steliosp, Can you explain how this post might be spam? Is the poster sending people to his website from this forum to get clicks? Not sure either way, but this is great information anyhow.
Well, here are the final numbers. Getsmart is ending their affiliate program. Go figure. Here's the math: Adwords Cost: $547.95 Adsense Income: $52.90 Affiliate Income: $1145.00 Net Income: $649.95 ROI: 649.95/547.95 = 119% So I've ended the getsmart campaign and going to switch to lendingtree. However, I don't know how it's going to convert and I will have to adjust my ad copy, landing page, etc.. to adjust to the new affiliate. Also, lendingtree is the parent company of getsmart, and when you apply for a loan with lending tree, they popup a window that offers a getsmart loan. That really sucks for me and will also probably hurt conversions. But, I am now armed with a ton of data about keywords, which adcopy had a higher ctr and lower cpc, and the kind of traffic to expect in this niche. I should be able to create another profitable campaign. Either way, I made a few bucks and I think we've learned a few things along the way.
i ve learned a lot from you mate . You really rock Its very good to show us your statistics etc.. I have a question : Bidding high for content network -- What's the point ?
Good work there, personaly i use only search and not content network. Why ? Because you only get highly targeted trafic and you do not need to pay so much for a click ! anyway i still want to thank you for your post. And goodluck in your next campaign, i hope to see some more results !
Being on first page is too hard for a mortgage keyword . As you can see he has just got 4 clicks from search.
Thanks everyone for the kind comments. The content network converted very well for me. The $1.37/click is a bit skewed though. On Saturday's, the average cpc was less than $1, and the traffic quality was very low those days. I only broke even. However, when the cpc went to over $2 on the content network (during the work week), my conversions improved, reflecting the quality of traffic I was paying for. Pretty neat how google does that. Still, if I'm bidding $3 for content, I want $3 quality traffic. I was able to get on the middle of the second page pretty consistently for certain keywords, and that's where the 4 clicks came from search. Can't tell if those were any of the ones that converted.
Let's hope GetSmart doesn't "get smarty pants" & reverse your leads --- since they are leaving CJ... That would be a bummer! Thanks for sharing your info -- I'm surprised you got ANY "mortgage" type keywords to show on Google for less than $2.50-3.00/click, content or not. Props to you!
Wouldn't be the first time I've had commissions reversed. Last month I had $809 backed out because of a typo (for some reason they changed it to $89, I thought all this stuff was automated). I've had other large commissions like that backed out because of orders made with stolen credit cards. I usually don't like to count my money until it's been deposited into my bank, cleared, transfered to another bank, and then spent on beer and women. The rest I waste.
lol that was good I have started running a mortgage loans site with your suggestions and your keywords , we ll see the results
congratulations! i'm thinking of using adwords, too but was discouraged with the value per click that my site is generating since most of my visitors are from phils and southeast asia.
Very, very nice!! Rep given. Incidentally, have you tried marketing 'site specific'? It would allow for more impressions at possibly less cost, is my thought.
Why not paying normal adwords fees? Or maybe there is something wrong with google.cn<>china gov I dont know
Rob, if you have AdSense on your landing page, you are at the risk of getting banned. Google considers it arbitrage and if your traffic is mainly from AdWords, you're at even higher risk.
Thanks for this info. I'm a mortgage broker also. Who are the best mortgage lead affiliate programs out there? I guess Lending Tree is the parent company. I tried to register for the getsmart affiliate program but it just gave me error messages. I signed up at cj. I have been fiddling with adwords for awhile. I have not yet had a profitable pay for click transaction, though I"m still learning working on this. You only have 7 phrases? I have 337 phrases related to my keyword. Is it better to have one landing page peppered with just 7 phrases? Doesn't Google just serve up the ad regardless of the landing page when someone searches the keyword phrase? And then if they click they click? How much affect does having the keyword phrase on the landing page have with the quality score?