My Step-By-Step PPC Advice for Newbies

[emjayce]

Hey Newbies,

I wanted to do something special for all of you. I'm going to share with you my perspective on pay-per-click marketing and hopefully help you get your first profitable campaign up and running. Follow this thread if you're interested. My first lesson starts right now...

Connecting a Hot Selling Product to a market and then the niches within that market:

When looking for a market or niche to target for your PPC campaign, you should start by selecting a hot selling product and then linking it back to relevant niches (people) within the market that the product is made for. You can find these hot selling products by checking marketplace stats at your trusted affiliate networks.

There are 3 main types of affiliate networks out there:

Digital Product Affiliate Networks

The most popular is:

Digital Products Retailer: Affiliate Program & Sell Online - ClickBank (check Clickbank Analytics for the top selling products)

Physical Product Affiliate Networks

LinkShare | Online Marketing Services, Search Marketing, Lead Generation, Affiliate Marketing
Commission Junction - A Global Leader in Affiliate Marketing, Online Advertising and Search Engine Marketing

CPA Affiliate Networks

Neverblue CPA Network - Cost per action, sale and lead generation affiliate marketing
MarketLeverage
hydra.com

Once you set up your account with any of these affiliate networks, you can identify the offers that carry the highest earning per click and/or the product that is converting for a high number of affiliates.

Here’s the criteria you should use for selecting an offer:

• Proven to convert
• CPA / $/Sale = $25 USD +
• Low refund rate
• Strong sales letter / professional website
• People are hungry for the product or hungry for the solution that the product provides

Once you believe you’ve found a good product/offer that meets the above criteria, you need to review it to determine who the product is relevant to. Here are a few examples that make reference to Click Bank Products:

Truth About Abs (ranked #5 on Click Bank)

Market = Fitness / Fitness for Fat Loss
Niche = People who want six pack abs, a flat stomach, or want to get rid of belly fat

Fat Loss 4 Idiots (ranked #3 on Click Bank)

Market = Weight Loss
Niche = people looking for a fast/easy diet, people who need to lose weight before a special event

Earth 4 Energy (ranked #3 on Click Bank)

Market = Renewable Energy
Niche = people who want to produce their own solar or wind power

So when you’re first looking at your hot selling product – you need to ask these questions: who is this product made for? What problem does this product help solve? Ultimately, you need to tie it back to the people who are most likely to buy it!

Once you’ve identified the niches behind your product, your next step is to determine what keywords the people within your niche would be searching with. You can find these keywords by placing generic keywords that are relevant to your product into Google’s FREE keyword tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

For example, with Earth 4 Energy you could enter a keyword like “solar panel(s)” and identify the following keyword opportunities:

buy solar panels, diy solar panel, diy solar panels, home made solar panels, homemade solar panels, how to build solar panels

These keywords are all highly relevant to the product and represent people who want to know how to build their own solar panels. Earth 4 Energy is the ideal solution for them because it will show them how!

The objective behind this lesson was to show you how you can go about finding the right market/niches by simply finding a proven product first and linking it back to the people it is most relevant to.

In my next lesson, we’ll be covering in-depth keyword research.

Let me know if you have any questions...

[Mike Morgan.]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Hey Newbies,

The objective behind this lesson was to show you how you can go about finding the right market/niches by simply finding a proven product first and linking it back to the people it is most relevant to.

It is really good information for beginners .

Mike

[Srikanth D]

@ emjayce: Great post for newbies.
Good work!


Thanks,
Srikanth

[RandyW32]

Thank you for this advice! I will put this to action right away

Cheers!

[emjayce]

Thanks for acknowledging guys. I will do another post later on today!

[emjayce]

Let's move on to in-depth keyword research:

With each campaign, you can group your keywords into 2 main buckets:

Long-Tail Product Keywords

These keywords represent people who are ready to make a purchase decision. You just have to give them the push they need by providing them with an authoritative review backed by social proof from real customers. Product keywords convert best because they represent “people” that are at the end of the buying cycle. These people just need that extra push before they move forward with their purchase.

You can create your long-tail product keyword list by taking the product name and appending “buying” terms like this:

earth 4 energy reviews
earth 4 energy compare
earth 4 energy comparisons
earth 4 energy scam
earth 4 energy testimonials
earth 4 energy techniques
earth 4 energy secret
earth 4 energy guides

Proven Long-Tail Keywords

Proven long-tail keywords represents keywords that are highly relevant to the product being promoted and have proven to convert for other affiliates. These keywords are identified by spying on the competition. Basically you want to identify other affiliate(s) who have been advertising to the same long-tail keyword over an extended period of time (at least 1-2 weeks). Once you’ve found a keyword that an affiliate has been advertising to over a 1-2 week period you can confirm that this is a long-tail keyword that converts profitably. These are the keywords you want to target within your campaign.

There are two methods you can utilize to spy on your competition.

There’s the manual option:

1.) Identify a series of long-tail keywords that you believe are relevant to the product you are promoting
2.) Google each keyword and print out the search results (including advertisers)
3.) Google each keyword 1 week later and compare the live search results to the printed search results
4.) Have any advertisers stuck around on any of your possible keywords?
5.) Document the keywords that have consistent advertiser(s), those are the one’s you want to use in your campaign.

There’s the software option:

I recommend using iSpionage as your Spy Tool. It will show you who’s advertising to your potential keywords on the 3 major search engines in real time!

Here's a list of what iSpionage exposes:

1. it scans all three major search networks in real-time to identify the latest ads that are running for specific keywords

2. in addition to showing each advertisers website/landing page, it also exposes all of the keywords that advertiser is currently marketing to.

3. it allows the user to add advertisers to their watch list where they can then monitor competing advertisers overtime to see what keywords they stick with over a 1 - 2 week period

To your benefit, you can get content and keyword ideas from the competition. And you can minimize the amount of advertising dollars you risk with adwords by watching the competition risk their money first. Then once, you see them drop the majority of their keywords, you can take what's left over and advertise to them too.

Building Your Keyword List

Ultimately, your keyword list should consist of long-tail product keywords (include product keywords for the product you are promoting AND for products that can be compared to the product you are promoting as well.

Then you have your proven long-tail keywords. You want to compile as many of these as possible. Aim for 10-20 + to start with. It is essential that you find keywords that other affiliates have proven for you. The idea here is you want to minimize the risk behind each keyword. If you fail to take this step seriously and advertise to un-proven long-tail keywords you are potentially gambling your money away.

So in the end you have two keyword lists to work with:

Long-Tail Product Keywords
Proven Long-Tail Keywords

Let me know if you have any questions...

[emjayce]

Anyone interested in learning more?

[dambim]

thanks for the info

[ellehc]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Anyone interested in learning more?

I'm interested, thanks for posting!

[cedricl]

yes please. thanks for the info

[emjayce]

Good to hear people are interested. I will post tonight.

[tiberius]

Thanks and keep them coming.

[freddie_fireman]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Proven Long-Tail Keywords

It is certainly useful information to know what these are. But if you target them, aren't you setting yourself up for a bidding war? And the other guy knows exactly when to stop bidding.

[emjayce]

Originally Posted by freddie_fireman

It is certainly useful information to know what these are. But if you target them, aren't you setting yourself up for a bidding war? And the other guy knows exactly when to stop bidding.

You are right - you will have to deal with some competition. You're still better off competing on keywords that convert vs. gambling your money away on keywords that don't convert.

[bamsgenx]

Its completely great tips!

[webdev08]

Great Post! I'm really learning. More useful and informative posts please! Thanks anyway...

[Traffic101]

Thank you for the tips!

[Mac the Knife]

very nice, this is exactly the info I need...would love to hear more, thanks!

Mac

[emjayce]

Hey Everyone - sorry for the delay. Here's my next post. Today I'm talking about getting to know your audience (extremely important)

By now you should have a good feel for whom your selected product(s) were made for and the relevant keywords they are actually searching for within the search engines. This knowledge alone is a good start, but it does not represent the knowledge required to ensure you successfully connect with your audience once they reach your campaign’s landing page or website. In order to ensure you connect with your audience, you need to answer the three W’s: who they are? What they want? Why they want it?

Who They Are?

You want to know the demographics of who you’re targeting. There is an extremely easy way to find out this information. All you have to do is go to Quantcast - Home and enter your primary product’s domain name. Hit enter and it’s all there for the taking. You’ll find out whether or not your target audience is male or female; their average age; their ethnicity; their class; their education level; and lifestyle preferences.

What They Want? (And what they perceive as useful information)

While you already have a general idea of what your audience wants (just look at the keywords they are search for), you should definitely go and get more insight on this question. The best place to go for more information on what your audience wants is www.YahooAnswers.com.

Go to Yahoo Answers and type in the root keywords you originally worked with when building your initial solution to problem keyword list. Yahoo Answers will return a series of Q and A search results. Read through and make notes on the first 5-10 Q and A results. This information represents (1) real questions that your audience is asking; (2) information/answers your audience perceived as being most helpful; and (3) the kind of language / words they use and understand when discussing the subject.

Why They Want It?

You need to know why your audience wants to solve their problem or fulfill their need. Basically you need to find out what’s in it for them? How are they going to benefit from solving their problem or fulfilling their need? You can answer these questions by reviewing your product(s) sales page and reading Q and A’s at Yahoo Answers. Make a note of the benefits your audience is looking for and make sure you touch on them within your campaign’s content.

Once you’ve answered these questions in detail, you are ready to start developing your campaign’s content and landing pages / websites.

[Brantley Whitley]

Thanks so much for all the great info on PPC and affiliate research, most helpful thing I've seen thus far. Keep the great info coming!!

[rankqu]

great insight to adwords.. Thanks for sharing..

Just one question.. i am moving into CPA and i have researched thru loads of stuff on search engine and they all speak about "pick your product"

how do you find which product wud sell the best.. ? i mean i know you'd say read more.. read specific to what you want to sell.. thats ok.. still traffic analysis and region study would certainly play a role..

if you dont know ab your subject and the resulting product.. it would not give desired results.. as CPA is all about earning money... insn't it..

[wlben]

Thanks for the help.

[emjayce]

Originally Posted by soul_of_god

hey can i make money from using adword

You sure can ... many people make $1000's per day

[emjayce]

Originally Posted by rankqu

great insight to adwords.. Thanks for sharing..

Just one question.. i am moving into CPA and i have researched thru loads of stuff on search engine and they all speak about "pick your product"

how do you find which product wud sell the best.. ? i mean i know you'd say read more.. read specific to what you want to sell.. thats ok.. still traffic analysis and region study would certainly play a role..

if you dont know ab your subject and the resulting product.. it would not give desired results.. as CPA is all about earning money... insn't it..

Hi There,

There are a few things you can do to find a good CPA offer. First you could ask your affiliate manager what offers are performing well on the network? Or better yet, what offers do a good job at converting traffic that's coming from paid search? Or better yet, what new offers a performing well (beat the crowd of affiliates)?

You can also look at offers that have high EPC's or have high network earnings. That means they're converting for other affiliates.

It all comes down to promoting proven offers. You don't want to gamble your money with offers that have yet to prove themselves unless you have the cash to spare.

With respects to traffic analysis. Don't worry too much about it. Just find some good quality keywords, each with 1000 + search per month and give them a test within a live campaign. From there you'll be able to gauge how much traffic each generate and whether or not they convert traffic into sales.

[emjayce]

Hi All,

I just realized the title of this thread was incorrect. I referred this to being step-by-step advice for Adwords when I should have said step-by-step advice for PPC.

I have corrected accordingly.

Glad to hear that you are all getting value out of this.

Best,



Matt

[SandraCee]

Thank you so much for this info! I hope you will continue to post.

I have recently signed up for PPC Classroom and its my first try at IM. It always helps to get a different perspective on things.

[kierov]

I never done any campaign with adwords you know. I prefer to use yahoo search marketing. Normally i build a list of keyword using keyword generator software and use it for my Adsense. I never had any success with affiliate marketing yet

BTW, thanks for the great info

[dome28]

Pretty good !!1

[KMP]

You have given some pretty good advice. I find it especially important to know who my target audience is, and what do THEY want. Not what do you want to give them, but what do they want to buy!

[junaidb]

Very handy advice for a newbie like me.
i have taken down notes and would be implementing....

Thanks for the advice

Originally Posted by emjayce

Let's move on to in-depth keyword research:

With each campaign, you can group your keywords into 2 main buckets:

Long-Tail Product Keywords

These keywords represent people who are ready to make a purchase decision. You just have to give them the push they need by providing them with an authoritative review backed by social proof from real customers. Product keywords convert best because they represent “people” that are at the end of the buying cycle. These people just need that extra push before they move forward with their purchase.

You can create your long-tail product keyword list by taking the product name and appending “buying” terms like this:

earth 4 energy reviews
earth 4 energy compare
earth 4 energy comparisons
earth 4 energy scam
earth 4 energy testimonials
earth 4 energy techniques
earth 4 energy secret
earth 4 energy guides

Proven Long-Tail Keywords

Proven long-tail keywords represents keywords that are highly relevant to the product being promoted and have proven to convert for other affiliates. These keywords are identified by spying on the competition. Basically you want to identify other affiliate(s) who have been advertising to the same long-tail keyword over an extended period of time (at least 1-2 weeks). Once you’ve found a keyword that an affiliate has been advertising to over a 1-2 week period you can confirm that this is a long-tail keyword that converts profitably. These are the keywords you want to target within your campaign.

There are two methods you can utilize to spy on your competition.

There’s the manual option:

1.) Identify a series of long-tail keywords that you believe are relevant to the product you are promoting
2.) Google each keyword and print out the search results (including advertisers)
3.) Google each keyword 1 week later and compare the live search results to the printed search results
4.) Have any advertisers stuck around on any of your possible keywords?
5.) Document the keywords that have consistent advertiser(s), those are the one’s you want to use in your campaign.

There’s the software option:

I recommend using iSpionage as your Spy Tool. It will show you who’s advertising to your potential keywords on the 3 major search engines in real time!

Here's a list of what iSpionage exposes:

1. it scans all three major search networks in real-time to identify the latest ads that are running for specific keywords

2. in addition to showing each advertisers website/landing page, it also exposes all of the keywords that advertiser is currently marketing to.

3. it allows the user to add advertisers to their watch list where they can then monitor competing advertisers overtime to see what keywords they stick with over a 1 - 2 week period

To your benefit, you can get content and keyword ideas from the competition. And you can minimize the amount of advertising dollars you risk with adwords by watching the competition risk their money first. Then once, you see them drop the majority of their keywords, you can take what's left over and advertise to them too.

Building Your Keyword List

Ultimately, your keyword list should consist of long-tail product keywords (include product keywords for the product you are promoting AND for products that can be compared to the product you are promoting as well.

Then you have your proven long-tail keywords. You want to compile as many of these as possible. Aim for 10-20 + to start with. It is essential that you find keywords that other affiliates have proven for you. The idea here is you want to minimize the risk behind each keyword. If you fail to take this step seriously and advertise to un-proven long-tail keywords you are potentially gambling your money away.

So in the end you have two keyword lists to work with:

Long-Tail Product Keywords
Proven Long-Tail Keywords

Let me know if you have any questions...

[emjayce]

Hi All,

Tonight I am going to talk about content development and landing pages. The whole idea here is that you need to develop content and landing pages that are relevant to both the keywords you are targeting and to what your audience wants, needs, or is concerned with (based on your yahoo answers research).

There is a variety of landing page styles you can utilize. If you go to my WSO referenced in my signature you will find an example of all the different styles you can select. The style you select for your campaign should be determined based on what other affiliates are having success with.

Ex. if you see several other affiliates using a review style page - use that...alternatively, if you see several other affiliates using a pre-sell story page - use that.

Here's a list of essential elements that you need to include within your landing pages:

Headline: Include your targeted keyword and focus on “what’s in it for them”. For example if you were targeting a keyword like “how to make solar panels”, you headline could read like this:

“Reduce Your Energy Bill By 80 %: Learn How To Make Solar Panels With These Quick & Easy Step-By-Step Guides”

Body Copy: Here’s where your Yahoo Answers research kicks in. Within, your need to touch on the answers to the key questions you found after doing your root keyword searches at Yahoo Answers. For review templates, you should write your body copy as if you are an authoritative website, while with the pre-sell story templates, you should write your body copy as if you had the sample problem that they had and explain what you did to solve it.

Solution to Problem / Call to Action Text Links: these links are positioned above the fold. They are bolded and carry a larger attention grabbing font size. Here’s an example:

Click Here To Make Your Own Solar Panels & Save $100’s

If you can find a way to put your targeted keyword in your call to action text links do so. Not only does this make your link relevant to your visitor, it also get your quality score points with the search engines.

Review Copy: for each of your products, you want to provide a neutral review that highlights the positive and the negatives about the product. You also want to identify how the product can benefit the customer.

Rosalind Gardner provides excellent guidelines on how to write product reviews:

How to Write a Product Review

Product Review Text Links: the product review text links that I use in my landing pages are “consumer review” and “special offer” related. This makes the links legit in the eye of the consumer while making them enticing to click on too.

Call To Action Product Links: below each review you should include a “call to action” link to the merchant. Here’s a few great call to action lines for your reference:

Click Here – Limited Time Offer
Click Here For Your 50% Discount
Click Here For Your Free Trial
Click Here To Lose 9 lbs Every 11 Days
Click Here For More Customer Reviews

Social Proof: You MUST social proof on your landing pages. That’s why our landing pages always make room for them. You can grab customer reviews or testimonials from forums (make sure you reference) or the merchants website and put them on your landing page. Social proof is a powerful method to utilize to push conversions. Including words of real people on your landing page simply hightens legitimacy and builds trust with your visitor. You cannot discount the power of using customer feedback within your landing pages.

[baichi]

Mate this is great stuff for newbies
Keep it coming

[emjayce]

Glad you are all still getting value out of this. I hope you are all taking action as well (most important). I will post again later on this week.

Talk soon,




Matt

[AllThingsArePossible]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Glad you are all still getting value out of this. I hope you are all taking action as well (most important). I will post again later on this week.

Talk soon,




Matt

Are you still open Matt?

[brand-all]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Glad you are all still getting value out of this. I hope you are all taking action as well (most important). I will post again later on this week.

Talk soon,




Matt

Hey Matt, thanks for your efforts here. This is really informative stuff for the newbies out there. I've just finished a little book called "The Go Giver" and your posts here 'fit' with the story. Basically, "those who choose to give, will be rewarded in a most unexpected way". You are a Giver Matt, and it can only lead to higher success. I'll be following.

Bill

[gjd6599]

Hi Matt, I just started trying ppc on yahoo about a week ago. I bought two courses, google shadow, and yahoo cash 4 idiots to help me along. They both teach sending the customer directly to the sales page.

I have three campaigns going now with all clickbank products. Two are weight loss products, and one on forex trading. I checked them in clickbank trends and they looked good, and they say they convert well, but I have spent $150.00 in click charges with no sales.

One problem I find is finding cheap clicks. I have done a lot of keyword research for related long tail keywords, but most words I have found are $1.00 or more per click.

In the forex market they are like $1.50 a click and up. This ads up fast. I think my ads are pretty good, but with 126 clicks, and not one sale something seems wrong.

I have been bidding separately on each keyword, instead of on each ad group. I am not sure if this is the right way or not. Unfortunately both of my high priced courses left that information out.

I am using a website that redirects customers to the merchants sales page.

Maybe doing review pages is better, but I was really trying to avoid that. I have done a lot of that with regular affiliate marketing.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks Glenn

[Jenie0109]

i really want to know more about long tail keywords, if it is good or bad. And your article makes sense. Thanks

[LivingCovers]

Full of good executable tips. Perfect for the careful newbie.

[Tim45]

I'm beginning to think that PPC products are a scam and people that say they are making money with PPC advertising are lying.

[naonline]

Originally Posted by Tim45

I'm beginning to think that PPC products are a scam and people that say they are making money with PPC advertising are lying.

Why are you thinking that Tim?

[emjayce]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the awesome comments!!!

Sorry for the absence - I have been very busy with several projects. Tonight I am going to talk about website set-up and Adwords quality score (boring stuff ). Follow this formula and I guarantee a quality score of at least 7/10 on your Adwords campaign.

Here we go...

Setting Up Your Landing Pages & Website (Very Important)

The heart and soul of your website is going to be represented by a Word Press blog. From there, you are going to build your landing pages around that blog. By taking this approach, you are doing what’s necessary to ensure a high quality score with Adwords upon the launch of your campaign. Here’s what your blog is going to comprise of:

Web Pages:

Home Page
About Us
Recommended Websites
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Blog Categories:

You are going to create a blog category for the root keywords associated with the keyword list you have compiled for your campaign. Referring back to the “Earth 4 Energy” example, here’s the categories I would create on my blog:

Earth 4 Energy Review
Homemade Energy Review
Living Off The Grid Review
How To Make Solar Panels
How To Make Wind Turbines
etc.

The landing pages that you build for your campaign are going to have links to your website (blog) at the bottom of the page. Each link is going to connect back to the respective page on your blog.

Additional Option For Your Wordpress Blog

There is a service called Wordpress Direct. Wordpress Direct allows for the easy launch of wordpress blogs and then automatically feeds relevant content into them on a weekly basis. The tool is excellent for campaigns that are running for the long-term.

[Mike Morgan.]

Originally Posted by emjayce

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the awesome comments!!!

Sorry for the absence - I have been very busy with several projects. Tonight I am going to talk about website set-up and Adwords quality score (boring stuff ). Follow this formula and I guarantee a quality score of at least 7/10 on your Adwords campaign.

Here we go...

Setting Up Your Landing Pages & Website (Very Important)

The heart and soul of your website is going to be represented by a Word Press blog. From there, you are going to build your landing pages around that blog. By taking this approach, you are doing what’s necessary to ensure a high quality score with Adwords upon the launch of your campaign. Here’s what your blog is going to comprise of:

Web Pages:

Home Page
About Us
Recommended Websites
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Blog Categories:

You are going to create a blog category for the root keywords associated with the keyword list you have compiled for your campaign. Referring back to the “Earth 4 Energy” example, here’s the categories I would create on my blog:

Earth 4 Energy Review
Homemade Energy Review
Living Off The Grid Review
How To Make Solar Panels
How To Make Wind Turbines
etc.

The landing pages that you build for your campaign are going to have links to your website (blog) at the bottom of the page. Each link is going to connect back to the respective page on your blog.

Additional Option For Your Wordpress Blog

There is a service called Wordpress Direct. Wordpress Direct allows for the easy launch of wordpress blogs and then automatically feeds relevant content into them on a weekly basis. The tool is excellent for campaigns that are running for the long-term.

It would have been more advantageous if you could get external links from authority sites .

Mike

[HappyCommando]

Like Glen above, I need some help on the "high cost for clicks with no sales" issue. I can find good ads with click-throughs greater than 10%, but the cost per click is killing me. Please help.

[Mike Morgan.]

Originally Posted by HappyCommando

Like Glen above, I need some help on the "high cost for clicks with no sales" issue. I can find good ads with click-throughs greater than 10%, but the cost per click is killing me. Please help.

Try to use high converting affiliate program and make sure that what you say in your ad copy is consistent with what the offer claims .

Mike

[DEERFARMER]

Hey Mike, Great information for us noobs. I really appreciate your time.Thank you.

[ruiz-b]

Thanks, thats a wondeful information you,
thanks

[emjayce]

Hi Glenn,

I apologize for overlooking this reply.

With respects to a market that is highly competitive with high CPC's. What you want to do is find a handful of good quality keywords. I would say 2-3 keywords to start. Use your spy tool to confirm that other affiliates are making money off your selected keywords and then target those handful of keywords exclusively. The whole idea here is that you are investing your money into a few good keywords and this will allow each of them to get enough traffic to prove whether or not they convert.

Here's the problem that most affiliates have. They load up 100 + keywords into their campaign. Each keyword gets 5 to 10 clicks. This in turn leads to 500 - 1000 clicks and very few sales. You can't expect a keyword to convert after just 5-10 clicks. You need more like 50-100 + clicks per keyword before you can prove it converts. You need to ask yourself how much am I willing to invest in my next campaign? If it's $100 and the industry is highly competitive with $1 clicks then you can only afford to advertise to 1 maybe 2 keywords. So you find a proven keyword that's (1) converting for other affiliates, and (2) has descent search volume behind it - and then put up an ad for just that one keyword.

All you need is 1 high converting keyword to generate sales and make a campaign profitable. The more keywords include in your campaign the more expensive its going to be to test it effectively.

Hope that makes sense,




Matt

Originally Posted by gjd6599

Hi Matt, I just started trying ppc on yahoo about a week ago. I bought two courses, google shadow, and yahoo cash 4 idiots to help me along. They both teach sending the customer directly to the sales page.

I have three campaigns going now with all clickbank products. Two are weight loss products, and one on forex trading. I checked them in clickbank trends and they looked good, and they say they convert well, but I have spent $150.00 in click charges with no sales.

One problem I find is finding cheap clicks. I have done a lot of keyword research for related long tail keywords, but most words I have found are $1.00 or more per click.

In the forex market they are like $1.50 a click and up. This ads up fast. I think my ads are pretty good, but with 126 clicks, and not one sale something seems wrong.

I have been bidding separately on each keyword, instead of on each ad group. I am not sure if this is the right way or not. Unfortunately both of my high priced courses left that information out.

I am using a website that redirects customers to the merchants sales page.

Maybe doing review pages is better, but I was really trying to avoid that. I have done a lot of that with regular affiliate marketing.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks Glenn

[AlexPK]

Thanks for sharing this emjayce. I am finding this so insightful and you are all bringing up answers to pressing questions which are a mystery to newbies like myself.

This is making sense so far and I also like the advise to only focus on one or two keywords in a campaign instead of 50. This will also help in watching the budget and keeping an eye on those campaigns which convert.

Any advise on other programs other than clickbank in relation to payments? eg clickbank aggregates all the product sales into your payment, is this the same with others like commission junction, shareasale etc?

Is this the recommended approach with the other programs too? As a newbie, a thought is to also sign up and promote other products on the other sites like cj and linkshare, but then you ask, am I going to dilute my focus? Or should I focus on a few good keywords but with different products from various sites clickbank, cj, shareasale. Should I only concentrate on digital products?

Thanks emjayce.

[emjayce]

Hi Alex,

I am glad you are finding this insightful.

Most affiliate networks aggregrate your earnings into one payment with the only difference being that most of them do not pay out bi-weekly like clickbank. Every network has a different payout policy though so things will vary by network.

You can use this approach for CB products, CPA offers, and Physical products. Its just a matter of using the right landing page to fit the offer you are promoting.

Try to focus on putting one campaign up at a time. You can refer to any network when finding a product to promote (scanning a series of affiliate networks for offers to promote will not hinder your focus). Get that campaign up and then immediatly move onto developing the next one.

Hope that helps,




Matt

Originally Posted by AlexPK

Thanks for sharing this emjayce. I am finding this so insightful and you are all bringing up answers to pressing questions which are a mystery to newbies like myself.

This is making sense so far and I also like the advise to only focus on one or two keywords in a campaign instead of 50. This will also help in watching the budget and keeping an eye on those campaigns which convert.

Any advise on other programs other than clickbank in relation to payments? eg clickbank aggregates all the product sales into your payment, is this the same with others like commission junction, shareasale etc?

Is this the recommended approach with the other programs too? As a newbie, a thought is to also sign up and promote other products on the other sites like cj and linkshare, but then you ask, am I going to dilute my focus? Or should I focus on a few good keywords but with different products from various sites clickbank, cj, shareasale. Should I only concentrate on digital products?

Thanks emjayce.

[Kevin H]

[quote=emjayce;608824]Hi Glenn,

I apologize for overlooking this reply.

With respects to a market that is highly competitive with high CPC's. What you want to do is find a handful of good quality keywords. I would say 2-3 keywords to start. Use your spy tool to confirm that other affiliates are making money off your selected keywords and then target those handful of keywords exclusively. The whole idea here is that you are investing your money into a few good keywords and this will allow each of them to get enough traffic to prove whether or not they convert.

Here's the problem that most affiliates have. They load up 100 + keywords into their campaign. Each keyword gets 5 to 10 clicks. This in turn leads to 500 - 1000 clicks and very few sales. You can't expect a keyword to convert after just 5-10 clicks. You need more like 50-100 + clicks per keyword before you can prove it converts. You need to ask yourself how much am I willing to invest in my next campaign? If it's $100 and the industry is highly competitive with $1 clicks then you can only afford to advertise to 1 maybe 2 keywords. So you find a proven keyword that's (1) converting for other affiliates, and (2) has descent search volume behind it - and then put up an ad for just that one keyword.

All you need is 1 high converting keyword to generate sales and make a campaign profitable. The more keywords include in your campaign the more expensive its going to be to test it effectively.

Hope that makes sense,




Hi Emjayce,

Thanks for this thread, I think it very helpful advise. I joined a PPC education site in Oct that was telling newbies to load up 300 to 1000 keywords and select broad, phrase , and exact match, which in hind site now seems like horrible advise for someone new unless they have very deep pockets.

Which match type do you recommend using for a small group of keywords? I read from someone recently to only use exact for a search campaign.

Thanks,
Kevin