Probation

Last week I said that “two good days do not a recovery make.” Sure enough, the winning streak sputtered out after four days. That was just enough to cover July’s bills with a little bit left over. Business has turned bad again, but it’s no longer desperately so. I’m just glad Christmas is getting close.

Last month I paid Microsoft AdCenter (Bing and Yahoo) $115 to acquire just seven sales for over $16 apiece. I confess that I usually pay little attention to my Microsoft account because the outlay is comparatively small and the results are meager. But while I’m scraping bottom every dollar has to count. I deleted all keywords with a quality score below five and lowered my bids on the most expensive ones. That should shave $20 or so from my cost with minimal impact on sales. But I’m tempted to shut it down altogether and spend that money on Google Product Search instead. 

You’re on probation, Microsoft.