It is definitely useful to do these sort of 'back of the envelope' calculations. A few things to bear in mind:
-It is strongly in Google's interest to inflate bid prices. I would take their suggested bid prices with a pinch of salt. The Google traffic estimator shows that I should be able to get around a 4% CTR on [speed reading] at around $0.50 per click in the USA:
https://adwords.google.com/ko/TrafficEstimator/
-The amount you have to pay for a conversion in Adwords depends hugely on how well you play the game of Adwords. Most people using Adwords have very little idea how to set up or manage their accounts and are paying a lot more per click than they need to (I have looked at quite a few Adwords accounts).
-There are more countries in the world than the USA. You may be able to get clicks and conversions a cheaper elsewhere.
-There are probably lots of keywords related to speed reading that are cheaper to bid on than the exact match [speed reader], e.g.
speed reader course
speed reader techniques
speed reader software
speed reader tips
speed reading
speed reading course etc
They will probably have lower search volumes, but it shouldn't be hard to come up with a few hundred of these. Some of them might also have higher CTR and conversion rates.
-I think the numbers used are reasonable (1% CTR, 1.5% conversion rate). My own numbers are a bit better than that, but not too far off. But my average cost per click (selling downloadable software) is waaaay lower than $1.53.
It is a big subject. But there is a lot of information out there in blogs and in the Google documentation. Take a day or two to read and learn the basics and expect to spend lots of time tweaking. I have written a few articles here:
http://successfulsoftware.net/category/adwords/
-It is strongly in Google's interest to inflate bid prices. I would take their suggested bid prices with a pinch of salt. The Google traffic estimator shows that I should be able to get around a 4% CTR on [speed reading] at around $0.50 per click in the USA: https://adwords.google.com/ko/TrafficEstimator/
-The amount you have to pay for a conversion in Adwords depends hugely on how well you play the game of Adwords. Most people using Adwords have very little idea how to set up or manage their accounts and are paying a lot more per click than they need to (I have looked at quite a few Adwords accounts).
-There are more countries in the world than the USA. You may be able to get clicks and conversions a cheaper elsewhere.
-There are probably lots of keywords related to speed reading that are cheaper to bid on than the exact match [speed reader], e.g.
speed reader course
speed reader techniques
speed reader software
speed reader tips
speed reading
speed reading course etc
They will probably have lower search volumes, but it shouldn't be hard to come up with a few hundred of these. Some of them might also have higher CTR and conversion rates.
-I think the numbers used are reasonable (1% CTR, 1.5% conversion rate). My own numbers are a bit better than that, but not too far off. But my average cost per click (selling downloadable software) is waaaay lower than $1.53.