SacredWealth

Ok..I have finally got clicks

Since yesterday, I got around 650 impressions and two clicks. However, my account does not show any credits, so I guess the clicks did not convert.

Looks like I need to tweak things a little more.

SacredWealth

Update

1,359 impressions, just two clicks

PPCExpert

You need help from forum members in clicks, we can do it all day.. just kidding.

OptionMarketing

I am not sure if any asked you about this.

How much traffic is going to these keywords every day/month?

What position are you in getting that many impressions?

Most of the keywords your using do not really focus on people "looking" for what your ads offer. So that is why you probably have low CTR.

I am also some what new to CPA and I have been struggling in the PPC market. But everytime I test an ad it's quite easy to get a lot clicks within the first day. Just choose a good traffic keyword to see if the ad is converting first. Then go for the longer tail keywords with less traffic with the ads that convert so you know they will make you money spread out with LT keywords.

Great post though and hope it goes good.

amitcor

you CTR is horrible.
the problem is in the keywords or in the ads or in the position.
what is the average position? you said no competitors so i'm assuming you r first?
my guess is that it's a combination.
Try adding another add which is totally crazy maybe it will help. i once done something like: "my grandma could make XXXXXX with this simple new tool. must try!"

so try getting our of the box you can never know what will help.

also try matching the Headlines of your ads to the keywords.
so if some one searches "free pizza" your add head line should be like:
"Free Pizza?? Am I dreaminig?"

also try going for mistake like fre pizza or free piza.

i'm not in anyway an expert in ppc but i did try some things and managed to get high CTR's so just try more adds and more variations and try going for 1 high traffic keyword even if it will cost you a bit more

scar tissue

Try this one as a split tester of your current landing page : imagecows.net/out.php/i10674_sample.gif

Good luck and keep us posted, bro !

GeorgR.

Well if you are on Content Network...High impressions and low clicks might be NORMAL.

Well..the problem with this campaign is a more general (IMHO)...since "free pizza" just doesnt sound that "flashy" like "free ipod" or "free $1000 best buy gift card".

This is a VERY tight niche and the offer MIGHT not be the most attractive offer ;(

You can try purchasing banner space on sites related to food/pizza....or place banners/ads on sites where you know there are many students, wow players or programmers (because they like pizza <-- little joke, but you get the idea...

Or target "family sites", things like that.

I think this might be really, really hard to "sell"..I just think that gift cards for big stores, groceries, electronics, free video games or concert tickets just would go WAY better then this.

SacredWealth

I still have no clicks and I have decided to end this campaign for now. I think I chose the wrong keywords and wrong offer to promote. I am going to stop this for now and think about other offers and search for other keywords. Also, I think I need to join some reputed CPA Networks to try some great offers. I need to create a professional looking website as a first step. I am thinking of purchasing Thesis to do that, but I don't know if thats a good idea.

Anyway, I would like to end this thread for now. I will surely create a new one once I start my new campaign and hopefully, it won't be an experiment the next time.

I thank you all of you who supported and encouraged me and gave your ideas and suggestions to improve my campaign. Although the experiment did not work out, I did learn a lot of stuff from many warriors.

Thanks everyone once again!

Tessab4

Did you ask your CPA company where it was convertng best with the top affiliate. What traffic sources were the top affiliates using. At least you took some form of action so be pleased with yourself! To GeorgR. I will be in contact soon when I have enough posts. Not sure if I can post here but I want to pick your brains about Affiliate Site Quick. (Big Thumbs Up!)

Matt Wolfe

You gave it a good go. People are rarely successful with their first shot at PPC. Failing is a part of learning. Without this experiment you would have never learned all of the things that you know now. I can almost guarantee that your next attempt at PPC will be a little bit better than this one because of what you've learned through this experience.

CBSnooper

You took action. That's the first step. Well done. Now, don't give up. Find another product and try again. We're all here for you to help you if you get stuck!

Mike
~~~~
WPazaz - Amazon Wordpress Plugin
CBSnooper - Take the hard work out of finding hot Clickbank products.

promo_guy

I agree with CBSnooper, well done for taking action SacredWealth! I'm still trying to "organize" everything lol and feel like I'm only really making excuses for jumping in.

Well done and hopefully you've learned a lot. I hope to be starting my first campaign this week!

GeorgR.

SW,

every "failure" is just a step towards perfection...it's part of learning.

By the way...never GUESS. The next time you do a campaign, you should have an idea beforehand about KW search volume so you get an idea about volume/demand.

BUT...its totally and 100% normal to make campaigns, test them and see they wont work. Ask pros like derek. It can happen you make 10 campaigns, and 9 turn out duds. Happens to me all the time also. There is no way around: TESTING, TESTING, TESTING.

Get something where you can make simple landing pages, maybe Xsite Pro.

Do NOT emphasise too much on "professional" landing pages. I spent HOURS and HOURS on very professional LP...for one product i even made a very good looking review page.

Dont bother....it can happen that sometimes the best landing pages are ultra simple, just slapping a little text on it, some banners. That's it. Dont "over think"

Fritzjoerg

Great response from all who dared to point out some do's and don'ts about CPA, direct linking and PPC's.

Joerg

Sowemimo Oladele

You really impressed me. Learning from experience.

But Pls. sacred still need to learn alot before jumping into CPA. I am a newbie as well but taking my time to learn using no cost advertisement before jumping into CPC. However, you can PM if you need a JV.

Catch you.....

Prashaant

Are you actually getting those keywords for 5-7 cents?

Programmer: Wordpress, Joomla, Content Management Systems, Scripts, Troubleshooting - Get Help On ANYTHING technical! - Top Quality, Affordable Pricing

SacredWealth

Thanks Matt, George and all others. I will very soon start another campaign and I hope it will be a success. It will be a PPC + CPA again but not the same strategy. I will use slightly different method. I will let you all know once I get started with it.

Prashant,

Yes, I was getting them for less than 7 cents. That is what I had bid but the two clicks I got cost me only 3 cents each because my QS was excellent for some reason .

thetwooldladies

SacredWealth:

Bravo!!!!

I am a newbie as well, waiting a little longer to try this as I can see through this thread that I still need to read up on several things. I learned a lot from you and the Warriors replies. I am so happy it took a newbie to have the guts to open the CPA experimental doors and let us peek and watch in real time the effort you put into this, allowing us to criticize you, and taking that criticism to heart. You may have made mistakes, you learned, and in the future you will succeed. In my opinion it should have been the "so-called-Guru” that should show us these steps in real time as they are the ones who sell us the WSO’s. I know they would triple their current sales just from newbie’s if they showed us a small bit of this in action – just to Prove it works as they say it does. Am I wrong?

I hope you gather all you information from day one and when you are successful make it into a WSO for newbies. I would even refer to this thread to show how far you have come after you become successful and I know you will be. I have purchased several CPA WSO's and I am still sifting and trying to understand the jargon. I learned more here, today, than I did with three WSO's.

You posted on another thread a question about a suppression file. I think I have found the answer below. I also posted it under the thread where the question originated. Great Job… When I am ready I think I will follow in your footsteps and help another newbie as you have helped me. Pay it forward!!!


"Suppression File
According to CAN-SPAM law, each company is required to maintain a suppression file, or a list of those who have requested to be removed from your e-mail list." Quoted from an eMarketing Glossary.

I am also new to CPA but I believe this means that the network has a list of opt-out files (clients who do not want to receive any further emails regarding that promotion or perhaps those who have already signed on with the company) and perhaps you must first opt them out of your email list so it does not violate the agreement already made.

Please remember I am newbie to CPA but this is what I make of it. Perhaps a long term CPA member could clarify this.

thetwooldladies

joelraitt

I use a simple site editor kompozer to build me sites, template are easy to find as well. I have a few if you want them...everything is free and you wont have the dumb link at the bottom, it would be 100% yours.

Work smart, work hard, never give up.

esericsu

thanks for informative post ccmusicman

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SacredWealth

Thanks a lot for your appreciation thetwooldladies.

The response I got on this thread encourages me to be transparent on this forum and let people know what I am doing...so everyone benefits equally from it. I will try and showcase all my future projects in the same way on this forum. I have learned a lot by doing this and I think its a great way to learn for newbies, but you are right this would be doubly effective if done by the so-called-gurus as they know everything about PPC, CPA and affiliate marketing.

goforhunt

Do not loose heart if you make less in your first campiagn, refine it more and you'll succeed.

Good Luck!

sashagilberg

mate thanks for doing this experiment, I'm new to CPA and it was good to see some results.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed". - Michael Jordan

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FasTrack-Eddie

Thanks 4-the-Info "ccmusicman"

Now i've a lil better understanding of this PPC thing.

>wink<

RedMatrix

Next time try a simple poll style landing page, and make the offer compliment the poll / search term.

In your example, the offer was for a $500 Free Pizza Gift Card. Instead of asking which is their favorite brand of pizza, ask them "Will (sports team) win the (main event)?" and then say something like "Enter your email in the next page and win some free pizza!"

Then, target people looking for the team stats, or league stats.. etc. Let's just assume the visitor typed "Dallas Cowboy X" your ad could look like:

Will Cowboys Enter Playoffs?
Vote Yes or No and Get Some
Free Pizza For Your Party
Destination.url/Cowboys

The thing here is sports and pizza. Same thing could be said for sports and big screen tv offers...

~Dave

Marc Jager

Thanks, this was interesting and helpful - I wish you would have tried keywords more along the lines of 'get free stuff'...
I was also curious to see if you had more success with GeorgR's ads...
Anywhoo - thanks for sharing and best of luck to you.

__________________________________________________
I'd rather be disliked for who I am than liked for who I am not.

Saurab

Hello Sacred Wealth

1st congratulations for taking your 1st step.

Well 2-3 visitors you cannot determine how effective your campaign can be. The important factor point of such low CTR is you not reaching your target audience.

Following are tips to increase CTR as well completion of desired action from your traffic:
Have different campaign for SERP and content website.
Research Keyword list that may not be just based on your niche, but what places your potential prospects can be found. (exmpl. Free Pizza, bargain pizza, pizza discount coupons, free lunch etc)
so many times person looking for pizza+bbq will be least intrested in your offer, but a cult of pizza experts will be more intrested on giving their views(may not look for free pizza but opportunity to give advice and they will have fun having free pizza here)
Prepare a extensive list of keywords, ads content. Seprately for both content and SERP.
Keep one keyword per ad, mix match and test. Remove non performing and tweak to improve the performing ads. There will be many ads those will be rejected by Google as keyword this time research is based not just your niche but also on keywords to find target audience.
Research extensively on available sites and check on put your ads on selective ads.
Also you can "tell your friends" or "have your friends give opinion" and you can also build list as well increase traffic on folds, do free campaigns for free later. You should always add bookmark options for your landing pages.

Matt Wolfe ad examples are nice.

Good Luck
Saurab Uttam

Marc Jager

I will keep following this thread if you keep posting your experiences

__________________________________________________
I'd rather be disliked for who I am than liked for who I am not.

routonc38

I am doing polls as well but the poll has nothing to do with the offer. You can find out lots of free info on this by Googling "poll method" or "CPA poll method". Some people hate this method, though, so I guess you either love it or hate it. I'm also writing about my experiment on my blog. I know you were offered a free landing page to upload, but for those who don't know how to make one you can also find free and simple pages that can be easily modified in HTML. For these polls I did not bother with a fancy, big site or Wordpress, just simple HTML pages.

I set up a poll based on something currently happening - entertainment related, sports related, political, etc. Is Megan Fox mean to her fans? Is Simon the worst judge on American Idol? Stuff like that.

I created a landing page for the poll. I have a heading for my poll that states the offer "Vote and get a chance for a free pizza coupon" or whatever the offer is. Then I tell them what to do - Vote below, enter email on next page.

Then I ask the question, followed underneath by a picture, then I have 2 buttons, yes or no. These buttons link to the main offer page.

I also include some info underneath, just basic stuff that came from Wikipedia or other sites about the topic or person and under that I have 2 outbound links going to a site related to the topic. Then I include my disclaimer about the poll being unscientific, not endorsed by, blah, blah blah. You can find a disclaimer on pretty much any site and use it.

So to sum up my landing page is this:

Headline stating the offer
Tells the person what to do
Asks the question
Picture
Yes or No or whatever the answers that would make sense. These link to the offer page.
Info on subject or topic.
Two outbound links.
Disclaimer.

I have the other stuff - contact, about us, etc. on the home page to my site.

My ad also doesn't mention the offer at all, just the poll. The format is this:

Topic or Person or Subject of Poll
Take a Poll OR Vote Now OR Quick Survey
Poll Question
URL

So it would be something like:

Simon Cowell on Idol
Vote Now
Is he too mean?
URL

So that's what I do. I just started as well. I don't think I would even try to actually do an ad that went right for the offer.

I finished my first round last week and had some issues with Google's new Adwords system and ended up owing Google more than my initial budget because I read the stats wrong and got confused. So that was a learning experience. Next time I will know better.

I did get clicks and I did make some commission as well. However, I'm still $50 in the hole, but I hope the 2nd time will be better.

So try this if you want, google the terms and you'll find out a lot of info as well that you can use on your next offer. But don't give up.

Christina in GA
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