Leave Well Enough Alone

Never tinker with something that works. You’d think I’d have learned by now that trying to improve something I don’t understand is almost sure to break it. I futzed around with my AdWords campaign settings all week, but I’m down to 0-1 sales per day when I should be scoring 2-3. I finally gave up on Google’s cryptic automated bid controls and went back to manual bidding yesterday.

I did finally sell a couple of bird kites with the new pole add-on. I hadn’t sold a single kite since I added that option and was beginning to think that I’d broken the category somehow. I’m counting on that expensive new premium to kick up the income as kite season ramps up this spring. 

The bill for my unwanted tech upgrade ended up being below my worst fears and I don’t think it has anything to do with the sales plunge, so I can start taking some baby steps forward again. Who knows, maybe I’ll find something new and great at this year’s Cavalcade of Crap. The Boston Gift Show dropped their Saturday hours and Sunday is grocery day, so I reckon I’ll sacrifice Monday the 18^th. If it’s the usual waste of time, I’ll revive my depleted Metalworks category. That vendor foolishly changed the product name to “Metal Earth” so it’s starting over as far as Google is concerned.

I have still not sold a single solar cap. I hope they turn out to be a summer item, because I invested way more dollars and space in them than I should have.