8 replies
  • PPC/SEM
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I am working with a friend who has opened a local funeral home/cremation service. He has used Adwords in the past but is clueless as to what is happening and what he is paying for. Since I am helping with local SEO I decided it may not be a bad idea to learn Adwords. I am studying the search certification study guide and expect to pass the exam in the next few days. I suspect that education in itself will be an advantage in our area which is low competitition. I also ordered Perry Marshall's Ultimate Guide since I understand he is the master of Adwords. Now I have questions going through my mind on how can I monetize this knowledge.

1 Do consultants make decent money helping local business owners with their Adwords campaigns? Seems like it could be a major pain for little money.

2. Do people still make money using affiliate offers and Adwords or should Microsoft/Bing be used for the affiliate offers?

3. Some affiliate offers have "full" websites for their offers. Is it difficult to direct link with Adwords or better to use another ad network?

4. Regardless of ad network, is it overall best to have my own landing page to build a list?
#guidance #ppc
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi thefsboking,


    1 Do consultants make decent money helping local business owners with their Adwords campaigns? Seems like it could be a major pain for little money.
    Yes, indeed, there are many agencies the manage AdWords campaigns for clients. Google has partnerships with approximately 2800 such agencies just in the US and Canada alone.

    It is definitely a "major pain" in that it takes time, talent, skills, not in just managing the accounts, learning and utilizing advanced automation tools, marketing strategies and tactics, platform updates, new technologies, etc., but also in managing the client relations, providing detailed reports, billing, collecting payments, etc.

    2. Do people still make money using affiliate offers and Adwords or should Microsoft/Bing be used for the affiliate offers?
    Yes, they do still make money on affiliate offers, however Google considers it a "questionable business model", as evidenced by the number of affiliate marketers that have difficulty complying with AdWords Policy.

    Truth is, most affiliate marketers are folks looking for shortcuts and it seems many rarely bother to even read AdWords policies, and when their websites, or ads are disapproved they often do nothing to fix them and end up getting booted from the AdWords program. That is perhaps the main reason you see so many affiliate folks resorting to Bing, they are often refugees from the AdWords program hoping for a second life at the much smaller Bing Ads network.

    If you are consulting with someone that will not read and follow rules, you might be better off letting them start out on Bing, then after they get booted from Bing they might wise up and make serious effort on the next platform. Once you see that they are serious about following the rules of the ad platforms, then, and only then you should be safe to move to the AdWords platform. The strategy being to let them make mistakes the unrecoverable mistakes on the smaller platforms so that the biggest ad platform is still available to them once they have the hang of policy compliance.

    3. Some affiliate offers have "full" websites for their offers. Is it difficult to direct link with Adwords or better to use another ad network?

    4. Regardless of ad network, is it overall best to have my own landing page to build a list?
    There are number reasons why it is usually much better to build your own landing pages rather than direct link:
    1. Policy compliance - You generally cannot fix a compliance issue if you cannot edit the landing page
    2. Double serving restrictions - Most ad networks do not allow double serving of ads, so if you are direct linking, you are competing with every other affiliate that is direct linking for a single ad listing, as well as every other offer that competes with the one you are promoting.
    3. Marketing metrics - If you direct link you will have no website user engagement data, and no opportunities for gaining marketing insights, or optimizing your campaigns, based on that data.
    4. Loss of Subscriber lists - By direct linking you lose the opportunity to build a list of interested parties or customer contact lists.
    5. Loss Prevention - One thing you will learn quickly in affiliate marketing is that there is a lot of "skimming, shaving and scrubbing" that tends to go on. Not having control of your landing page makes all that much more likely, and more difficult to detect.
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    • Profile picture of the author thefsboking
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      Hi thefsboking,

      Yes, indeed, there are many agencies the manage AdWords campaigns for clients. Google has partnerships with approximately 2800 such agencies just in the US and Canada alone.

      It is definitely a "major pain" in that it takes time, talent, skills, not in just managing the accounts, learning and utilizing advanced automation tools, marketing strategies and tactics, platform updates, new technologies, etc., but also in managing the client relations, providing detailed reports, billing, collecting payments, etc.
      So what can someone charge a small business to setup and run a campaign? When I say small I am speaking of maybe 1 or 2 adgroups, 2 - 4 ads and not more than 20 keywords total. It seems I would have to add my fee to their total ad cost to ensure they are getting a decent ROI? Please shed some light on how managing fees are determined.
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      Mike Williams

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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Hi Mike,

        Most agencies will manage PPC campaigns for a fee that is based on a percentage of the ad spend. This usually works best because it allows the agency to scale their work to fit the size of the businesses' advertising budget. However the fee based percentage does not work so well on a tiny ad spend budget.

        Because PPC advertising is a very competitive channel, even the tiniest ad campaigns still need proper setup, daily monitoring and managing, along with a regular schedule of campaign optimization activity. For that reason you will need to set a fee large enough to cover the skilled labor expense of performing the absolute minimal set of those essential management activities. So in your case you should consider a flat fee based on the level of management you intend to provide.

        For tiny ad campaigns, decide the level of service you will provide, and charge a fee based on your desired hourly rate, multiplied by the estimated hours to perform that level of service. Be sure to define the maximum level of service you provide for that fee, so that you can allow for increased management activity when the campaign size merits a higher management fee.

        HTH
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  • Profile picture of the author thefsboking
    WOW! You know your stuff when it comes to PPC. So is Perry Marshall's book a good resource for learning? Am I correct in assuming that once I understand Adwords learning Bing won't be too difficult?

    My friend is not one to break rules or not read. Unfortunately he like myself in the past tried Adwords without any education. In his case he did ok but had no clue about what was going on (stats, bids, reports, tests, etc.). In my case reading WSO's on getting rcih with Clickbank products. I look today and see the ads never even got shown due to bad landing page.
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    Mike Williams

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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Hi thefsboking,

      Yes, Perry's book is good place to start, it's an easy read and he has a way of making a point so that you will likely remember it.

      Also checkout Google's Adwords guides, online courses, and videos, they are some of the best AdWords training you will find anywhere.

      While those books and course will teach you the fundamentals, and even some of the many advanced concepts, there is no substitution for experience. With AdWords you will find it relatively easy to get started but difficult to master. There are hundreds of mistakes that you can make and many of them will be costly. You need to be ever vigilant and monitor things closely. After a couple of years of constant learning you will be able to master the craft of managing AdWords campaigns in the competitive world of SEM.

      Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
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  • Profile picture of the author club20coaching
    If you want to make big money I would start your own business. Affiliate programs will normally make someone way more money then the affiliate him self will earn.

    Why not outsource work and have a system of your own and upload it to ClinkBank vendors list.

    If you hire pros to build your site then people will take you seriously and purchase your offer and affiliates could sell your offer for you.

    Not only can you use PPC but you can teach your affiliates to use PPC to promote your business and not someone else s business.

    You can up-sell services/products to your customers and out source to the Philippines for phone sales.

    You can hire someone for $3.00 per hour to serve your customers with a Virtual chat.

    learn to own a business and not work for your business.

    Isn't that what every entrepreneur wants? oh and money!!

    I hope you find what you are looking for and I wish you success.
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  • Profile picture of the author rgesm
    sorry just a little off topic here but for managing customers SEO campaigns which software do you use to provide them reports, reports such as competitor competition, backlinks, status, and more. Is there an all in one tool that i can send a customer a pdf?
    I know spy glass has something but don't feel like forking over $400.
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Hi rgesm,

      For a start you could just use a Google Analytics account linked to Webmaster tools, and perhaps, Google My Business.

      Clients tend to have very specific goals unique to their business. The problem with a an all-in-one reporting tool is that they tend to be very inflexible, and very expensive. You are generally better off using a set of tools designed from the ground up for the specific task at hand. Use the best tool for the job, not the most convenient.

      You can create some nice looking custom dashboards, and custom reports, just using Google Analytics to show results. Then use a project/task management app for tracking and reporting task activities.

      There are many good task/project management apps available for low cost, some are even free for small groups. Checkout Asana, and todoist, both are good options and have reporting integration options available.
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