Online Advertising's Dirty Little Secret: Low Response Rates

[mandy]

People like Steve Weber are Google's worst nightmare. Last November, Weber self-published a book about how to sell used books on the Internet.

To promote it, Weber created a three-line text ad that ran on Google Inc.'s site as a sponsored link when people searched for any word, or phrase, in his book's index...

Weber's marketing campaign cost about $4,000 through the end of the year. "But my conversion rate of click-thrus to actual sales was less than 2 percent," says the Falls Church, Va., resident, who also runs an online used-book store. "By my figuring, that means I spent upwards of $100 for each $20 sale."...

full article: http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,154...305,00.asp

[valleygirl]

"But my conversion rate of click-thrus to actual sales was less than 2 percent,"

A 2 percent conversion rate is average.  You can increase it some what by using very specific keywords.