So you are ready to give affiliate marketing (or any type of money making program) a shot! So you type in a few good keywords into Google like "Make money from home" or "Get Rich Quick" and you get eBooks and programs being thrown at you at all directions! Again, I have read my share of internet eBooks (especially on this topic) and most are really quite similar. At this point, you need to step back and figure out what YOU need in a program:
1) Are you fairly internet savvy or did you just figure out how to turn on a computer yesterday?
2) Do you just want the details on what to do or do you want to know why you are doing it?
3) Are you looking for all the details up front, or would you prefer them in small doses?
4) Are you dedicated to making this work or are you looking for a quick way to make some money?
Believe it or not, but there is an eBook or program for any of the cases listed above. Some programs really walk you through it providing excellent examples and really defining the basics. Other eBooks throw everything at your up front and let you figure it out yourself. Both have their pluses and minuses, but it is the reader than needs to choose which is best for them. The best way to learn which eBook is right for you is to read reviews on products themselves. You will probably find that a few eBooks really stand out (TheRichJerk or AffiliateCashVault, for example). These are popular because they have been around awhile and have provided good results. This doesn't mean that newer eBooks are not better, just not as easy to find reviews. I still like the LifeEmpowered System a lot (for its ease of use and great support). BecomeHated is a newbie which is great for the technical savvy user looking for tons of information and fast! But whatever you choose, make sure it is right for you...
(Reviews for the above eBooks can be found at: http://www.TheWebReviewer.com)
Monday, June 05, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
The Intimidation of Internet Marketing
I seem to spend a lot of time these days checking out what other people are doing in the form of online marketing and advertisement. At first glance, I was quite overwhelmed and impressed with what I was seeing! Some of these sites were HUGE! They may have hundreds of articles. The have dozens of reviews and commentary over a large wealth of products. Page Ranks around 5 and 6. Hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS, of visitors per day.
And then there is my website...a handful of reviews, a few articles, some nice commentary and quite a few useful tips on making money (http://www.thewebreviewer.com). But nothing in the league of these others. So should I just quit? HELL NO!
First of all, the internet is a VERY BIG PLACE and there are plenty of web surfers to share the wealth. If you look closely at these sites, they were not created yesterday, either. They have been around for years. Content takes time. And what about the few thousand visitors a get per month? That is MORE than enough to make affiliate sales or earn some advertising revenue. Remember that the big players fill a certain void while the little players (like us, at least for right now!) fill another void. I know that when I initially started to research the web for money making opportunities, it was the smaller sites that made more of an impression on me. The big sites rely more on quantity and advertising.
So remember, don't get discouraged if your website or blog is not as fancy, or big, or as popular as the others...it really doesn't matter! You WILL still make money if its content is good and in time, it can easily grow into the power-house that currently intimidates us online!
And then there is my website...a handful of reviews, a few articles, some nice commentary and quite a few useful tips on making money (http://www.thewebreviewer.com). But nothing in the league of these others. So should I just quit? HELL NO!
First of all, the internet is a VERY BIG PLACE and there are plenty of web surfers to share the wealth. If you look closely at these sites, they were not created yesterday, either. They have been around for years. Content takes time. And what about the few thousand visitors a get per month? That is MORE than enough to make affiliate sales or earn some advertising revenue. Remember that the big players fill a certain void while the little players (like us, at least for right now!) fill another void. I know that when I initially started to research the web for money making opportunities, it was the smaller sites that made more of an impression on me. The big sites rely more on quantity and advertising.
So remember, don't get discouraged if your website or blog is not as fancy, or big, or as popular as the others...it really doesn't matter! You WILL still make money if its content is good and in time, it can easily grow into the power-house that currently intimidates us online!
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Affiliate Marketing eBooks: Part I - A Waste of Money?
Yawn! The long weekend has really taken it's toll on me and I am pretty lazy today! Wake up, Matt and let's get back to business!
One thing I have been doing a lot these days has been reading eBooks...particularly eBooks focusing on affiliate marketing. So the question of today is: Are affiliate eBooks just a waste of money? The short answer is definitely not! The long answer is, let the buyer beware! I honestly feel that anyone who is ready and willing to give affiliate marketing a shot should by all means buy a book! A few reasons for this:
1) Trying to figure it out yourself can take a LONG time!
2) Trying to figure it out yourself not only can, but WILL cost you a lot of wasted money!
3) The resources, links and suggestions offered in many eBooks can be invaluable and very insightful.
I don't know about any of you, but I do not have a degree in business, economics, or marketing. Without the proper guidance, trying to compete with those who do can be pretty tough. A least with a little bit of instruction, you can avoid a lot of the disasters that are associated with marketing. A lot of these books hold your hand and give you an adequate description of marketing in order to be effective. And beyond the marketing aspect, there are plenty of little trade secrets that can propel you from being someone who sells nothing to a power-user.
But of course, not all eBooks are created the same. We'll cover that a bit tomorrow. Visit http://www.thewebreviewer.com for more details on some of the reviews I have conducted. (I am currently reviewing Affiliate Cash Vault! Stay Tuned!)
One thing I have been doing a lot these days has been reading eBooks...particularly eBooks focusing on affiliate marketing. So the question of today is: Are affiliate eBooks just a waste of money? The short answer is definitely not! The long answer is, let the buyer beware! I honestly feel that anyone who is ready and willing to give affiliate marketing a shot should by all means buy a book! A few reasons for this:
1) Trying to figure it out yourself can take a LONG time!
2) Trying to figure it out yourself not only can, but WILL cost you a lot of wasted money!
3) The resources, links and suggestions offered in many eBooks can be invaluable and very insightful.
I don't know about any of you, but I do not have a degree in business, economics, or marketing. Without the proper guidance, trying to compete with those who do can be pretty tough. A least with a little bit of instruction, you can avoid a lot of the disasters that are associated with marketing. A lot of these books hold your hand and give you an adequate description of marketing in order to be effective. And beyond the marketing aspect, there are plenty of little trade secrets that can propel you from being someone who sells nothing to a power-user.
But of course, not all eBooks are created the same. We'll cover that a bit tomorrow. Visit http://www.thewebreviewer.com for more details on some of the reviews I have conducted. (I am currently reviewing Affiliate Cash Vault! Stay Tuned!)
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Affiliate Marketing of the Past: Direct Promotion
When I initially read my first eBook (The Life Empowered System) about affiliate marketing, it spent a lot of time stressing the ease of direct promotion. Let me explain what I mean by direct promotion...You can go to an affiliate site and get a weblink that will direct whomever to a website selling products with your "tag" associated with it. If that person buys the product, you will receive a commission. In direct promotion, you will send the person who clicks your ad directly to the link that your affiliate tag is on. Therefore, no landing page. You bypass the middle man and go straight to the product.
What has happened? Why doesn't this work anymore? One big reason is that a lot of people were doing it (and making a fair some of money!). The only overhead costs and time came with promoting the link. The bigger obstacle came late last summer (2005) when Google announced that sponspered links can have only one link per search. Before, if you typed in "DishNetwork", you may find 10 or more affiliate links directly to the DirectTV website. The normal rules of high CTR and price applied...that was it! Now, we have to fight for that one position. I tried to actually promote DishNetwork this way and my ad was never seen! (I was not prepared to pay higher than the top bidder).
Believe it or not, it is all for the better! This new rule improves the quality of your searches and weens out a lot of the marketers who really are not that committed to the programs. Also, the greatest thing about eBooks is that they usually do update them regularly and once you buy it, you get the updates for free. The new version of the Life Empowered System no longer focuses on this type of marketing. It now focuses on more modern approaches such as blogging. Again, I highly recommend this program!
What has happened? Why doesn't this work anymore? One big reason is that a lot of people were doing it (and making a fair some of money!). The only overhead costs and time came with promoting the link. The bigger obstacle came late last summer (2005) when Google announced that sponspered links can have only one link per search. Before, if you typed in "DishNetwork", you may find 10 or more affiliate links directly to the DirectTV website. The normal rules of high CTR and price applied...that was it! Now, we have to fight for that one position. I tried to actually promote DishNetwork this way and my ad was never seen! (I was not prepared to pay higher than the top bidder).
Believe it or not, it is all for the better! This new rule improves the quality of your searches and weens out a lot of the marketers who really are not that committed to the programs. Also, the greatest thing about eBooks is that they usually do update them regularly and once you buy it, you get the updates for free. The new version of the Life Empowered System no longer focuses on this type of marketing. It now focuses on more modern approaches such as blogging. Again, I highly recommend this program!
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
PPC's and Click Fraud: A Growing Problem
When I started affiliate marketing many months ago, I bought an eBook and followed its instructions on promoting products using pay-per-click services. We have talked a lot about Google Adwords and, those of you who are trying it, are probably finding that it is not trivial to use (and requires a bit of guidance). That leads us to the "other" PPC services. Like Overture, most PPC's are pretty straight forward and the ad placement goes to the highest bidder. At the beginning of my affiliate marketing, these sites were quite the gold-mine! I got a lot of clicks and relatively cheap rates (usually about 0.05 per click). It seemed too easy and I did get a lot of sales because of it!
But things have changed over the last few months. My high click rates stayed where they are (or even grew!) and my sales diminished. What the heck is going on? After a lot of research and link tracking, I started to realize that these clicks were not of high quality...if fact, they are probably a form of click fraud. Click Fraud is where someone clicks your links purely for profit for themselves. With the introduction of blogs these days, I believe that more and more people are becoming aware of online advertising and taking this knowledge to do bad things.
So what do you do? For now, I have turned most of my PPC campaigns off (except for Adwords and Overture). Think about it this way: If I am paying 0.05/click and I get 100 clicks, but only 10 of these clicks are of any quality, you are actually paying about 0.5/click! That will give you quite a bit of leverage on Adwords and Overture (with much higher quality!).
What about Adwords and Overture? Of course, click fraud happens here, but both of these outfits are much more advanced than the smaller ones and can pin-point click fraud more easily. Also remember that any half-way experienced online money marketer needs Google to be successful and to piss-off the Google Gods usually means banishment from all Google services (both Adsense and Adwords).
I suppose we are back to the basics:
1) Google Adwords
2) Yahoo Overture
3) Search Engine Optimization
Hey, it keeps us honest, right?
But things have changed over the last few months. My high click rates stayed where they are (or even grew!) and my sales diminished. What the heck is going on? After a lot of research and link tracking, I started to realize that these clicks were not of high quality...if fact, they are probably a form of click fraud. Click Fraud is where someone clicks your links purely for profit for themselves. With the introduction of blogs these days, I believe that more and more people are becoming aware of online advertising and taking this knowledge to do bad things.
So what do you do? For now, I have turned most of my PPC campaigns off (except for Adwords and Overture). Think about it this way: If I am paying 0.05/click and I get 100 clicks, but only 10 of these clicks are of any quality, you are actually paying about 0.5/click! That will give you quite a bit of leverage on Adwords and Overture (with much higher quality!).
What about Adwords and Overture? Of course, click fraud happens here, but both of these outfits are much more advanced than the smaller ones and can pin-point click fraud more easily. Also remember that any half-way experienced online money marketer needs Google to be successful and to piss-off the Google Gods usually means banishment from all Google services (both Adsense and Adwords).
I suppose we are back to the basics:
1) Google Adwords
2) Yahoo Overture
3) Search Engine Optimization
Hey, it keeps us honest, right?
Monday, May 22, 2006
Affiliate Marketing Online: Does It Make or Take Your Money?
Instead of an actual entry to today's blog, I decided to write a short article related to Online Affiliate Marketing. Check it out at:
Article: Affiliate Marketing Online: Does It Make or Take Your Money?
Article: Affiliate Marketing Online: Does It Make or Take Your Money?
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Blogger and Moderating Comments Mishaps
I would like to first apologize for everyone that has been leaving comments to my blogs that I have not even acknowledged. About a month ago, I was getting a lot of stupid splog comments (or spam-blog) that I could not erase. You can still see some of them on under my first few entries. I kind of got pissed off and turned on comment moderation and sort of forgot about it! I came across it last night and activated the legitimate ones. I do appreciate the feedback and questions and I plan to start addressing these questions in my upcoming blogs.
One other final note about splogging...Being an affiliate marketer myself, I understand the importance of put your "brand" (or website links) within your signature on a comment response. I do it and I have no problem if others doing it on my blogs. It is the comments that add no content or relevancy to my current blog that annoys me. A signature alone will provide the backlink you need. We don't need a sales pitch. I will talk about this again more in the future.
Again, I really appreciate all of the great comments and questions (that are not splog!). It gives me the motivation to continue writing this blog! Until tomorrow...
One other final note about splogging...Being an affiliate marketer myself, I understand the importance of put your "brand" (or website links) within your signature on a comment response. I do it and I have no problem if others doing it on my blogs. It is the comments that add no content or relevancy to my current blog that annoys me. A signature alone will provide the backlink you need. We don't need a sales pitch. I will talk about this again more in the future.
Again, I really appreciate all of the great comments and questions (that are not splog!). It gives me the motivation to continue writing this blog! Until tomorrow...
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part VIII: GoogleAd Last Words
I promise to continue to comment on Adwords in the future, but for now, I feel that I need to move on a little bit! I do want to bring up a few other minor points about Google Adwords:
1) The payment system for Adwords is a little bit different than many of the other types of PPC sites such as Overture and Miva. Overture and Miva charge you prior to activating your ads and keywords. This means that you need to fork up usually about $50 just to begin. It will then debit from this account until it reaches a threshold where it will either automatically replenish this account or deactivate your ads. Google, on the other hand, charges you $5 to sign up and then will charge you for what you owe at the end of each month. Personally, I prefer to pay for my clicks after the fact, not up-front.
2) Join and use the GoogleAds forums (http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-help/) to help answer some specific questions and learn some of the tricks of the trade. It is an excellent resource!
3) Don't be afraid to contact GoogleAds support. There are times where their software robots really can screw you over. Sometimes Google needs a little bit of a kick in the butt. In all, though, they are pretty good program and harassing them a lot will not solve all of your problems.
4) The Psychology of Adwords: I want to stress the one the most! Using Adwords can be a very addictive and compulsary venture. Patience can definitely be a virtue when using this program. Prior to any campaign, you should really draw up a game plan and stick with it! You may be tempted to up your maximum bids beyond your planned limits...Don't do it! Sometimes, it takes a few days to get Adwords to drop bid prices for activation. If you are asked to pay beyond your limits, spend a few days trying to optimize your ads...they may require review, be patient!
5) I have wasted hundreds of dollars learning many of the lessons I have written about throughout this blog. Some lessons you need to learn on your own and just like anything worthwhile in this world, understanding Adwords is no exception. I do still highly recommend Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords to anyone who is really serious about making affiliate marketing work. Many of my (costly) lessons learned where spelled out right in this book. I was kicking myself quite a bit for not getting this book sooner.
I will continue to add Google lessons learned throughout my upcoming blogs, so stay tuned for more!
1) The payment system for Adwords is a little bit different than many of the other types of PPC sites such as Overture and Miva. Overture and Miva charge you prior to activating your ads and keywords. This means that you need to fork up usually about $50 just to begin. It will then debit from this account until it reaches a threshold where it will either automatically replenish this account or deactivate your ads. Google, on the other hand, charges you $5 to sign up and then will charge you for what you owe at the end of each month. Personally, I prefer to pay for my clicks after the fact, not up-front.
2) Join and use the GoogleAds forums (http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-help/) to help answer some specific questions and learn some of the tricks of the trade. It is an excellent resource!
3) Don't be afraid to contact GoogleAds support. There are times where their software robots really can screw you over. Sometimes Google needs a little bit of a kick in the butt. In all, though, they are pretty good program and harassing them a lot will not solve all of your problems.
4) The Psychology of Adwords: I want to stress the one the most! Using Adwords can be a very addictive and compulsary venture. Patience can definitely be a virtue when using this program. Prior to any campaign, you should really draw up a game plan and stick with it! You may be tempted to up your maximum bids beyond your planned limits...Don't do it! Sometimes, it takes a few days to get Adwords to drop bid prices for activation. If you are asked to pay beyond your limits, spend a few days trying to optimize your ads...they may require review, be patient!
5) I have wasted hundreds of dollars learning many of the lessons I have written about throughout this blog. Some lessons you need to learn on your own and just like anything worthwhile in this world, understanding Adwords is no exception. I do still highly recommend Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords to anyone who is really serious about making affiliate marketing work. Many of my (costly) lessons learned where spelled out right in this book. I was kicking myself quite a bit for not getting this book sooner.
I will continue to add Google lessons learned throughout my upcoming blogs, so stay tuned for more!
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Final Notes on Content Searches
Something that I forgot to mention about content searches...
If you choose to use content searches, please be aware of what they are! For normal google searches, you are guarenteed positions on Google Searches or some of their direct affiliates (like AskJeeves). Again, these are very targetted searches based on the keywords that you are bidding on. Content searches are a bit different. These are the ads that can appear on any website. Specifically, the ads that are generated when using Google Adsense. This blog, for example, has ads on the right column from Adsense that come from content searches. Keep in mind that the ads that are placed are based on the content of my website, not necessarily from a specific searched keyword. Therefore, your ad may appear on a website that is unrelated to your topic audience.
Unlike Google Searches, though, are you not penalized for this! The CTR of your content searches has no bearing on your content search position nor does it affect the CTR of your campaign related to google search position. So if you have a Google Search CTR of 5% and a Content Search CTR of 0.01%, you are not being penalized for the 0.01%. It is what it is!
Getting back to the topic of click fraud, you can probably guess that some idiots on the web take advantage of links they have placed on their website by clicking them. This, of course, makes them money and costs you the price of a click (or many clicks) with no quality at all. Google works fairly hard to prevent this and a lot of their software is smart enough to detect fraudulent clicks. They will banish you from Google Adsense if they suspect you are clicking your own ad links. Don't be stupid, just play the game fairly!
If you choose to use content searches, please be aware of what they are! For normal google searches, you are guarenteed positions on Google Searches or some of their direct affiliates (like AskJeeves). Again, these are very targetted searches based on the keywords that you are bidding on. Content searches are a bit different. These are the ads that can appear on any website. Specifically, the ads that are generated when using Google Adsense. This blog, for example, has ads on the right column from Adsense that come from content searches. Keep in mind that the ads that are placed are based on the content of my website, not necessarily from a specific searched keyword. Therefore, your ad may appear on a website that is unrelated to your topic audience.
Unlike Google Searches, though, are you not penalized for this! The CTR of your content searches has no bearing on your content search position nor does it affect the CTR of your campaign related to google search position. So if you have a Google Search CTR of 5% and a Content Search CTR of 0.01%, you are not being penalized for the 0.01%. It is what it is!
Getting back to the topic of click fraud, you can probably guess that some idiots on the web take advantage of links they have placed on their website by clicking them. This, of course, makes them money and costs you the price of a click (or many clicks) with no quality at all. Google works fairly hard to prevent this and a lot of their software is smart enough to detect fraudulent clicks. They will banish you from Google Adsense if they suspect you are clicking your own ad links. Don't be stupid, just play the game fairly!
Monday, May 15, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part VII: Content Searches Beware!
Let me tell you a story about when I first started affiliate marketing. One of the very first campaigns I tried dealt with PSP downloading services. I got my links, went into GoogleAds and started a campaign. This was about the fourth campaign that I had tried and with the three previous, I was not getting any clicks with 0.05 per keyword. With this one, I thought, I would be adventurous and set my bid price to 0.30 per keyword! I was feeling really good about this plan! I even set my maximum daily budget to $15. And away I went!
The first few days, nothing really happened that was too extraordinary. I got about 10 clicks per day through google searches. $3 per day...no sales. Then one afternoon I went to check my account and it showed about 500,000 impressions and 50 clicks (and I had reached my max for the day.) WOW! I must have found a winning strategy! So I checked my daily earning...no sales. Hmmm...well, they say that some products get a sale for 1 in every 100 clicks.
The next day I changed my maximum daily budget to $30! Sure enough, at the end of the day I had over 1,000,000 impressions and 100 clicks! DOUBLE WOW! I'm rich!...no sales. Maybe this was just a fluke day! One more day!
On the third day, again, 1,000,000 impressions and 100 clicks! And STILL NO SALES! At this point, I had over 250 clicks and not one single sale. So I paused the campaign and did some study: I went to a variety of web forums and told my story and everyone told me: SHUT OFF THE CONTENT SEARCHES! Further digging brought me two conclusions:
1) Click Fraud - Yes, it exists and I do honestly believe some of this mess was caused by this.
2) Content Searches provide low quality clicks
So what to do? I have two suggestions:
1) Disable Content Search completely from your campaigns. At least at the beginning until you become more familiar and advanced at GoogleAds.
2) Change the max bid price explicitly for content searches. This one I am still up in the air about. Right now, I set my max bid price on content searches to 0.03 per click. Believe it or not, I do get clicks and impressions from this. I have yet to determine if they clicks have any quality to them at all. Then again, it doesn't come at much cost.
In summary, I spent over $75 just to learn that content searches can really bite you in the rear if you are not careful. This is another instance where Perry Marshall's eBook would have saved me time and money on this stupid campaign (the lesson learned here cost me 150% more than the price of the eBook...again, it is money well spent if you plan on trying to learn Adwords).
The first few days, nothing really happened that was too extraordinary. I got about 10 clicks per day through google searches. $3 per day...no sales. Then one afternoon I went to check my account and it showed about 500,000 impressions and 50 clicks (and I had reached my max for the day.) WOW! I must have found a winning strategy! So I checked my daily earning...no sales. Hmmm...well, they say that some products get a sale for 1 in every 100 clicks.
The next day I changed my maximum daily budget to $30! Sure enough, at the end of the day I had over 1,000,000 impressions and 100 clicks! DOUBLE WOW! I'm rich!...no sales. Maybe this was just a fluke day! One more day!
On the third day, again, 1,000,000 impressions and 100 clicks! And STILL NO SALES! At this point, I had over 250 clicks and not one single sale. So I paused the campaign and did some study: I went to a variety of web forums and told my story and everyone told me: SHUT OFF THE CONTENT SEARCHES! Further digging brought me two conclusions:
1) Click Fraud - Yes, it exists and I do honestly believe some of this mess was caused by this.
2) Content Searches provide low quality clicks
So what to do? I have two suggestions:
1) Disable Content Search completely from your campaigns. At least at the beginning until you become more familiar and advanced at GoogleAds.
2) Change the max bid price explicitly for content searches. This one I am still up in the air about. Right now, I set my max bid price on content searches to 0.03 per click. Believe it or not, I do get clicks and impressions from this. I have yet to determine if they clicks have any quality to them at all. Then again, it doesn't come at much cost.
In summary, I spent over $75 just to learn that content searches can really bite you in the rear if you are not careful. This is another instance where Perry Marshall's eBook would have saved me time and money on this stupid campaign (the lesson learned here cost me 150% more than the price of the eBook...again, it is money well spent if you plan on trying to learn Adwords).
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part VI: Being Positive About Negative Keywords
When I first started learning how to use Google Adwords, I read about negative keywords. What these keywords do is prevent your ad from showing if your negative keyword appears in the search. In google, this is achieved by adding a minus sign (-) in front of the keyword. For example:
zeppelin
-led
In this case, if someone is looking for led zeppelin, your ad will not appear. If you type in zeppelin airships, your keyword would be triggered. At first when I learned about negative keywords, I thought "why would I want to get less clicks and impressions?". After reading Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, and applying some of his negative keyword techniques, I found that my ROI (return on investment) improved substantially. So, for our example above, if I was selling items that revolved around old fashion zeppelin aircrafts, I would not want to pay for clicks that people who are looking for led zeppelin information. This targets my audience much more and provided me with more quality clicks as well as improved my CTR (click-through-rate), which is important for ad position and cost! Perry Marshall has a good free online course focusing on this and his eBook cannot stress it enough. Sign up here!
zeppelin
-led
In this case, if someone is looking for led zeppelin, your ad will not appear. If you type in zeppelin airships, your keyword would be triggered. At first when I learned about negative keywords, I thought "why would I want to get less clicks and impressions?". After reading Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, and applying some of his negative keyword techniques, I found that my ROI (return on investment) improved substantially. So, for our example above, if I was selling items that revolved around old fashion zeppelin aircrafts, I would not want to pay for clicks that people who are looking for led zeppelin information. This targets my audience much more and provided me with more quality clicks as well as improved my CTR (click-through-rate), which is important for ad position and cost! Perry Marshall has a good free online course focusing on this and his eBook cannot stress it enough. Sign up here!
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part V: The Matching Game
For some stupid reason, I have had a tough time in the past grasping the concept of the different matching options of google keywords. There are three specific matching types:
1) Broad matches:
For example: golf clubs
If you use these two words as your keyword, a google browser will find it if the words golf and clubs appear in the search despite its order and location.
golf balls and clubs (found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
2) Phrase matches (defined by quotations around the keywords):
For example: "golf clubs"
In this instance, the words golf and clubs must appear just like it is typed within the quotes. There may, however, be other keywords around it:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
3) Exact matches (defined by brackets around the keywords):
For example: [golf clubs]
For exact matches, the searcher must only type in the keywords defined, in that order, with no other keywords present:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (not found)
Now the first question you may ask yourself is "Why would I use a phrase or exact match if the broad match gets me the most results?". Yes, that is true, but a few things to point out:
1) Broad matches are much more competive and may cost you more money to bid on
2) Broad matches may produce clicks you don't want. For example: free golf clubs
3) Exact and Phrase matches gets higher priority than broad matches for page position
4) Exact and phrase matches help to reduce keyword cost and produces higher quality clicks.
One more thing to point out! In Adwords, you must specify plurals explicitly! Many PPC's will include a plural form by default, but not Adwords. So if you are using golf clubs as a keyword, you may also want to include golf club as well!
1) Broad matches:
For example: golf clubs
If you use these two words as your keyword, a google browser will find it if the words golf and clubs appear in the search despite its order and location.
golf balls and clubs (found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
2) Phrase matches (defined by quotations around the keywords):
For example: "golf clubs"
In this instance, the words golf and clubs must appear just like it is typed within the quotes. There may, however, be other keywords around it:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
3) Exact matches (defined by brackets around the keywords):
For example: [golf clubs]
For exact matches, the searcher must only type in the keywords defined, in that order, with no other keywords present:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (not found)
Now the first question you may ask yourself is "Why would I use a phrase or exact match if the broad match gets me the most results?". Yes, that is true, but a few things to point out:
1) Broad matches are much more competive and may cost you more money to bid on
2) Broad matches may produce clicks you don't want. For example: free golf clubs
3) Exact and Phrase matches gets higher priority than broad matches for page position
4) Exact and phrase matches help to reduce keyword cost and produces higher quality clicks.
One more thing to point out! In Adwords, you must specify plurals explicitly! Many PPC's will include a plural form by default, but not Adwords. So if you are using golf clubs as a keyword, you may also want to include golf club as well!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part IV: Immediate Ads
Adwords has one unique advantage over most of the other pay-per-click websites. With Google, you can create a new ad and it will be active, essentially immediately. PPC sites like Overture and MSN, for example, require an editorial review of both the ad and the keywords associated with it. At some level, I don't blame them! But from our (the advertiser's) stand-point, it makes our jobs of developing effective ad campaigns more difficult. Most ads and/or keywords take 1-3 days for editorial review. GoogleAds will activate your ads and keywords immediately. There are a few things to point out, though.
1) Because the ads and keywords are effective immediately, Google still must regulate what the user is trying to do. Even though they are not reviewed my a person (initially), Google's computer brain tries to review it. This can both work for or against you. If the Google computer software does not like your ad, keyword, or even landing page, it will charge you a high price to active the keyword. On the other hand, you may get away with a fairly irrelevant keyword at a low price. No one other than Google knows the algorithm of determining this.
2) Some ads or keywords will produce "flags" in the Google system. There are some topics that google does not like (for example, gambling). If you put anything in your ad that relates to gambling, it may warn you immediately (and request justification) or it will flag it internally, allow you to bid on it, say it is active, but not tell you that your ad requires review prior to publishing. This really stinks at times! I will wait on an ad for days and not get a single impression just to find out that Google has flagged it and requires manual review. Usually a call to Google can solve this problem, but it usually takes a few days to even figure it out.
3) The benefit! Assuming that your ad does not require manual review, the ability to activate ads and test them immediately gives you lots of flexibility to test your ads and fine tune them for maximum click through rates (CTR). Perry Marshall's eBook focuses on this topic extensively and has really helped me to improve my CTR as well as my ROI (return on investment). Again, I highly recommend this book for anyone using Adwords. You'll earn back the money you spent on it in no time! Click here to learn more!
1) Because the ads and keywords are effective immediately, Google still must regulate what the user is trying to do. Even though they are not reviewed my a person (initially), Google's computer brain tries to review it. This can both work for or against you. If the Google computer software does not like your ad, keyword, or even landing page, it will charge you a high price to active the keyword. On the other hand, you may get away with a fairly irrelevant keyword at a low price. No one other than Google knows the algorithm of determining this.
2) Some ads or keywords will produce "flags" in the Google system. There are some topics that google does not like (for example, gambling). If you put anything in your ad that relates to gambling, it may warn you immediately (and request justification) or it will flag it internally, allow you to bid on it, say it is active, but not tell you that your ad requires review prior to publishing. This really stinks at times! I will wait on an ad for days and not get a single impression just to find out that Google has flagged it and requires manual review. Usually a call to Google can solve this problem, but it usually takes a few days to even figure it out.
3) The benefit! Assuming that your ad does not require manual review, the ability to activate ads and test them immediately gives you lots of flexibility to test your ads and fine tune them for maximum click through rates (CTR). Perry Marshall's eBook focuses on this topic extensively and has really helped me to improve my CTR as well as my ROI (return on investment). Again, I highly recommend this book for anyone using Adwords. You'll earn back the money you spent on it in no time! Click here to learn more!
Monday, May 08, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part III: Max Bid Headaches
Anyone who has used Adwords knows this scenerio:
I just thought of this great campaign and I have this great list of keywords that people are going to want to click! You set up your website or blog, you do a bunch of research on keywords and its various derivatives, you go to GoogleAds, create your ad, put in your keywords, choose a max bid that you can afford (like $0.10) and ta-da...
"YOU HAVE 456 INACTIVE KEYWORDS"
This is the point where I usually curse at the computer. So Google (kindly?) gives me two options:
1) Increase my keyword price
2) Increase the quality and relevancy of my ad
At this point, you can browse through your keywords and see the ridiculous prices google thinks your keyword is worth. Some of these keywords are $5, maybe even $10. I doubt you will be paying this.
The only other option you have is to optimize your ad. I have read tons on this topic and even have spoken with Google about it before, but I still am not quite sure how this works. If I change my ad, nothing really happens (at that time). If I add more ads, nothing really happens (at that time either). I think (this is purely speculation...if you have more insight, please let me know!) Google will initially give you its electronic estimate of what it will define its max bid value at based on your keywords and first ad written. From that point on, it will stay that way until the ad is officially reviewed by an editor. This can sometimes work to your advantage. A few things you can do in the meantime:
1) Write multiple ads. It is always a good itea to write multiple ads, but it also gives an editor more options to lower your bids.
2) Put keywords into the ad itself.
3) Be specific and use exact-match [] keywords pr phase-match "" keywords. For example, if you are selling golf clubs, instead of using the keyword:
golf clubs
Use:
[websites to find golf clubs]
4) Use negative keywords
5) Add more content to you landing page (Google does check your landing page for relevancy as well!)
6) Be patient! Time fixes these problems at times.
Perry Marshall goes over a lot of these issues in detail (and adds a few more advanced methods as well!). Click here to learn more.
I just thought of this great campaign and I have this great list of keywords that people are going to want to click! You set up your website or blog, you do a bunch of research on keywords and its various derivatives, you go to GoogleAds, create your ad, put in your keywords, choose a max bid that you can afford (like $0.10) and ta-da...
"YOU HAVE 456 INACTIVE KEYWORDS"
This is the point where I usually curse at the computer. So Google (kindly?) gives me two options:
1) Increase my keyword price
2) Increase the quality and relevancy of my ad
At this point, you can browse through your keywords and see the ridiculous prices google thinks your keyword is worth. Some of these keywords are $5, maybe even $10. I doubt you will be paying this.
The only other option you have is to optimize your ad. I have read tons on this topic and even have spoken with Google about it before, but I still am not quite sure how this works. If I change my ad, nothing really happens (at that time). If I add more ads, nothing really happens (at that time either). I think (this is purely speculation...if you have more insight, please let me know!) Google will initially give you its electronic estimate of what it will define its max bid value at based on your keywords and first ad written. From that point on, it will stay that way until the ad is officially reviewed by an editor. This can sometimes work to your advantage. A few things you can do in the meantime:
1) Write multiple ads. It is always a good itea to write multiple ads, but it also gives an editor more options to lower your bids.
2) Put keywords into the ad itself.
3) Be specific and use exact-match [] keywords pr phase-match "" keywords. For example, if you are selling golf clubs, instead of using the keyword:
golf clubs
Use:
[websites to find golf clubs]
4) Use negative keywords
5) Add more content to you landing page (Google does check your landing page for relevancy as well!)
6) Be patient! Time fixes these problems at times.
Perry Marshall goes over a lot of these issues in detail (and adds a few more advanced methods as well!). Click here to learn more.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part II: Ad Position
For most PPC sites, determining the ad position for a particular keyword is pretty straight forward. Like any auction, highest bidder wins! In Overture, for example, you can use the keyword selector tool to show you what position your ad will appear in for a given maximum bid. Keep in mind, though, that you maximum bid is just that: a MAXIMUM bid. You do not necessarily pay this price per click. Rather, you pay one cent higher than the next lower bidder. This sounds like a good deal, until you look and see what the max bids are for some keywords. Are you willing to pay $5 per click for the first position? Some people are! More advanced users and well-established campaigns can afford this hit. Beginners (like most of us), cannot compete in the market. Overture requires a minimum bid of $0.10. Right now, that is about as much as I want to spend. Unfortunately, that puts me in one of the lowest ad positions. I will still get clicks (in most case), but not many.
Google puts a little twist to this deal. Maximum bid price is one deciding factor. The other is Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a percentage which is calculated:
For example, if your ad has 10,000 impressions and it is clicked 100 times, your CTR would be 1%. (1%-10% CTR is considered rather respectable!) Google will then use this number and your bid price to determine your rank:
(Of course, it is not a simple equation like this, there are unknown weights and normalizing involved, which we, as the users, do not know!).
So what is the significance of this? It says that the top positions do not necessarily go to the highest bidder. Rather, it goes to best and most established ads. A person with a really high CTR may only have to pay pennies for the top position while a low (or no) CTR ad may pay dollars for the same spot. To some degree, this gives us little people a chance!
Of course, to have a high CTR, you need clicks and to get clicks, you need impressions and a respectable ad position. You have two options here:
1) Patience - Over time, you will get impressions and clicks
2) You can pay for it up front - Raise your bid from the beginning and hope not to get burned.
Either case, you need to have GOOD AD COPY! If people don't notice your ad, they won't click it. Google punishes you for this! As your CTR drops, more money is required to maintain that position. So, for everything good in the world, there always seems to be something bad!
Again, Perry Marshall spends a few chapters on improving ad copy and optimizing your CTR. Check it out!
Google puts a little twist to this deal. Maximum bid price is one deciding factor. The other is Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a percentage which is calculated:
CTR = Click Throughs / Impressions
For example, if your ad has 10,000 impressions and it is clicked 100 times, your CTR would be 1%. (1%-10% CTR is considered rather respectable!) Google will then use this number and your bid price to determine your rank:
Ad Position = Maximum Bid Price x CTR
(Of course, it is not a simple equation like this, there are unknown weights and normalizing involved, which we, as the users, do not know!).
So what is the significance of this? It says that the top positions do not necessarily go to the highest bidder. Rather, it goes to best and most established ads. A person with a really high CTR may only have to pay pennies for the top position while a low (or no) CTR ad may pay dollars for the same spot. To some degree, this gives us little people a chance!
Of course, to have a high CTR, you need clicks and to get clicks, you need impressions and a respectable ad position. You have two options here:
1) Patience - Over time, you will get impressions and clicks
2) You can pay for it up front - Raise your bid from the beginning and hope not to get burned.
Either case, you need to have GOOD AD COPY! If people don't notice your ad, they won't click it. Google punishes you for this! As your CTR drops, more money is required to maintain that position. So, for everything good in the world, there always seems to be something bad!
Again, Perry Marshall spends a few chapters on improving ad copy and optimizing your CTR. Check it out!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part I
Understanding Adwords: That is a tough task. Since there are many different components of Google Adwords, I will be splitting up this blog over the next few days or so. Let's begin with the essentials...
Google Adwords works similiar to many of the other PPC programs. You bid on keywords and you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You may have a million impressions and no clicks, and it won't cost you a cent. So what is different about Google? Let's go through some of the main differences:
1) Ad position is a function of not only the minimum bid price, but also the history and the effectiveness of this ad to generate clicks.
2) GoogleAds rewards (or punishes) people for bidding on keywords that are relevant to the ad and landing page. Relevant keywords offer lower maximum bids than non-relevant keywords.
3) GoogleAds, generally, does not review ads immediately. (This can be a crucial advantange!)
4) GoogleAds allows for broad match, phase match, exact match keywords. Also plurals. Further, negative keywords can be defined.
5) Google allows for both search engine and content search advertising (discussed briefly in my blog about Adsense: Adsense, Does it Really Make Sense?
6) You are billed after the clicks are made, not before.
I am sure I can think of a few other differences which I will bring up as I think of them. Before I go for today, I really want to emphasize that getting GoogleAds to work effectively takes a bit of time and understanding. You can find yourself spending a LOT of money trying to learn the system through trial and error. I have read a few books and eBooks about GoogleAds and Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is one of the best (Click here to learn more...). The forty-some dollars it costs will save you hundreds in the future. Also, the quicker you understand the true details of GoogleAds, the faster you will be making sales. Much of my success occurred after buying this book!
See ya tomorrow!
Google Adwords works similiar to many of the other PPC programs. You bid on keywords and you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You may have a million impressions and no clicks, and it won't cost you a cent. So what is different about Google? Let's go through some of the main differences:
1) Ad position is a function of not only the minimum bid price, but also the history and the effectiveness of this ad to generate clicks.
2) GoogleAds rewards (or punishes) people for bidding on keywords that are relevant to the ad and landing page. Relevant keywords offer lower maximum bids than non-relevant keywords.
3) GoogleAds, generally, does not review ads immediately. (This can be a crucial advantange!)
4) GoogleAds allows for broad match, phase match, exact match keywords. Also plurals. Further, negative keywords can be defined.
5) Google allows for both search engine and content search advertising (discussed briefly in my blog about Adsense: Adsense, Does it Really Make Sense?
6) You are billed after the clicks are made, not before.
I am sure I can think of a few other differences which I will bring up as I think of them. Before I go for today, I really want to emphasize that getting GoogleAds to work effectively takes a bit of time and understanding. You can find yourself spending a LOT of money trying to learn the system through trial and error. I have read a few books and eBooks about GoogleAds and Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is one of the best (Click here to learn more...). The forty-some dollars it costs will save you hundreds in the future. Also, the quicker you understand the true details of GoogleAds, the faster you will be making sales. Much of my success occurred after buying this book!
See ya tomorrow!
Monday, May 01, 2006
Pay-Per-Clicks I - Overture Overview
Perhaps the biggest, most unique and effective PPC sites is Google's Adwords. But, of course, for everything good in the world, comes some headache. Adwords is definitely no exception to this rule! So let's focus on the simplier ones first.
Most PPC sites are fairly straight-forward in how they work: It is simple...you write an ad, you choose some keywords and then you bid on this keywords. Position of your ad is based on how much you pay. Best position goes to the highest bidder. This can be good and bad.
The good is that you know exactly where you stand, how your bid effects position, and you can size up your competition quite easily. Yahoo's Overture (http://www.overture.com) is probably the largest PPC site that does this on the web. For any keyword, you can view the current bids by using the keyword selector tools (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool will also be useful when using GoogleAds later on.
The bad things about this system is that position is purely based on money, not relevance (more or less...editors can remove your keyword if it is too obscure). This is a disadvantage for a few reasons:
1) Writing good ad copy is not rewarded
2) Poor ad copy degrades the entire quality of the search results
3) Trying to compete in established keywords can be difficult and expensive as a beginner
Adwords works quite differently than this. We'll discuss this more in detail next time.
Most PPC sites are fairly straight-forward in how they work: It is simple...you write an ad, you choose some keywords and then you bid on this keywords. Position of your ad is based on how much you pay. Best position goes to the highest bidder. This can be good and bad.
The good is that you know exactly where you stand, how your bid effects position, and you can size up your competition quite easily. Yahoo's Overture (http://www.overture.com) is probably the largest PPC site that does this on the web. For any keyword, you can view the current bids by using the keyword selector tools (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool will also be useful when using GoogleAds later on.
The bad things about this system is that position is purely based on money, not relevance (more or less...editors can remove your keyword if it is too obscure). This is a disadvantage for a few reasons:
1) Writing good ad copy is not rewarded
2) Poor ad copy degrades the entire quality of the search results
3) Trying to compete in established keywords can be difficult and expensive as a beginner
Adwords works quite differently than this. We'll discuss this more in detail next time.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Targeted Marketing: Pay-Per-Click Introduction
I spoke about it briefly yesterday, but one of the most important mechanisms of the internet for successful affiliate marketing is based around targeted marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) programs. Let me explain how this works...
I am sure you have all used a search engine before and have noticed "sponsored" links listed somewhere on the page. Google, for example, has sponsors on the right column and sometimes, has 1,2 or 3 sponsors above the search results (which are highlighted). These sponsored links appear on mostly all search engines: Yahoo, Hotbot, MSN, etc. Similarly, you will find sponsors located on individual webpages. This blog, for example, has a list of sponsored links at the bottom of the right column. These specific type of ads are called "content ads". We will discuss this another day. They work in the same manner, though.
First of all, anyone can create an ad for any website at any time. To set up an account usually costs less than $5 and there are no commitments or monthly fees to join (if you are, you are doing something wrong!). The special thing about all of these ads are that you ONLY pay what people click on! My ad can be seen by 1,000,000 people (these are called "impressions"), and receive zero clicks, and this will cost me nothing. Most ads cost anywhere between 5 cents per click to $5 per click to hundreds of dollars per click (I have never seen this type, but have read about them). So, let's say that 1000 people see my ad today and 100 of them click my ad at $0.1/click. My costs for the day would be $10. Luckily, most PPC programs allow you to limit your daily budget, just in case your clicks exceed your expectations.
The other main thing to point about about pay-per-click programs is that you are bidding on keywords: these are the words that people are searching for. For example, if I am selling golf clubs, I may bid on keywords such as "golf", "golf clubs", "how to play golf", "pebble beach", etc. You would probably not be bidding on keywords such as "britney spears", "baby showers" and "asian monkeys". The significance of this is that we are now targeting our product and website to those who are actually looking for it. Target marketing is a huge component to making affiliate marketing campaigns work!
Unfortunately, running pay-per-click campaigns are not trivial. PPC are strongly based on:
1) Competition,
2) Writing good ads,
3) Relevance
and, of course,
4) MONEY!!
More to come on Sunday! And remember, you CAN make money doing this! Be sure to check out the eBooks that have worked for me at my review site to get your campaign started today!:
http://MakeMoney.TheWebReviewer.com
I am sure you have all used a search engine before and have noticed "sponsored" links listed somewhere on the page. Google, for example, has sponsors on the right column and sometimes, has 1,2 or 3 sponsors above the search results (which are highlighted). These sponsored links appear on mostly all search engines: Yahoo, Hotbot, MSN, etc. Similarly, you will find sponsors located on individual webpages. This blog, for example, has a list of sponsored links at the bottom of the right column. These specific type of ads are called "content ads". We will discuss this another day. They work in the same manner, though.
First of all, anyone can create an ad for any website at any time. To set up an account usually costs less than $5 and there are no commitments or monthly fees to join (if you are, you are doing something wrong!). The special thing about all of these ads are that you ONLY pay what people click on! My ad can be seen by 1,000,000 people (these are called "impressions"), and receive zero clicks, and this will cost me nothing. Most ads cost anywhere between 5 cents per click to $5 per click to hundreds of dollars per click (I have never seen this type, but have read about them). So, let's say that 1000 people see my ad today and 100 of them click my ad at $0.1/click. My costs for the day would be $10. Luckily, most PPC programs allow you to limit your daily budget, just in case your clicks exceed your expectations.
The other main thing to point about about pay-per-click programs is that you are bidding on keywords: these are the words that people are searching for. For example, if I am selling golf clubs, I may bid on keywords such as "golf", "golf clubs", "how to play golf", "pebble beach", etc. You would probably not be bidding on keywords such as "britney spears", "baby showers" and "asian monkeys". The significance of this is that we are now targeting our product and website to those who are actually looking for it. Target marketing is a huge component to making affiliate marketing campaigns work!
Unfortunately, running pay-per-click campaigns are not trivial. PPC are strongly based on:
1) Competition,
2) Writing good ads,
3) Relevance
and, of course,
4) MONEY!!
More to come on Sunday! And remember, you CAN make money doing this! Be sure to check out the eBooks that have worked for me at my review site to get your campaign started today!:
http://MakeMoney.TheWebReviewer.com
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Staying Focused on Your Affiliate Marketing Plan
Sorry for missing a few blogs...Jury Duty, enough said!
While sitting on Jury Duty, I had plenty of time to think about life, and included in that is affiliate marketing. I came to a bit of a revelation about my current campaign...I was losing my focus! I have done this before, and I am glad that with experience that I am a bit more wise to pick-up on this mistake early on (though, I feel that I have already wasted a lot of time and money on this mistake). So what happened?
I originally developed a "plan" for this campaign. I did not set up dates, but rather, a sequence of events I wanted to follow. The first few steps of my plan were as follows:
1) Find, Research, and Pick a Product to Promote (DONE!)
2) Develop my promotion blog (DONE!)
3) Get my blog seen through search engine submissions, RSS feeds, and signatures to forum and blog responses. (75% DONE)
4) Pay-Per-Click Campaigns for targeted promotion (CRASHING!)
Wait a minute! PPC campaign? I haven't mentioned PPC campaign yet? What happened? Well, I got excited and over-anxious! In the process of step three, I was curious and checked out my Clickbank account and found that I was actually getting a few sales. In affiliate marketing, getting your first few sales on your product is almost as good as sex! The adrenaline was high, and I was eager to make this campaign work faster for me! That is when I started a few campaigns on several different PPC sites in haste. My impressions went up considerable, but my sales actually dropped and my PPC costs were going through the roof! Any money that I made prior to this is now history.
Two main lessons have come from this:
1) Haste Makes Waste! - especially when it comes to pay-per-click campaigns. To develop a proper campaign in PPC's require time, research and patience. Throwing out a few popular keywords without any thought is just asking for trouble (and a hole in your pocket-book!)
2) Stick to the Game Plan! - Don't let your emotions (and sales) get the better of you. For that matter, if things go south (and sales are not what you expect), still stick to your game plan. Again, you may feel desperate and start doing things that will only make things worse.
So for now, I am going to finish my "free promotion" plan and begin to research keywords and develop my PPC campaigns in a smart manner, not an excited or desperate manner! Stay tuned!
While sitting on Jury Duty, I had plenty of time to think about life, and included in that is affiliate marketing. I came to a bit of a revelation about my current campaign...I was losing my focus! I have done this before, and I am glad that with experience that I am a bit more wise to pick-up on this mistake early on (though, I feel that I have already wasted a lot of time and money on this mistake). So what happened?
I originally developed a "plan" for this campaign. I did not set up dates, but rather, a sequence of events I wanted to follow. The first few steps of my plan were as follows:
1) Find, Research, and Pick a Product to Promote (DONE!)
2) Develop my promotion blog (DONE!)
3) Get my blog seen through search engine submissions, RSS feeds, and signatures to forum and blog responses. (75% DONE)
4) Pay-Per-Click Campaigns for targeted promotion (CRASHING!)
Wait a minute! PPC campaign? I haven't mentioned PPC campaign yet? What happened? Well, I got excited and over-anxious! In the process of step three, I was curious and checked out my Clickbank account and found that I was actually getting a few sales. In affiliate marketing, getting your first few sales on your product is almost as good as sex! The adrenaline was high, and I was eager to make this campaign work faster for me! That is when I started a few campaigns on several different PPC sites in haste. My impressions went up considerable, but my sales actually dropped and my PPC costs were going through the roof! Any money that I made prior to this is now history.
Two main lessons have come from this:
1) Haste Makes Waste! - especially when it comes to pay-per-click campaigns. To develop a proper campaign in PPC's require time, research and patience. Throwing out a few popular keywords without any thought is just asking for trouble (and a hole in your pocket-book!)
2) Stick to the Game Plan! - Don't let your emotions (and sales) get the better of you. For that matter, if things go south (and sales are not what you expect), still stick to your game plan. Again, you may feel desperate and start doing things that will only make things worse.
So for now, I am going to finish my "free promotion" plan and begin to research keywords and develop my PPC campaigns in a smart manner, not an excited or desperate manner! Stay tuned!
Monday, April 24, 2006
Free For All Sites: Do You Get What You Pay For?
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