I’m in the middle of my monthly inventory evaluation, which involves taking stock of all my existing shoe ads, and creating new ones for new products.  This takes roughly 100 hours and I just like to get it done so I basically work non-stop trying to get through it.

Yesterday I learned the hard way the value of taking a break.  At some point in the afternoon I created a Google ad for a pair of shoes that had “ska” in the name.  Not wanting the ad to show for people looking for info on ska music, I intended to add “music” as a negative keyword –meaning the ad won’t show for anyone who includes music or something similar in their search.  But in my rush, I carelessly forgot the minus sign (to indicate the keyword was supposed to be negative).

I came back after dinner to see some crazy numbers in my advertising account.  In just a couple hours, close to a million people had searched for “music.”  And while only 1/20th of 1% clicked on my misplaced ad, I was still out $95 before I could correct it.  This is a great example of how easy it is to get burned by Google if you don’t know what you’re doing.  There is no room for error.  Today I’ll be more careful!

On a side note, it could have been much worse.  At the Affiliate Summit in Vegas, one speaker told a story about how an innocent forgotten decimal cost him $5000 before he even noticed.  Yes, there’s a big difference between $0.80 a click and $80 a click.   Goes to you show you if you play with fire long enough, you’re bound to get burned every now and again.

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