For this particular campaign, I didn't follow the normal "high volume/low competition" formula. This niche is "high volume/high competition". First, I sort by search volume. Then pick the top 10 or 20 and do a slight twist on the high/low formula. I look for keywords that have less competition by it's relative position. Using the adwords traffic estimator, I compare what a keyword costs at position 1-3 versus what it costs at position 3-6. So a keyword may cost like $20 at position 1, but only cost $2 at position 6. Position 6 still puts me on the fist page of the search results and generally puts me in front of visitors in the content network at an even better position. This is not a magic formula, just one way I approach choosing a keyword. You then have to start the campaign and begin testing. "Proof of Concept" so to speak. I just happen to nail this one. On another note, I'm making some headway on my sister's account. She's turning a profit this month and is up $31 net profit. Even at $25/lead (versus $55 I get), I think this can work. Basically, I had to remove some of shorter key phrases (3 words) and stick with the 4-5 keyword phrases. A lot less volume, but it's converting better. At $55/lead, I can afford the higher volume with slightly less conversion, but at $25/lead, we had to sacrifice the volume and tighten the keywords even more. This is giving me another idea. I'm gonna take the shorter 3 word keyword phrases in my own campaign and put them into a seperate adgroup. Then I can focus on those keywords and tweak them further.
This is very interesting but I think its more difficult to find those golden keywords than you say. I will try it nonetheless!
Hey Rob, Thanks for sharing. This is a fantastic thread indeed I've 2 question that's been somewhat overlooked in this thread (went through all 13 pages. lol). Where'd you get your design from? Do you make it yourself or did you outsource it to someone? It looks very professional. Also, have you done anything in the ways of building organic traffic? Social bookmarking, deeplinking, directory submissions...etc.
My original affiliate was www.getsmart.com, so I used their site's theme so the visitor would be less confused when they clicked from my site to getsmart. I didn't just copy it, I actually used fireworks and dreamweaver and built it from scratch. I have other sites that I just goto www.templatesbox.com for ideas. I suppose if you want to include website development time into the equation, you should add about 2 hours to the original first post, so it's more like 2:20 hours to make $39. But I already had the site done a few weeks back, so I didn't include that time. I only put in the time to create the landing page. Since getsmart ended their affiliate program in June, I switched to lendingtree, and decided not to change the site's theme because I didn't like lendintree's look and feel. My only promotion method is google, msn, and yahoo ppc. Nothing organic. I will eventually build up the blog, lendingarea.com/news, just dont' feel like it yet. I just checked it, lol. It still has the getsmart affiliate links on it. geez.
Have you had time to draw up your conclusions on keeping adsense on the page in relationship to your affilliate sales yet??
It's still too early to give any meaningful stats. Look towards the end of this month. Right not it appears to be doing better.
Hey Rob, another question: Which page on your site is your "primary" landing page? As in, which page do you direct the adwords traffic to?
very inspiring Rob. i should try this later. I already run 1 campaign. impression is around 5k but clicks only 5 for 5 days total. is it normal? or I should tweak something? thanks for answer.
I have a screen shot of my landing page here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=351210&page=6 The only difference since then is I have removed the adsense. I've noticed brand new campaigns can take a while to ramp up before getting full distribution throughout the content network. I only got 60k impressions my first 5 days combined, but now I get twice that much in 1 day. 5k seems very low for a refinancing niche. I would look at changing something. Without seeing all the details of your campaign, it would be hard to say what to change.
Also, maybe im being thick but how do you know which sites are displaying your add on the content network so as it ban the irrelevant sites.
I rarely hear anyone sending a ppc click directly to the merchant anymore. But for lendingtree, they don't allow you sending a ppc click directly to them. They require all clicks to come from your website. Just run the "Placement Performance" Report in your adwords account. It will show you everything. Check out this page for screen shots: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=351210&page=8