their email address.

Why?

Because it’s easier to get their email address than it is to make them buy something, And once you have their email address you can continue promoting your images and services through email over-and-over again. If you don’t get their email address they’re gone forever.

To get their email address you need to “bribe” them a little. For instance you can offer them a free print (small size) in return for their email address. Or you can offer a free photo session with one free 4×6″ print and if they want more they need to pay you.

Remember, to get your free print they need to give you their email address.

Some more advice for your Adwords campaign.

1. Make sure you maintain a high CTR (preferrably higher than 3%). A higher CTR means you pay less per click assuming everything else is equal.
2. Track, track and track. Some keywords have very bad ROI and some keywords are pure goldmines. The key here is: you don’t know which keywords perform unless you track each keyword.
3. Keep the Adwords groups focused around a small number of very similar keywords. It’s easier to create more relevant ads with higher CTR and a badly performing keyword will not pull down the whole campaign in terms of CTR.

Good luck!