I set up two PPC campaigns on Adwords a week or so ago to promote a couple affiliate programs in CJ. I have been getting more and more frustrated with my results, so I'm hoping one of you CJ veterans can shed some light on it for me. I'm only advertising on the content network. I realize that this affects CTR, but since it's an operation of scale, I'm willing to accept the lower rate. However, the banners that one of the vendors supplies had ZERO clickthroughs in almost 25k impressions. The other CJ program I'm promoting has had plenty of clicks. I've had 100+ in the past week or so. Not one has converted. I've done the homework and have written ad copy that lists the price, I'm using the banners that they have supplied, and I'm using good keywords (I think). I don't know if anybody else has been shut down like this, but some words of encouragement would sure help.
Some programs are hard to make sales. 25,000 impressions i would think you should have a few click thrus unless it is shown on site that has nothing to do with topic. 100 clicks might get a sale if your lucky. If you look at banner ads most times it takes alot of clicks to get one sale. The higher price the product or service the harder it is to get a sale most of the time.
Wow, 100 clicks a sale? That seems **really** expensive. The products I'm promoting are in the $20-$100 range. So you think my ads are getting shown on off-topic websites? Hmmm. Is there a way to check that? Is that typically a problem with keywords? Or is this all a big indication that the whole proposition is poor? Like my affiliates are just no good. I'd like to keep tweaking and see if I can make this work, but I don't want to work backwards either. Thanks so much for your input, and any other advice is REALLY appreciated.
The content network generally is a poor choice for trying to drive conversions at CJ, however there are a few programs (mainly lead based or extremely well-targeted) that will work. Have you tried text ads yet? People may just be blind to banners.
I'll have to look to see if I can find some of these lead-based or super-targeted programs. If nothing else, I'm making inexpensive mistakes in my efforts, and want to keep playing with the content network. I have some text ads too, they don't convert either. I suppose my best course of action would be to go back to square one, simplify and shrink my keyword lists, create dozens of adgroups based on those lists, and see what happens then. Of course I'll probably have to bite the bullet and pay for real results, not content network.