Spent Over $120k With Google - What I've Learned

[Folusho Orokunle]

Google is like a beautiful girl friend with a bad attitude or a handsome boy friend that likes to look at other girls.

You know that you should be looking for other options, but you just get sucked in every time that they smile at you.

I've spent well over 120 K. on Google advertising just in one account. I also have accounts with Yahoo MSN and other advertising sources but Google has really given me the best return on investment over the past few years.

But what I realized is just like that beautiful girl friend, you are going to eventually get slapped again!

The other thing that I've learned is that when you're doing advertising it is very important to look at the terms of service because this could be the difference between you having a very profitable business and losing your shirt.

I know this may not be popular either but I always make sure you have separate accounts for my different businesses. If you're helping to manage a real estate business it doesn't make sense to have that in the same account as your affiliate marketing business.

It's perfectly fine to have separate accounts for different businesses especially if you're not the owner of both businesses.

All of my best converting keywords are name brand keywords. What I mean when I say name brand keywords people places and things.

For example, if you're going into the weight loss niche, using the keyword weight loss is one of your keywords is not going to get you that far.

For the most part you can't use namebrand keywords in your ads but you can bid on them. a good example of the name brand keyword in the weight loss and niche would be JennyCraig.com.

Using domain names over the years that added thousands of additional leads to my lists.

What have you learned from using Google Adwords or other forms of pay per click advertising?

[webeserve]

That's pretty interesting... I will try to use this method

[milan]

Folusho,
That's a great post!

Many people overlook that brand name bidding but it works well. It's a great starting point for sure. I can compare this to bidding on (expert) people's names, this works as good for me, or even better.

[Folusho Orokunle]

Originally Posted by milan

Folusho,
That's a great post!

Many people overlook that brand name bidding but it works well. It's a great starting point for sure. I can compare this to bidding on (expert) people's names, this works as good for me, or even better.

Yep. I would consider an expert name as a brand as well. A lot of people only focus on online gurus, but the infomercial gurus are just as good.

You just have to be careful to follow trademark laws though...

[Sara Young]

I've spent nearly as much as you, and I definitely agree with the brand-name bidding method.

Another thing I've learned is that you must be extremely targeted and relevant in your keywords, ads, and landing pages. It might be obvious, but I mention it anyway because its the number one most important thing.

[Folusho Orokunle]

Originally Posted by Sara Young

I've spent nearly as much as you, and I definitely agree with the brand-name bidding method.

Another thing I've learned is that you must be extremely targeted and relevant in your keywords, ads, and landing pages. It might be obvious, but I mention it anyway because its the number one most important thing.

I agree. But there's another way too. You can come up with weird keywords that are not extremely targeted but get amazing conversions based on the mindset of the searcher. It's not as much about what someone is typing in Google, but what they're thinking about when they type it.

In the IM niche, one of my top keywords is aweber.com. But my site is just a general IM landing page. This works because most people that are looking for that site are in the right mindset to be interested in what I have to offer.

[Reznor]

Another vote for brand name bidding. My favorite method is to find up and coming products on CB and other affilliate networks and bid on the name of the product itself and advertise a bonus with it.

Other things I've learned

- 1 key word per group per ad
- Privacy Policy/Contact Info/Terms of Service
- Words like "scam" are gold for brand name bidding

-Rez

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by Folusho Orokunle

Google is like a beautiful girl friend with a bad attitude or a handsome boy friend that likes to look at other girls.

You know that you should be looking for other options, but you just get sucked in every time that they smile at you.

I've spent well over 120 K. on Google advertising just in one account. I also have accounts with Yahoo MSN and other advertising sources but Google has really given me the best return on investment over the past few years.

But what I realized is just like that beautiful girl friend, you are going to eventually get slapped again!

The other thing that I've learned is that when you're doing advertising it is very important to look at the terms of service because this could be the difference between you having a very profitable business and losing your shirt.

I know this may not be popular either but I always make sure you have separate accounts for my different businesses. If you're helping to manage a real estate business it doesn't make sense to have that in the same account as your affiliate marketing business.

It's perfectly fine to have separate accounts for different businesses especially if you're not the owner of both businesses.

All of my best converting keywords are name brand keywords. What I mean when I say name brand keywords people places and things.

For example, if you're going into the weight loss niche, using the keyword weight loss is one of your keywords is not going to get you that far.

For the most part you can't use namebrand keywords in your ads but you can bid on them. a good example of the name brand keyword in the weight loss and niche would be JennyCraig.com.

Using domain names over the years that added thousands of additional leads to my lists.

What have you learned from using Google Adwords or other forms of pay per click advertising?

Good post....aside from what your SPENT...what did you actually make? .) The "brand name" practice is something i did also.

I did with adwords for over 2 years, what i learned:

For your typical affiliate marketing it simply wont work.

Reason:

1) Bids too high / Markets too saturated
2) Conversion rates with clickbank too low (1:70 - 1:100)
3) Math simply wont work due to the avg. clickbank product paying less than $30

Adwords can work if you promote high price items, your own service/product....but is hard to master, needs a lot of time to tweak.

Overall, for affiliiate marketing (lower prices items) google will always "win", will always find some way to get your money, push down your quality score, things like that.

[Sara Young]

Originally Posted by Folusho Orokunle

I agree. But there's another way too. You can come up with weird keywords that are not extremely targeted but get amazing conversions based on the mindset of the searcher. It's not as much about what someone is typing in Google, but what they're thinking about when they type it.

In the IM niche, one of my top keywords is aweber.com. But my site is just a general IM landing page. This works because most people that are looking for that site are in the right mindset to be interested in what I have to offer.

And you don't mention aweber at all on your page?

Interesting. I've found that this will affect the quality score in a serious way. You have a way around that?