Venturing into PPC - Case Study/Journal Thread

[ShaneRQR]

Watch and eat popcorn as this noob crashes and burns with PPC!

Or perhaps not.

Point is: I'll be starting my paid traffic experiments and I'll document it in this thread.

Some Background:
I've been doing "online business" in the broadest sense for quite a long time and I've been doing the things most people recognize as Internet marketing (SEO, creating affiliate websites, link-building, article marketing,...) for a few months. I'm having quite a lot of fun with that and I'm definitely going to keep doing the SEO and free traffic stuff.

However, I've been getting the itch to try something new and started researching PPC and CPV a few weeks ago. Just around that time, the Magic Bullet Systems started it's launch and I thought that might be a good opportunity and signed up.
As it turns out, the MBS might be a good opportunity, but we won't know anytime soon. If you want to know more about this, you can read up on it here. (Dear mods, this link goes to an un-monetized tumblr-blog)

Anyway: I've decided to get started with paid traffic and I'm still very much in the learning phase.

My progress so far is as follows:

• Spent a lot of time reading up on PPC and CPV
• Decided to get started with PPC
• Signed up for several CPA networks and have been approved to three of them, so far (others still pending and I still need to get on the phone to several aff managers)
• Researched tons of different offers and decided to get started with some freebie offers.
• Built two sites on which I can promote offers, a few more in the making.
• Signed up for Tracking202 and got stuck half-way through the setup. Reading about subids and tracking pixels is easier than actually setting that stuff up...

Next steps:

• Finish Tracking202 setup
• Build first landing page for one of the offers
• Throw a bit of cheap traffic at it (I'm thinking either Yahoo/MSN or G content network).

I actually don't want to start with Google search PPC, since that seems to be expensive traffic with a chance of ban-hammers. Volume-wise Yahoo/MSN won't make me a millionaire overnight, but then again, making all my newbie mistakes on the largest, most expensive plattfrom won't do that either.

Okay, I think that's about it for the introductory post. Any comments and tips and so on are, of course, welcome.

Cheers,
Shane

[ShaneRQR]

Alright, here's today's update:

I spent a lot of time figuring out and setting up Tracking202 (great that they have helpful videos and documentation) and I think I'm starting to get it. All of this stuff with tracking, redirects, pixels etc. is becoming clear to me now.

Next, I was fiddling with the Google Adwords Editor. Just like T202, this is doubtless a very useful tool, but there's a learning curve and I still haven't gotten my first campaign off the ground.
But I have created a campaign, added several ad-groups and keywords and am now going to upload the image ads.

So, my first campaign will be images on the Google content network. Why? As stated in the above post, I want to go the road less traveled, at first. I'd rather make my mistakes in PPC with cheap, second-rate traffic.

Hopefully, I'll be able to launch the campaign sometime tomorrow.

[FredFarnes]

This is a great post Shane. Good move to make your initial mistakes in a less expensive way.

Google has become very selective about CPA offers, rebills, email and zip submits etc are problematic. Be careful with those, you can be banned for life by the big G.

Keep the thread going, it's very beneficial to all.

[ShaneRQR]

Thanks, not-really-Fred!

I'm quite skeptical of the rebill-stuff myself. So far, all the offers I've selected for consideration are "clean". Doesn't mean Google will agree, of course.

Thanks for the warning, though.

[FredFarnes]

Google doesn't like email and zip submits too, so be careful.

I'm sending you a PM.

[GeorgeC]

So no rebills, no email or zip submits, then what else can you promote with PPC and CPAs?

[ShaneRQR]

Yeah, with email submits out of the picture, there's not that much left. I don't see what's wrong with (many) email submits, though. For some I've seen, all I'm doing is helping someone build their list...

What about free downloads (toolbars, smilies, whatever)? Does Google dislike that kind of thing too?

[ShaneRQR]

Today's Update

I have now finally uploaded my first G Content Network image ads campaign. I created it in Adwords Editor (very handy) and it contains five ad-groups, with a set of keywords each and two to four banner variations for each applicable size. Some of the banners are the ones provided by the advertiser and some are my own.

Maximum bigs are currently set to $0.10 per click. That's not how much I intend to pay, but I've heard that you should start high and then lower gradually. I don't reall understand why that is, but I'm just going to roll with it for now and see if it starts making sense as I progress.

Tracking 202 is set up (hopefully correctly) and the campaign with the affiliate network is also set.

I hope I added my tracking pixel properly.

Right now, all my ads are pending review. No idea how long that takes, but I can't wait for the first impressions to roll in.


Overview:
Campaigns..............................1
Ad-Groups..............................4

Max CPC.............................0.10
Daily Budget.........................$25

Money Out..............................0
Money In................................0

Bottom Line............................0


Can't wait to get some numbers in.

[FredFarnes]

Good luck, let's see some action!

I don't have any experience with "What about free downloads toolbars, smilies, whatever"..

One additional problem is the "quality score". This is some arbitrary measure that google uses to scam advertisers into paying more per click. If you are promoting smilies, how are you going to have a high quality score? That's a challenge...

[raynorbeins]

Awesome Shane,

Once you get approved by Google for your campaigns, you'll start to see numbers overnight.

It's kind of exciting though. I've launched a couple of campaigns on Google myself and some will be promising while others won't. But through trial and error, that's when you filter out those campaigns that are performing at top notch and filter out those that under perform and just waste money.

This will be interesting.

[ShaneRQR]

Thanks for the input, guys.

One good thing is that I still had a Google coupon, so the first $125 is on them. Allows me to try some stuff risk-free.

Yeah, the quality score thing seems pretty ridiculous. Looks like the best thing you can do is have dynamic keyword insertions so that the KW's always match the search terms... which kind of defeats the purpose again.

But as far as I can tell, the quality score doesn't apply to image-ads. After all, there's no crawlable text on those.

I also just registered a Yahoo account, hoping I could apply a coupon code I have for that, but I couldn't find a way to redeem the coupon... Therefore, I won't really be concentrating on Yahoo yet (I'm such an opportunist...).

[Rick Warrior]

Nice job I like what you are doing. I have join two cpa programs. I use cpm at 19cents per 1000. I get about a 1/4 mill views. If the system works I up scale. If not try another. This way I am not out of pocket to much. Good luck
Cheers

[chainsaw]

Enjoyed reading your post. Seems I'm following a similar path. Starting looking into PPC at about the time the Magic Bullet System came out. Signed up for the MBS only to discover its not ready for prime time.

Now I'm investigating other tools including Tracking 202.

There is a unofficial Magic Bullet Mastermind Forum you may wish to read about.

warriorforum.com/local-meetings-mastermind-groups-forum-events/172187-magic-bullet-system-mastermind-group.html

[ShaneRQR]

Allright, quick update: First couple of clicks have started rolling in and... T202 reporting is wrong. :-/

I thought I had everything set up very carefully, but apparently not.
So, I have to go back through the configuration and try to find the source of the error.

[ShaneRQR]

Today's update:

The theme of today was: PROBLEMS

1. I had set up a simple campaign on Yahoo and some clicks came in, but I noticed that they weren't being tracked in T202. Tried to fix it with a quick edit, after which the links went to a 404 page. -> Paused the campaign.

2. My image ads on the G content network were finally getting reviewed... and disapproved. I did something wrong with the display URL. -> Paused the campaign.

So, it's back to square one. I really thought I had set this thing up properly, but I was very, very wrong about that. Luckily, it hardly cost me anything (except time).

To-Do:

• Re-setup the T202 options for the ad-tracking.
• Get rid of current G Content Network campaign, redo all the ads in Adwords Editor and re-upload (this bugs me the most, since it will take time before the ads get reviewed, again).
• While I'm at it: Make a nicer landing page (had a very cool idea that I want to test).

I don't know how long it will take me, but basically, I'm back where I started and I want to polish up the whole campaign and tracking.

Also: I feel like a total noob.

Current balance:
$ -7.84
(that's what the Yahoo clicks cost me - not too bad for my first mistake, I would say )


P.S.: I assume setting up a campaign in T202 gets easier, after a while. At least, I hope so. It's a bit of a pain, having to do all that stuff manually. Must be a better solution for large campaigns available, no?
I'm just thinking: If you're running a dozen campaigns and wanting to tweak and edit them, you'll be entering data into T202 all day long...

[ShaneRQR]

Ouch.

Learnt something new, today.

As stated in the last post, because of some tracking issues and an idea for a new LP, I pulled back and started re-doing the whole campaign. I paused the campaign on Google, which worked without a problem.
I also paused the campaign on Yahoo Search Marketing... and that's where I learnt my lesson.
A few hours after pausing the campaigns, I log back in and see that traffic is still running. Check and see that one ad-group is still active. Okay, weird. I was pretty sure I had paused the whole campaign. But that's my bad, newbie mistake etc. So, I pause that last active campaign as well.

The next day, I upload a new template for the new landing page and start working on it. It's not finished yet, though.
Today, I see that Yahoo is still sending traffic to my now practically empty landing page! WTF!?

Apparently, it takes a long time between you hitting "pause" and traffic actually stopping. Since the traffic was going to an "empty" site, it obviously didn't convert, either.
Cost me about 20 bucks to learn this...

So, if I need to stop Yahoo traffic, it's probably best to set all the bids to the minimum, then set daily spend to the minimum, then pause the campaigns and then delete them, hoping that any one of those changes catches on within a few hours.

Also: I feel like a total idiot, making this many mistakes. I'm almost ashamed to report this stuff, but I feel like it will be most helpful to others if I really report on everything (especially the stupid mistakes).

I hope you're getting some entertainment value out of this.

Anyway, here's the current situation:

To-Do:
Still working on the same stuff as yesterday.



Overview:
Campaigns..............................0
Ad-Groups..............................0

Max CPC.................................0
Daily Budget............................0 (everything on hold)

Money Out............................$44.25
Money In..............................$5.70

Bottom Line...........................$ -38.55



Could be worse. Also, found an awesome offer to test for this same campaign on Azoogle. But my login to Azoogle is not working. Sent a mail to support.

Current theme: Let's see what else can go wrong...

[ShaneRQR]

Time for a mini-update:

I'm still working on re-doing my campaign. I think I'm over-doing it right now, spending too much time trying to make the perfect landing page and fretting over details.

The thing is, though, that I'll be out of town for the next three days, so I won't have any campaigns running anyway (don't want to turn my back on the money-drain just yet).
So really, I'm aiming to get my campaigns rolling again on Friday, when I'm back.

In the meantime, while I'm away, I'd like to read up on some more PPC info. Can anyone recommend a good guide?

[Antoniob]

great posts, shane, newbie just dipping my feet in, virtually no experience, your posts give reality to this IM game, I'm sure your gonna do well and be a great inspiration to others in time to come when you get it all right.
best of luck

[ShaneRQR]

Update after longish silence:

During my three-day trip to London, I caught some kind of virus and that knocked me out for more than a week. Very unpleasant. Had (and still have) a lot of catching up to do in my commerce business. Still not fully recovered, either.

I did manage to get some reading done. And this has lead to a bit of a problem.

I read everything about CPA, PPC and other paid traffic sources I could get my hands on.

And now I'm in full-on analysis paralysis.

On the one hand, I'm struggling with landing pages. Google quality score and FTC laws regarding review-style sites make things a bit complicated (mainly the QS stuff, though). I have not found the ideal solution for building landing pages yet. Found some free WordPress themes and some templates and such. Most of them are either very well put together and feature-rich, but then too inflexible. Or they are very flexible, but you have to do a lot of work (messing with code etc.) to make good pages.
Haven't been satisfied with either solution.

The other issue is that I have too many ideas for running campaigns. Should I try direct-linking to some offers, just to test them and build LPs if they convert?
Should I go with straight-up PPC or get cheaper traffic from banner-ads? Or perhaps CPV, so that I don't have to deal with the PPC issues?
Should I capture e-mail addresses and sell to the list or move prospects on to the offers as quickly as possible?

I had kind of a plan when I started out, but the more I read, the less sure I am about what I should try first.
The thing is, I'm very careful about spending money. I don't just want to throw money at a half-assed idea. I'm hoping that with a bit more research, it will eventually "click" and I'll find an idea that I can settle for, to begin with.

For now, I've had many interesting insights and many ideas, but they all seem too incomplete.

I will keep this thread updated and hopefully I'll be reporting on my first live campaign in just a few days.

Comments/thoughts welcome.

[Daniel Deegan]

Hey Shane, you have skype by any chance? I run into the same issues from time to time. Maybe we can help each other get on track...be accountability partners for each other.

[ShaneRQR]

Good idea! I sent you a PM.

[Kenster]

Short and medium forms work fine but remember you can also use other offers like some re-bills and simple submits. You just need to keep Google's policies in mind and design your site to accommodate these terms. Yes you cant direct link to an acai re-bill, duh. But why not design your sales process for the re-bill to be a few pages deep. You can do the same with simple submits, but the payouts are soo low its far more challenging. Or maybe design the site to get leads or opt ins and then send the re-bill.

Its funny how everybody thinks CPA to Google is dead. I've had few problems with any of my campaigns...think outside the box guys and work with the rules. At the end of the day, the innovative and creative CPA marketer comes out ahead. At least that my own motto!

[ShaneRQR]

To quickly recap: My problem is analysis paralysis - I don't know what to do because there are too many options.

For a solution, here's what I've come up with, so far:

Formulate a clear plan.

I want to write out a very clear plan of what I'm going to do next in IM. So far, I've just been drifting along, more or less. I have link-building plans for the SEO stuff and I follow certain strategies, but I don't really have an over-arching "big picture" kind of plan. That's what I want to write out.
And where I use PPC and CPA offers will be part of this plan.

The idea is that I make a clear plan for 3 to 6 months ahead and then stick to it. No more research involving things I haven't planned, no more looking for new ideas. Only implementing, testing and tweaking what I've already decided to do.

I've already started with this, but I'm not done yet.
One thing I will include is that I'll invest some time into creating mini-products/reports. I want to use those as incentives for lead-capture (sign ups to my own list) as well as options for monetizing the back-end.
Basically, I want to have more monetization offers in case I get bad conversions on the front-end.

Don't know if this is a good idea, but it seems to make sense.