When to start?

I'm wondering when I should start using adwords. My site thebrewenthusiast.com has been up for a couple of weeks. my forum obviously doesn't have many members and i only have one beer review. I'm wondering how much content and how many users a site should have or appear to have before spending money on adwords. does it make sense to use adwords for community sites or only for stores with sales?

It¨s hard to say without knowing more about your site. But i would say that adwords is an expensive way to get members to a forum/community (that is my experience atleast) and i doubt you ever be able to get a good ROI on your adwords campaign without selling something.

There are often better ways to get visitors to a content/community site. At the moment i would focus on getting links and building content.

Ps. I haven't seen your site since i wasn't able to reach it on the url above so my answer can be somewhat lacking.

Thats a tricky question.
In the normal store type campaign you work out your `roi`
Return on Investment.

You have to work out how much you want traffic.
Would the money you spend on adwords be better invested in a link campaign that brings slower but longer lasting results?.

I'm in the same boat and I've decided not to use adsense for the time being. My reasons being:

1. It's just a momentary boost in traffic.
2. The ROI (through ad clicks) I would get from the initial page view would be too low to sustain advertising in the short term.
3. The "buzz" I need to sustain growth would come from being published as a reference because my site is useful.

So, I slave away at content and lately its started to get noticed. Go me!