"Why Newbies Fail From the Beginning"

[Angelman]

I read the article "Why Newbies Fail From the Beginning" from the AffPlaybook blog just the other day and it was a very interesting read that I could relate to as a relative newbie to paid traffic, especially as my first attempts at PPC have been with 7Search.

Have a read, I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of CPAFixers on some of the points raised in the article.

The main thrust of the article points towards the trend of 7search being recommended as a good traffic source for newbies. Judging by the number of 7search threads on CPAFix I'd say that this is common advice that is given out - I took the advice myself.

Now I'm not going to bash 7search. It's very straightforward to get started with it, the clicks can be cheap and I can see exactly why people gravitate towards it, although I do think one of the main reasons people start with it is because (like me) they are afraid of losing too much money, or racking up a lot of debt on a credit card. But I completely understood the part of the article that compared 2 newbie affiliates, one starting on 7search and one on Adcenter.

Read the article and see if you also can see why starting with 7search as a newbie could not only waste your time, but put a massive dent in your confidence if you can't make it work or can't scale it up if you do find a winning campaign.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I've heard a lot of talk recently in blog posts, on Twitter and even from my affiliate managers that the really successful affiliates concentrate on traffic sources (and work within markets) that are scalable right from the outset.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on the article and also the idea of concentrating on quality scalable traffic sources from day one.

 

[K]

I agree to some extent, i openly admit 7Serach traffic isnt the best out there. Far from it! However i do believe it is the most user friendly, supported and best way to "learn" about PPC. I know a lot of people and have personally had profitable campaigns on 7Search you just have to be broad. However yes i do agree that the traffic isn't great!

 

[7searchGuys]

I took a look at this article, and can conclude only one fact from it: AFF Playbook Blog does not like 7Search.com

Somehow people started saying that 7search was a great source of traffic for newbies. The logic was that the clicks are cheaper, it’s easier to get things approved, and once you move on to another traffic source like Microsoft adCenter. In my opinion this is terrible advice for numerous reasons.

It seems odd that "somehow" there could be a consensus that 7Search could be a great place for affiliate marketers to get their feet wet and test their new offers. Yes, our click prices are more affordable than the larger engines, our interface is incredibly user friendly, our support staff is industry leading, and we are incredibly affiliate friendly. We allow direct linking, offer dedicated support reps, and feature available referrer ID blocking to help optimize the traffic sources your offers receive. I cannot apologize for that


First, a traffic source like 7search is not good quality traffic. If you tested offers there, you would probably throw away some potentially profitable campaigns. The reason is that 7search traffic just doesn’t convert that well. You might have a campaign that gets 0 conversions on 7search but does great on adCenter (the opposite is pretty unlikely but possible). Newbies taking the advice to start on 7search are probably throwing away some good campaigns without even knowing it. If they do move on to a traffic source like adCenter, they probably wouldn’t try that offer/niche again because they already tested it and it didn’t work.

We've never positioned ourselves as a replacement for the larger engines, and every marketer knows that offers have the potential to convert differently depending on the platform. That a marketer chooses to stop running an offer that is not profitable should not be a condemnation of 7Search as a platform. Furthermore, when did adCenter become a haven for affiliate marketers? Many of their policies mirror Google's these days.

Second, 7search doesn’t have the ability to scale. I honestly don’t know one big affiliate who runs on 7search and the main reason is because you can’t do much volume there. Now, the argument would be ‘yeah but 7search is just to learn on, then you move on’. Again, that sounds logical, but is a very flawed way of thinking. Yes, 7search is PPC traffic just like adCenter, but it’s still a very different traffic source. Even if you got a campaign working on 7search, you would be starting from square one when moving over to adCenter. Starting your campaigns on 7search really doesn’t teach you anything that wouldn’t be better to learn on adCenter.

Ah yes. Scalability can be an issue for many offers. We simply do not have a ton of traffic for people targeting Malaysia that want sell blueprints on how build a chicken coop Determining successful offers requires research on the part of the marketer to determine demand and potential. An offer that fails on 7Search is not a guaranteed home run on another platform (again, Bing? Really?) and vice versa.

This is why I don’t teach anything about 7search, Clicksor, or any other low quality traffic sources on the forum – I see it as a waste of time for affiliates. If anything, you should expand to those traffic sources after you get something scaled as far as you can on a quality traffic source. I’ve worked with, and known a ton of successful affiliates and they all share this viewpoint.

A ton of successful affiliates sharing the same viewpoint? Sounds like a big cult I kid, I kid

In all seriousness though, to issue a blanket dismissal of our platform is irresponsible and borders on ridiculous. Perhaps the thousands of active advertisers on our platform, and the tens of thousands we have had since our inception in 1999 have it all wrong? Or, maybe this is just one groups opinion of what works in affiliate marketing. Definitely consider it, but do your own research and make your own decision.