Beating The Content Network

15 years ago

This should be interesting...

Content network has been a money pit for me, but I want to figure out how to make it profitable because of the loose quality score requirements.

Thanks

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TomBond

15 years ago

My CTR on the content network is horrific. I'm talking 0.5% or less, with 1000's of impressions. CPC is lower though

Thanks
2 replies

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MKons

15 years ago

Just a quick update.

Day1:

Created a landing page for the Clickbank product, found a nice domain name, waiting for it to propagate.

Been doing some keyword research... The product is in a very competitive niche, it's going to be tough. I'm going to setup a site placement campaign at first, coz throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it sticks would be too expensive with this one...

Trying to work out the demographics and such... Spying on my competitors for ad copy ideas, it's all very much in the early stages.

More updates tomorrow.

Mantas

Thanks
1 reply

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Johnny12345

15 years ago

Originally Posted by MKons

Day1:

Created a landing page for the Clickbank product, found a nice domain name, waiting for it to propagate.

Mantas,

Great thread!

Can you tell us what kind of landing page you are using? I'm not asking you to SHOW it, just to describe it. Is it a review page, a fake blog (I hate those), a poll, etc.?

Thanks,

Johnny

Thanks
1 reply

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MKons

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Johnny12345

Mantas,

Great thread!

Can you tell us what kind of landing page you are using? I'm not asking you to SHOW it, just to describe it. Is it a review page, a fake blog (I hate those), a poll, etc.?

Thanks,

Johnny

I'm starting with a review page. Might have to split test a flog later on (I hate them too. Both making & using them).

Thanks

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MKons 15 years ago

Originally Posted by distinctly_digital

My CTR on the content network is horrific. I'm talking 0.5% or less, with 1000's of impressions. CPC is lower though

0.5% isn't too bad (assuming you're using text ads).
- Thanks
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MKons

15 years ago

Originally Posted by honestbizpro

Hey Mantas!

Great idea. Now you have me thinking about creating a comprehensive guide/resource based on the comments I see here.

haha, go for it. the biggest problem with content network guides - they all fall short on so many counts, it's pathetic. Even the $495+ ones... :rolleyes:

mind you though, the content network is so vast and misunderstood, it would take weeks to write a clear & comprehensive guide.

just my 2c.

Thanks

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MKons

15 years ago

Day2 so far:

First website is almost ready to go online. Going to start building backlinks (1-2 a day) and submit it to a few article directories, perhaps create a squidoo page.

Done with keyword research, currently have ~400 keywords split into 30 adgroups. I should say that I'm not a big fan of the 50 keywords/adgroup idea and I almost never start a campaign with random keywords/adgroups.

Still hunting for quality websites in the niche, so far the list is ~700 pages. Need ~2300 more.

Writing ads is going to take some time. I normaly have 2 ads/adgroup (thats 60 ads for this campaign).

Have to setup tracking...

Lots of work, so little time

good times!

Back to work now.

Thanks

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article_marketer

15 years ago

[DELETED]

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MKons

15 years ago

Originally Posted by article_marketer

Ive been getting 2%+ CTR's using banner ads using Google image ads paying around 0.03 per click although I can get it to 1 cent per click if I want slightly less traffic per day so 1000 visitors costs only $10.

I use a few keywords per adgroup, usually 1 to 6 keywords. Ive not had much success promoting Clickbank products so Im going to try CPA offers as when I first tried CPA with the content network I had a 400% ROI.

yep, I normaly get ~3-6% ctr when using image ads. Text ad ctrs are a lot lower... Don't forget to test both cpm and cpc, as I've found that cpm+image ads work the best for me.

It depends on a product, but yeah, I agree that Clickbank products are a lot harder to sell than cpa offers. I do know someone doing 50+ sales a day with Clickbank+Content Network, so it is possible, just a lot more work.

Thanks

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anuj291

15 years ago

wow.. good interesting stuf...
ill surely check it back again...
lets see how it goes

Thanks

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Content Writing

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MKons

15 years ago

Day3:

Submited 2 articles to ezine, also created a few links using Angelas link building guide (I think it's in the wso section somewhere, great stuff)...

The first campaign is ready to launch (text ads). Might take a day or two to get rolling as it's weekend and google is lazy on wknds.

Going to create image ads for all adgroups tomorrow. My girlfriends come to visit, so I wont be posting a lot over the next 24 hours, after that I should have some interesting info to share re my campaigns performance

Thanks
1 reply

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willzoboy

15 years ago

Originally Posted by MKons

Day3:
My girlfriends come to visit, so I wont be posting a lot over the next 24 hours, after that I should have some interesting info to share re my campaigns performance

Sounds like your girlfriend wore you out completely. Will you be updating this thread again? It was just starting to get interesting.

Thanks
2 replies

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FredericoVilaVerde

15 years ago

Mantas,

Great idea and a few questions for you...

1) Is the product you are promoting a mass market product or a niche market product?

2) I know it is a CB product... but is it a PURE information product? (ebook, audios, etc)

3) When creating your ads, do you focus 100% on the PROBLEMS the product solves?

I am trying to see if we can identify the pattern that can work
better on the Content Network when choosing different products,
so we can learn from this post... but without you actually sharing
the exact product and domain you are using.

Good luck!

Regards,

Frederico Vila Verde

Thanks
1 reply

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MKons

15 years ago

Originally Posted by FredericoVilaVerde

Mantas,

Great idea and a few questions for you...

1) Is the product you are promoting a mass market product or a niche market product?

2) I know it is a CB product... but is it a PURE information product? (ebook, audios, etc)

3) When creating your ads, do you focus 100% on the PROBLEMS the product solves?

I am trying to see if we can identify the pattern that can work
better on the Content Network when choosing different products,
so we can learn from this post... but without you actually sharing
the exact product and domain you are using.

Good luck!

Regards,

Frederico Vila Verde

1. It's a popular product (mass market, kind of). I's definitely not the best way to pick a product though (gravity)... After testing ~50 Clickbank products I can (sort of) tell which ones would do well on search or content. Some products are easier to sell by building a relationship with a buyer (mailing list, offer a free guide at first -- it does work, though a lot of work).

As I said earlier in one of the threads, I truly believe that almost every product has potential to sell (apart from the totally ridiculous ones, of course. aka "Sex Satisfaction for a Christian some...").

CPA networks have loads of quality products on offer. Clickbank has some (100-150 that I would test).

2. It's a pure information product.

3. Mostly, I suppose. Try to appear "conversational" in your ad copy.

I'll expand on those points tomorrow.

Mantas

Thanks
1 reply

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FredericoVilaVerde

15 years ago

Mantas,

Thanks for your updates.

I look forward to hear more from your case study.

Regards,

Frederico Vila Verde

Thanks
1 reply

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MKons

15 years ago

Okay, a slightly longer post this time. I'll try to answer as many questions as possible, and explain some of the stuff I did with the first campaign. I do get carried away easily, so this will probably end up being a long rant about something random...

Can you tell us what kind of landing page you are using? I'm not asking you to SHOW it, just to describe
it. Is it a review page, a fake blog (I hate those), a poll, etc.?

At first I setup a review type website, which worked just fine (good click through rate to the merchants page, ~40%), but I wanted to test something different, so I created a different type of website - something in between a flog, a review page and a product website.

Basically, it's a landing page with a long "review" article (over 600 words), and a lot of links to the product page. I only talk about that one product, and have ~10 links to the product page sitting in the text. Also, a nice call to action at the bottom of the page, and an email sub. option at the top (free bonus). Theres also a photo at the top of the page that links to an article about something closely related to that product (think a bonus offer, discount, trial offer, author's bio, etc)

I have a lot of pages on my website, with articles about similar products, and other related keywords. Altogether over unique articles plus contact, terms, privacy, etc pages. I should also mention that I always use Wordress for my landers.

Anyways, this setup seems to be working the best for me, as ~80% of all visitors reach the merchants page, one way or another.

How did it go? Are you making $50/day now?
And what did you do?

It's going strong. I can see a lot of potential there and 50/day net wont be a problem, I just need a little more data now.

I did many things... I would need a hundred pages to cover every step of the way in detail, but in a nutshell -

Pick a niche.
Do keyword research.
Set up targeted ad groups (5-15 keywords).
Keep split testing ad copy all the time. Wait 2-4 days, then pause the worse performing ads and re-write.
Test different types of landing page.
When building your website - go for a semi-real-website. I don't think one-page-wonders work on GCN any longer.
Track your ads/keywords.

I know it's all been said before, but there really is no magic formula there.

1) Is the product you are promoting a mass market product or a niche market product?

2) I know it is a CB product... but is it a PURE information product? (ebook, audios, etc)

3) When creating your ads, do you focus 100% on the PROBLEMS the product solves?

I am trying to see if we can identify the pattern that can work
better on the Content Network when choosing different products,
so we can learn from this post...

1. As I said earlier, yeah it's kind of a mass-market product (in a sense that it appeals to both males and females, and has a very wide target audience). It's not a "make money" or "diet" type of product.

2. It's a pure information product. It's also a nice product that does work and is not a total rip-off. I have personally seen the product, and I know that it would work, if I ever decided to use it... I don't need to, though :rolleyes:

3. I talk about what the product offers, what can be achieved by using it, the purpose of it, so to speak. I also ask the audience various "questions" and what not.

A pattern... Well, my experience has been that selling CB products is hard work. Sometimes you need over 400 clicks to test if a product works, and then the ROI can be very low, even when dealing with quality products. You need a lot of cheap clicks, and thats why I prefer CN over search (for Clickbank).

Quite a few CB products are good and informative. Forget diet/IM. Look for products that You would buy, if in the right mood/situation. I think need/hobby when looking for CB products to promote. Not fear/pain (works good for CPA).

The biggest mistakes that people make when launching ppc campaigns are -
Not doing things properly, being lazy and then giving up. Or not knowing what/how to do, and giving up before they even start. Set everything up PROPERLY, and have a little patience. Set a budget and stick to it. Test the products (properly) - almost every newbie gives up having done half the work.

Don't be naïve, stay away from expensive niches, start small and build up from there. Once you get a few campaigns up and running, you'll quickly pick up on what works and what doesn't.

I'll update this later...

Mantas

Thanks
1 reply

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xanol

15 years ago

MKons,

What ROI do you typically see promoting clickbank on the Google content network?

Also, do you like to get the vendor to enable conversion tracking on their download page, and then do placement targeting on the best sites?

thanks

Thanks
1 reply

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MKons

15 years ago

Originally Posted by xanol

MKons,

What ROI do you typically see promoting clickbank on the Google content network?

Also, do you like to get the vendor to enable conversion tracking on their download page, and then do placement targeting on the best sites?

thanks

It varies. Mostly low, 40-90%. It's a numbers game really. I find a lot of campaigns make so little (even after a few weeks of fine tuning) that I pause/stop them after a while and forget about them.

Nope, I only use prosper202 for tracking. Yes I do placement targeting, but not until I have a lot of data to work with (at least a weeks worth).

Thanks

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MKons 15 years ago

Originally Posted by willzoboy

Sounds like your girlfriend wore you out completely. Will you be updating this thread again? It was just starting to get interesting.

haha, yeah sorry about that. Had a very busy week++ (moving to a new place soon, girlfriend got a new job <.<... one of my older campaigns stopped working, 4!! other campaigns started selling unexpectedly (not on Google) -- sheesh).

Yes, I'm going to update this, but there is so much info re GCN, I don't know where to start.

One of the two campaigns is working (the Clickbank one). It's a bit too early to tell, but I'm looking at ~$50/day net after 30 days (average).

The other one (cpa) I haven't launched yet, so I failed the case study. I got too much going on I guess (some time ago I decided to launch 5 new campaigns every day for 30 days and see where that takes me. Mind you, those are small campaigns, mostly on MSN and such).

I will make a big update-post tomorrow. Please ask any questions, I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge (note I'm not an all-know-guru, far from it).
- Thanks
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Steven Downward

15 years ago

Thanks MKons for sharing this. I have never gone through this whole process being as complex as you have done. I have really learned a lot about the process from this thread.

Deffinatly coming back to see it and see how this plays out more.

Steve

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Samos

15 years ago

How did it go? Are you making $50/day now?

And what did you do?

Really would like to hear more.

Thanks

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promo_guy

15 years ago

Mkons

Thanks for this thread. Do you plan on updating?

Also, do you always build landing pages/sites even for the content network? Do you find these work better than direct linking?

Many thanks and good luck!

Thanks

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pauljeaston

15 years ago

This thread is great, but was left behind...any updates?

Thanks

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