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“Adavice”/  “CPA

Extremely Discouraged - Losing Money on PPC

B

Bandit09

New Member
affiliate
Hello everyone, I've been hanging out here soaking up all of the precious information in these forums, as well as other sites such as digitalpoint, ewealth, and earnersforum. So, I decided to join CJ and also Clickbank to see if i can make any sales/money. Well, $60 adwords dollars later, NOTHING. not a SINGLE sale. I'll report what i promoted:

I spent $10.48 on promoting Reverse Mobile - a clickbank program from procashaffiliates.com
$15.20 on my blog - callawaygolfclubs.blogspot.com - has highly targetted keywords that have a high CPC - put some adsense on it. got about $.20 from adsense.
$20.71 on a webkinz-ebay ad. I was expecting to get some ebay signups BUT a few hours later I got an e-mail from ebay informing me their affiliate system is broken. Great.

So, I got 48 clicks from my webkinz-ebay campaign, 36 clicks from my SitNGoPro campaign, 34 Clicks from my callaway-blogspot campaign, and 15 clicks from my reversemobile campaign.

I've invested in a little over $60, and in return got NOTHING. I'm extremely discouraged and I feel like giving up. I see tons and tons of people around me that are extremely successful and making over $100 a day. If I made just $10 a day, I'd be extremely happy. But no, I've made nothing. I feel like I just wasted $60. $60 that could have been spent in wiser ways. What am I doing wrong?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well it's hard to say exactly what went wrong but I'll give you some important tips that may help.

1) It can take 100 - 200 clicks to get a sale in many affiliate programs.
You split up your efforts and had to stop too soon.

2) PPC takes TESTING, TRIAL and ERROR. It's much easier to do when you are new if you concentrate on ONE product or primary keyword.

3) You need LOTS of long tail or 3,4,5 word related phrases to be able to get enough clicks and get lower KW costs. If you were mainly bidding on the most obvious 2 word phrases you paid way too much per click to be profitable.

HOW MANY KEY PHRASES did you have for each campaign???

DID YOU INCLUDE THE MONEY WORDS that signify people are ready to buy and not just searching for random info? Buy golf clubs, best prices golf clubs...

4) You need to use negative KW to eliminate people who are clickers but not buyers. Example you promote XYZ software negative KW may be "free, ree trial, cheat, warez, crack" for people who don't want to buy but ware just trying to get a freebie.

5) You also need an affiliate program that you know converts well, tracks well and pays. Sometimes you can't tell these things up front and you need to test.

6) In order to test and learn you need some gambling money that you can afford to lost.

7) You Also MAY VERY WELL NEED to study and learn more about PPC before trying it again.

Those are just a few points off the top of my head
BUT I am NOT an Adwords expert and don't play the PPC game for profit.
 
ADDING: I feel your pain and am sympathic. I can't say don't give up,
because I don't know your situation.

But I feel you posted here because you wanted to
a) learn to do it better and
b) be encouraged

So I have to say, learn more before you try it again.

Also even though it LOOKS like lots of people are making big $ there are 100 times more that have tried and failed at 1st just like you and aren't making a dime.

The ones that are making big $ are the ones that

tried. failed. learned. improved

then got back on the horse til they figured out how to ride.

The ones making big money have ALL been through exactly what you are going through now! Difference? They didn't give up!
 
Linda - Thank you so much for your words of wisdom, advice, and encouragement. Believe it or not, they did help a lot. I guess when you look it, I can't expect to join up with people who have been doing this for years and expect to make money right off the bat. It's like anything else I suppose - practice makes perfect. I can't be the best at basketball if I haven't practiced and played before. I am determined to make this work, and I will NOT give up. Thanks again, and great forum, by the way.

--Bandit
 
Bandit09,

I hear you regarding spending money on pay per click and getting very little in return. Did the same thing myself when I first started out and it's very frustrating and discouraging.

Have you thought about any other approaches to affiliate marketing besides pay per click? One method that I really like is Travis Sago's Bum marketing. It's affiliate marketing through the writing of short articles and using blogs or Squidoo. It does take a little more time and effort to set up than an Adwords campaign but (and here's the part I love) it's totally free to do and can get you earning some money without spending any.

If you're interested in this type of method check it out at Bum Marketing Method(the course is free too so you don't even have to pay to learn it).
 
Good Answer

Linda Buquet said:
Well it's hard to say exactly what went wrong but I'll give you some important tips that may help.

1) It can take 100 - 200 clicks to get a sale in many affiliate programs.
You split up your efforts and had to stop too soon.

2) PPC takes TESTING, TRIAL and ERROR. It's much easier to do when you are new if you concentrate on ONE product or primary keyword.

3) You need LOTS of long tail or 3,4,5 word related phrases to be able to get enough clicks and get lower KW costs. If you were mainly bidding on the most obvious 2 word phrases you paid way too much per click to be profitable.

HOW MANY KEY PHRASES did you have for each campaign???

DID YOU INCLUDE THE MONEY WORDS that signify people are ready to buy and not just searching for random info? Buy golf clubs, best prices golf clubs...

4) You need to use negative KW to eliminate people who are clickers but not buyers. Example you promote XYZ software negative KW may be "free, ree trial, cheat, warez, crack" for people who don't want to buy but ware just trying to get a freebie.

5) You also need an affiliate program that you know converts well, tracks well and pays. Sometimes you can't tell these things up front and you need to test.

6) In order to test and learn you need some gambling money that you can afford to lost.

7) You Also MAY VERY WELL NEED to study and learn more about PPC before trying it again.

Those are just a few points off the top of my head
BUT I am NOT an Adwords expert and don't play the PPC game for profit.
Click to expand...

Linda that was a very good answer. I think you shead some very good advice and truth on that subject and may very well help someone to not give up but sharpen up. Love your answer.
Jessie Goss
 
Good Answers

Hey the lady gave me good hope also. I have tried thousands of things and not made a dime. I made more with scams than truely good programs. Although I don't encourage anyone to scam or run scams. It was actually a pyrimid scheme and I didn't know it was illegal until I was turned in and my website was shut down. But I was making money from it. And to me it did not appear to be hurting anyone.
But I guess learning to do anything right is worth the extra work and effort.
It is just where do you get the extra energy to keep going when you fall short so much. When you have done all you know to get the job done and you still haven't moved it can be very depressing.
Jessie Goss
 
jnjgoss said:
When you have done all you know to get the job done and you still haven't moved it can be very depressing.
Click to expand...

This can be true, but the key to affiliate success is determination and hard work. Stick with it and you will learn from your mistakes.

In my experience, nothing teaches affiliate marketers better than losing hard-earned money. You will be back and stronger than before!
 
Hi,
You have got some really good advice here.

Even I would tell you to start with bum marketing and try to make back the $60 that you had spent on adwords.

The mistake that you made with adwords was that you started with about 3 campaigns.
What you should have done was to start with one campaign and see if it is profitable.
To know if it is profitable or not, you have to wait for at least 100 clicks and see if you make a sale or not.

If you are not seeing any sales through this then this is a sign that you need to find a different product or a different niche.

Hope this helps.
bye,
faraz
 
Great

I am very new to all this but I will learn if I keep trying. I just hope I can set a pace and not stay on here to long but long enough. To much time on the net is bad for your health. You need a social life far more than a net life. But people seem to be really into it. So here I am too.

I have a hard time posting some of my affiliate urls. They are not always accepted every where. Many of them say they have been banned. So I guess searching out good companies is best to start with. I do everything backwards. I just tear into stuff to try and figure it all out.

The internet is just so much knowledge you can get lost in it so easy.You set out to do one thing and you end up doing 50 things as well and get side tracked too and forget what you were doing. You really have to get focussed.
Stick to your own guns so to speak.

One year ago I was getting 4000 emails aday and still got no where with it all.
It was just offers and after offers over and over again. I had submitted my sites and websites to search engines for free by the thousands and it never landed me one dime.

I figured out that what I thought the purpose of doing so was wrong. It is actually us who are being scammed by submitting to search engine for free.
And payed services were just as bad. I Posted I hosted and I advertised everywhere. But never got anywhere.

I finally come to the place where I knew I needed help and some guidance.
But really haven't found what I was looking for yet. I wanted to make some quick money on the net. I know there are those who do it. But how they do it is not clear to me yet.
 
Most of what you say is true. It's easy to get bombarded with so many ideas
that you lose focus.

I don't agree though that there are many making QUICk money on the net.
Some are making BIG money, but they paid their dues, wasted time, made mistakes just like you and then after WORKING REALLY HARD they finallly found a formula that worked for them.

There are also a TON of people out there selling crappy ebooks trying to make you THINK they have a secret and are making a ton of money. They prey on people like you who want to GET RICH QUICK.

If you want it quick and easy you are in the wrong business.
Like any biz this takes the right attitude, learning, discipline,
certain skills and hard work.
 
This is a great thread. One point to add to Linda's great tips, is don't forget to speak with your affiliate manager about advice on keywords for the program too.
 
Suceeding with PPC is more than just sending clicks and traffic. You have to know who your target audience are and what they really want. When you know that you can get the keywords that they will probably use to search on the internet for whatever is it they are looking for.

Something tells me that you are direct linking to the merchant and you should really have your own landing page that you send visitors to with your affiliate link on that page. This will increase the chance of you getting a sale since it will be "speaking" directly to the customer.

To succeed with PPC you have to learn how to market or you will just be throwing money away.

Another thing you should probably try is bum marketing as recommended by others above. When you get the hang of bum marketing, you will start to develop skills that would improve your PPC game ie you will start to understand PPC more.

Don't rush. You can still do this. Take the time to learn what you need to know.
 
Try

Try writing articles to promote your products. It is easy to do and some places will actually pay you to do it. I know of two good places that will pay you if you are intertested in knowing. 1 place willhelp you set up your website and monetize it. I belong to it and it is very good. Then you can use that article money to promote products.
 
Something tells me that you are direct linking to the merchant and you should really have your own landing page that you send visitors to with your affiliate link on that page. This will increase the chance of you getting a sale since it will be "speaking" directly to the customer.
Click to expand...

You should also make sure that your landing page is a great first impression by using professional designs, and well written copy. Also, don't forget to get permission from the merchant prior to using official logos etc!
 

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