Introduction + First question on evaluating a market

Have you split-tested different versions of the landing page? That could give you an idea if the problem is with your landing page or not.

Have you tested multiple ads? perhaps your ads are targeting the wrong people, or people are expecting omething totally different than what is on your landing page.

What about your keywords? Are you using the right keywords? Buyer keywords? Not freebie-seeker keywords, vague keywords, or info-seeker keywords.

There are so many things to test and track it really takes some thought and analysis to get it down pat.

2 conversions out of 400 isn't that great, but like I said, there are a lot of variables there that could be your culprit.

Hi Colin:

Welcome to the forum and good luck with the product!

Is it possible that you actually did better than 2 potential sales from 400 clicks since you are not actually up and running?

Don't give up! Fine-tune a bit first. Another thing is the price and profit of your item(s). For example Colin while you would like a conversion rate of 2.7 and higher if you had a product that cost you 1 pound to make and you sold it for 1000 pounds even if you only got 2 sales you may not feel to bad about the results. The converse is if the product cost you 40 pounds and you sell it for 49 pounds even 10 sales would not give you the return you seek.

Please factor:
Time involved in creating the product
Cost to you
Profit per sale
Overall Profit when all said and done

Remember you never fail you simply learn!

Have a great Wednesday.

Hi Melanie,

Thanks for the reply and idea's. Most of which I've implemented during the test. I've been following the advice on split ad-groups from Perry Marshall's book which was a great help. I've got my keywords researched (from a previous exercise in researching the niche) and I also setup negative keywords so I don't get people looking for free stuff. I even put the price in one of the ad-variants. I did split test my landing page, and both conversions came from a single page.

I agree about the numerous variables, chances are it's probably my landing page, but the main problem I'm having with is how do you definitively decide it's a no-go? I could tweak and continue to test and poor more money into adwords for the testing only to realise at the end that it's not what my niche wants - that's the crux, without spending a lot more time and money how can you definitively say whether it will work or not?

Hey Craig,

Don't get my wrong, I'm not giving up, i'm in IM for the long-haul, and this is just a test to see if the product is worth spending time on so I'm very positive and upbeat about the process, just lacking in a little direction..

As for the two sales - these were definite as I set up some goals in the adwords and google analytics programs, so out of the 400 visitors via the ad's, I can categorically say it was 2 customers, because I have a buy now button including the price on it, so if they clicked that and arrived at the thank-you page, I can confidently assume they are qualified buyers. However, even though it's only 2 sales, it tells me that there is some hope for the product, but how much hope compared to how long it will take to put the book together is a conundrum!

To answer your points (i'm thinking aloud here);

Time involved in creating the product - would take about 2 weeks of evening work.
Cost to you - nothing but time, but maybe adwords for continuel testing initially
Profit per sale - 100% if from natural search
Overall Profit when all said and done - 50% as the proceeds are being split with a partner.

The cost of the product, I've pitched at $14.99 as it's an ebook for parents of small children, and commercial books of the same type only cost a bit more, so I couldn't really raise that price higher than it is, I could lower it as the product is created and owned by me, but then with such a low conversion rate, I'm not sure if the time to market it is worth it.

If I could definitively say it's worth running with, my plan is to post to the blog using my list of researched keywords terms, review related products and earn affiliate money along with a few sponsors or adsense. I also intend to have a mailing list where parenting tips and related products are marketed to the recipients. I've got a good domain name with it, and it's a relatively un-competitive niche, but a part of me is thinking maybe that's for a reason - i.e. it's not profitable? My other idea was to use the ebook as a free gift for signing up to the list and market other products to them..