Questions about CPA please help

1. People still use and are still making a killing with direct linking to the vendors site, however, these guys tend to know what they're doing with PPC and they're know their figures (ROI) so they make it pay.

In a nutshell though, Google doesn't really like affiliates direct linking and therefore you're quality score won't be very good plus they only allow one URL per page so you'll end up in a bidding war with someone to get your ad displayed.

You'd be much better off creating a landing page with a privacy policy, contact us etc on it and your half way to lowering your cost per click. Plus your conversions will be better if you have a good review with strong copy/content.

2. For PPC, you really want keyword with at least 100 searches a day but if its less than that then it doesn't really matter, just test the keywords and track your conversions (very important) and you'll find out that it isn't always the high volume keywords that get you the sales anyway.

3. You don't really need 10,000 keywords to run a ppc campaign. If your only just starting out with PPC then I would advise against this anyway as it would be difficult to manage for you but moreso your landing pages won't be tightly matched to your keywords. Resulting in a low quality score.

Use Googles keyword tool, just type 'keyword tool' in Google.com and you'll see it. There are other tools like Market Samurai that's great for PPC and also Micro Niche Finder. You can read a review I written on Micro Niche Finder by clicking the link below:

Micro Niche Finder Review

4. To start your keyword reseach off just use the google keyword tool or one of the others I've mentioned above and type in your seed keyword.

For example, 'dog training'. You'll then get back a ton of other related keywords. Just collect about 100 of them if your just starting out and start you ppc campaign with them.

Note:- make sure you use one keyword per ad group if you choose to use Google Adwords, this will help your quality score!

Look into using Adwords editor (free) to manage your Google campaigns & also AdGrenade (paid). You don't need AdGrenade ($147) at first that's why you'd be better off trying a few hundred (or even less) keywords. I know you might think this is a little expensive but it's an excellent tool and will save you a huge amount of time creating, uploading and managing your campaigns when you start to scale them up to 1000's of keywords. It not only works with Adwords, but also with Yahoo and MSN Adcentre.

Another method is to use tools like spyfu or keywordspy that will allow to you download the keywords that other people are already using in there campaigns. This is a very quick method that is favoured by the like of Jerry West (Stompernet). But this will involve some investment for the tools.

I don't want to go into a full lesson on PPC here as its such a huge subject, just have a search through this forum for adwords or ppc and you'll find some excellent information.

I hope that helps

Good luck

Hi Robert,

If you are direct linking I would suggest using Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN. Direct linking is much easier with these networks.

For keyword research I use Google's keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

In the "Choose columns to display" drop dowm in the upper right, choose "select all" to show estimated CPC and ad position.
Although search results from other search engines will be different, this is still a good tool to use for keyword research and it is free.

Instead of dumpimg a ton of keywords under one ad group, set up several different ad groups, each containing closely related keywords.

Direct linking campaigns generally have a much lower conversion rate than if you have a landing page, mainly because the prospects are not getting warmed up (pre-sold) for the sale.

So if your promoting a product were you get paid on a sale rather than a lead (cpa) then you should work off a 1% conversion rate. So for every 100 clicks you should get 1 sale, that will help you work out whether the product would be profitable for you. Bear in mind, you don't always get 1% but its a good starting point.

A landing page could consist of:

a) pre-sell story - this would tell the user how the product has benefited you.

Important note though - you need to be wary of false storys and testimonials these days as the FTA are really clamping down on these. A good example would be all the flogs (fake blogs) about how much weight people have lost by using ****. These pages are getting slapped big time by Google and more so totally shutdown by the FTA.

b) reviews of the top 3 or 4 products within your niche. This can be a 300-400 word review of the product along with a rating of 1 to 5. Also have a search on the warrior fourm and read about Chris Rempel's 'Conduit Method'. This is another way of creating a review site.

c) a squeeze page where you give away a product, mainly PLR or otherwise in exchange for peoples email addresses. This is highly recommened, but only after you've tested an offer by direct linking or one of the above methods to make sure it sells.

All of these methods work, but not in all markets! Use your main keywords and have a search in google and see what methods other people are using. That will generally give you a good idea of what types of landing pages people are using.

1. usually it's best to have your own landing page to presell the offer and to help with your QS

2. I try all, don't worry about how low it is.. you never know

3. you don't need that many, there are several different strategies.. you can start off with a few hundred if you wanted

4. Keyword tools, or just come up with your own

I am told by my ppc guy that you can t do direct to merchant pay per clicks unless you own the domain. So how are people doing direct to merchant pay per clicks? Isnt that just sending paid traffic straight to the vendors site ? Or do you still need a landing page for it as well. Can someone please clarify this ?

thanks Robert

Raj, as sranju72 said you can use iframes to do direct linking but you have to make sure you include content or else you will get a terrible QS.

Have a look at the blog post below and check the video out that Matt links too

Grrrr… The Cat’s Out of the Bag ;-(

Further down the post Matt lets you download some software of his for free that makes the iframe technique in the video a little easier to implement if your not used to editing code.

You don't even need to opt in for the software which is pretty cool. However, you will have to opt in to see the video as that's on a different site. Its well worth it though as its a neat little trick with direct linking.

not landing page content as you know it, its content for the search engines really which is kinda grey hat if you like - but you still get good QS.

I wouldn't build a business around using iFrames and direct linking though as Google could pull the plug at any time really (and they might well do as its getting more publicized now). Its just a way of direct linking thats working at the moment that you can test for yourself.

Watch the video as Amish explains it better and you'll see what I mean.

1. Landing pages often convert better than direct linking despite the extra step added. But I like to always test both to see which works better for a given offer.

2. This is a personal preference issue. I like to just go after tons of keywords and see what works. Some keywords that get only a few hundred searches a month convert like crazy.

3. There are spytools out there. If you are just getting started save your money and just use Google's keyword tool.

4. Dont jump to outsource until you have developed a system that works for you. For keyword research all you need is google's keyword tool and your brain. You give google a kewyord, it'll give you a hundred or so back. :-) I've provided google with hundreds that I've thought of, so I have thousands of keywords.

Also make sure you get some tracking software like tracking202pro so you know what is working and what isn't.