AdWords Sucks Unless Your Name is Rich Uncle Pennybags

I have said before that AdWords is terrible for Youtube Partners unless they have a big pile of money to blow. I could write a lengthy and detailed post about why, but I'm pretty sure the only thing you need to see is the following screenshot:

"21% effective", my ass. Try 0% effective since that is how many clicks I received; zero.

I received no clicks at all. How the hell can this campaign be interpreted as ANYTHING but completely and utterly INEFFECTIVE?!

I had better results when I used Project Wonderful, and it was much cheaper, too. Granted the results weren't that much better but at least my money translated into clicks. If I just wanted to spam people with a link to my video I can do that for free.

But don't just take my word for it. Unlike practically every other Google product, AdWords actually has a customer service number so you can call and talk to a live person about how to use the service. If you tell them you don't have a lot of money to spend they will try to encourage you to spend hundreds of dollars a day at the bare minimum, because you need millions of impressions using AdWords to get any clicks and the competition is now so fierce that you may need to pay a whole dollar (or more) for just one impression.

AdWords is terrible for Youtube Partners who don't have a lot of money (which is pretty much all of us) and Google has no business trying to encourage Youtube Partners to use it to improve their traffic, because it's not going to do anything but improve Google's revenue stream; it'll do little to no good for the Partner themselves.

By encouraging us to pay for clicks from AdWords campaigns you aren't helping us, "Play Big" anymore than iUniverse, PublishAmerica and Author House help people publish and sell their books.

Google, whatever happened to, "Don't Be Evil" ?

I supposed if I had a couple thousand dollars I could experiment with different keywords and bid amounts -- but I don't have the money to play a keyword fishing game on AdWords, casting my ad into different sections of the internet until something bites.

Don't get me wrong, Google has made a lot of products that are extremely useful to me and everyone else reading this blog. After all, they do run Youtube, AdSense, Analytics, Google Sites and Blogger; all of which are important products relative to what we do here.

The problem I have is that when Google advertises AdWords as a good way for Youtube Partners to market videos, they are being dishonest. AdWords is not a valid solution, and the constant advertising of AdWords to Youtube Partners (with Creator blog posts, and even popups on our Youtube account pages) comes across like a car salesman trying to convince a single mom that a brand new Mercedes-Benze is the best vehicle for her to haul her kids to school in. In both situations there are significantly cheaper solutions that provide better results.

The point of this post is to warn Partners who don't have a lot of money to stay the hell away from AdWords, because it will do nothing but waste your money.