Affiliate PPC - Help Me, Losing Money - Avoid Common Newbie Mistakes

[Linda Buquet]

Ok this is some REALLY good stuff from 2 blogs.
If you do PPC or are trying to pick a niche or have a
niche you think may be too competitive you need to read!

Tyler Cruz has been bravely blogging his trials and errors
as a new affiliate, trying to profit.

You should probably read the whole series but lets look at today -
Day 15 which is sucking big time for Tyler!
He asks for help and gets some great advice from a pro affiliate
in the 2nd blog. Plus some good advice in his blog comments.
TONS of valuable lessons in both posts!

"In short, I’m still sucking. This morning was great and I thought I was actually getting somewhere, when I was at positive 69% ROI, but ever since then, I’ve just been accumulating more and more clicks with no more leads coming in.

So, I finished the day at -47.39% ROI, which, ironically enough, is still the best day I’ve had yet... Nearly a grand in the hole… that’s bad, right?
...I have a few questions for you guys, perhaps one of you out there knows the answer(s)"

Read the rest: at TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur’s Journey »
Affiliate Marketing Plunge: Day 15

Then over at the NetBusinessBlog Matt Coddington gives some great advice and some stern, well deserved warnings about several things affiliates should be careful of and gives some great tips.

"Before I start ranting, Tyler is a standup guy for keeping track of all this and making it public for his readers and asserting that he is just starting out and will undoubtably make mistakes. But in an attempt to keep my readers from losing a grand or so in their first couple of weeks of affiliate marketing, I would like to give out just a few pointers that I learned when I was doing it a year or two ago.

Throughout his affiliate marketing experiment, Tyler has done a few things that I would consider ineffective or just wrong that any beginner would do."

Read the rest:Affiliate Marketing - Conversion over Volume » Net Business Blog

What do YOU think???

 

[DiDi]

I had just finished reading the 2nd post and got a question of it,
is it not true that the reason for high cost keywords is because they're good keywords with high conversion?
like for ex, let's say "life insurance" can be high bid but can generate leads.
so is it all about the keywords or the bid? or maybe the landing page? where do you recommend to start learn PPC advertising(AdWords,AdCenter..etc)? one that can easy teach one by one, because sometimes an article can be hopeful but when it's come to practical it's different.

 

[Linda Buquet]

"is it all about the keywords or the bid? or maybe the landing page?"

It's a combination of many things including the one you mentioned and more.

"life insurance" would be very expensive and too competitive - unless you ARE a life ins company and have a big budget. It also may be too general and could attract info seekers and lookie loos are aren't ready to buy.

So adding words like buy life insurance, life insurance quotes, best life insurance rates may be cheaper yet better converting.Of course those are just a couple obvious ones off the top if my head that everyone would be using so still probably fairly expensive and competitive. So pros would drill down even deeper to find more and longer phrases and then also combine with location KW.

Using location keywords "New York life insurance" may be cheaper
and "cheap term life insurance quote New York" may be even cheaper and you would not get as many clicks but they'd be pretty targeted and probably convert better.

KW research is a bit of a science and the pros may put up a life insurance campaign with 1,000 or more long tail key phrases.

I linked to a pretty good beginner article recently I'll try to find it.
Oh got it. It's a sticky in the newbie forum.

<a href="http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/newbie-affiliate-forum/5523-adwords-ppc-tutorial-great-4-newbies-free.html">Adwords PPC Tutorial - Great 4 Newbies & FREE</a>

There are several other good PPC posts, including in the related posts at bottom of this page.

Hope this helps.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Here's another blog with some great tips I just found.

"One thing I do is take my product topic and narrow it down further and further. I will go for low ranking keywords that cost .10 cents to .30 cents a click.

However, I will enter tons of keywords. I may have 1,000 keywords on Google Adwords that are not expensive keywords. However, if only 3 people click on each keyword per week, that is 3,000 clicks and at 10 to 30 cents per click.

Out of 3,000 clicks I will hope for at least a 2% conversion ratio. If my product sells for $27, that is $1620 per week."

Read the rest: Niche Marketing: Pay Per Click
Source: Niche Marketing & Online Money Making Secrets:

 

[Lisa76]

I've read numerous articles/books that suggest creating a landing/squeeze page that collects an e-mail address is a great way to boost your conversions.

If you think about it, a lot of people don't buy on the first exposure which is why a lot of PPC-ers create a landing page offering a freebie in exchange for an e-mail address so they can continue marketing the product. That way you have a greater chance of getting more for your money. If the person doesn't buy at least you have an e-mail address to market to.

The trick is coming up with the right free offer and great follow-up copy to convert the customer.

Haven't done much PPC myself but would really like to get into it more.

 

[BrandonMc]

What a can of worms we have here

Right up front here, I've been learning and growing at this for about 6 months now. At this point I am able to break even with my PPC bill. I'm heading in the right direction anyway (slow and cautious). Get burned by Google enough times and you either duck your tail and run or get calluses on your credit card.

Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but when you first start Adwords, just be prepaired to loose money. The question is 'how much is this education worth to you'. There is a learning curve ahead of EVERYONE ( can I get an AMEN !?!? )

There is a lot of research to do before starting any Google campaign. Even after I spend several hours tuning my keywords and estimating supply and demand. I set my spending limit to what the profit on one sale would be. and have 4 or 5 going at a time to try and balance everything out. Ditching the loser and replacing it with a new one.

You have to stay on top of this because Google plays for keeps.

The only other thing for now would be that your keyword cost will raise and fall on a minute to minute basis depending on your CTR. If the text in your ad does not encourage people to click on it, Google will penalize you because your ad copy is irrelevant. Why - because they can.

Just proceed with caution. All the Adwords and keyword books in the world will not replace getting your hands dirty, or straighten out the learnign curve any.

Brandon