Twitter Wins My Test of Twitter vs. Google Adwords

On Sunday October 11, 2009, Chris Anderson's Free was featured on CBS Sunday Morning.  So I asked myself - how do I take advantage of the curiosity created by this news story to drive people to my post that summarizes several reviews - pro and con - of the book?

In summary, I learned that Twitter worked better than AdWords probably because the variables affecting success are more likely to be in my control.  Additionally, I can easily measure my conversion rate with Twitter (12 of my 159 followers clicked, or a conversion rate of 7.5%) allowing me to learn by comparing the effectiveness of this Tweet's content to others.

DISCUSSION:

I tried two things. 

First, on Adwords, I bid $.75 (the recommended bid) for searches of the following words: Free, Freemium, Chris Anderson, Long Tail.  The ad read:

FREE by C. Anderson
Discussion of several reviews
by a Hybrid Media Design Company
www.Comradity.com

Second, I twittered the following with a bit.ly link to the article:

CBS Sunday Morning covers Chris Anderson's FREE - "Here's a discussion of several reviews http://bit.ly/mGtJz (Wonder what Jobs thinks?)"

The results for one day:  ZERO clicks from Adwords.  12 clicks on the bit.ly link.

More importantly, why?

AdWords would have worked if 4 things happened, the first 3 are out of my control:

1. CBS Sunday Morning has the popularity and credibility to trigger curiosity
2. The curious go online to search for more information on Google
3. My Ad ran when the keywords were searched
4. The content of the ad was compelling enough to stimulate a click (I control this)
   

The Tweet would have worked if 4 things happen, with 1 being out of my control:

1. I had built a list of followers (I control)
2. The Free issue is relevant to the followers (I control)
3. They saw my tweet
4. My tweet was compelling enough to result in a click (I control)

Here's what happened:

Zero clicks was the Adword result. According to Bit.ly there were 12 clicks on the link to my post.

When I went onto my Google account to check out why my ad did not delivered any clicks, I found out there were two problems that, although I opted to be alerted by email of any problems, I was never alerted.  First, although I uploaded my credit card information, they said it hadn't registered.  And second, they said my ad was "pending review" ("Your ad is eligible to run on Google search pages. However, we haven't yet verified that your ad follows all of our advertising policies. Until your ad is reviewed and approved, it won't be eligible to run on our search partners or on content network placements. We review ads in the order they're received, so please be patient while your ads are in review.") The only email I received from AdWords was to alert me that my campaign was expiring.  I was fully aware that.  Since I assumed the news value "half life" of the keywords was a day, I only cared about running the ad that day.

I have been on Twitter since July when Chris Anderson's Book, FREE, was launched, because I believe there is a need for more voices building confidence in the demand for media worth paying for.  I have spent a lot of time writing posts and tweeting facts and opinions from both sides of the issue.  I have also spent a lot of time vetting followers this content attracted and eliminating followers who have some other motive for following me.  So I have made my best effort to take advantage of what Twitter allows me to control.  The one thing out of my control - my followers being online on Sunday morning - was probably not optimal. 

CONCLUSION

Going in, I assumed only three out of the four variables affecting the success of the AdWords campaign were out of my control.  But it turns out that Google AdWords adds more hurdles that are out of my control as well.  Although I thought I had opted in to be alerted of any problems, to assure my ad would run, it turns out Adwords only alerts you if your ad is expiring and not when payment information had not registered.  So, I had even less control over my success with AdWords than I assumed. 

My best efforts to take advantage of what Twitter allows me to control did result in some clicks.  Additionally, I can measure the conversion rate, allowing me to learn how the content of these tweets compares to others I craft.