Hmm I'm now finding adwords very profitable. Getting $90/day profit now. I just started a new campaign bidding $1 per click toward a mortgage offer. I'm acutally direct linking to the offer in the content network. Hopefully I'll get the 1:30 conversion rate I need to break even. Maybe even make a profit
anything new with your sisters account? and, yes it seems to be difficult to just start out with lendingtree anyone else know of anything better than lowermybills?
Rob, This thread is great! I know a fair bit about PPC, I used to look into it a lot but failed due to poor preparation. Luckily I didn't spend too much. I know that many (perhaps most?) PPCers will ignore the content network because they think it doesn't convert. Well you have proved that not only does it convert, but you can also do effective filtering of the source website! I never knew this before. I think that a (relative) lack of competition aids in the cheaper CPC for content network. This is great, I'm going to look into PPC again. thanks!
Hey Rob, another question. A general rule I have heard that it is best to wait for 100 clicks before discerning any results. Do you think this is too little/too many in your experience? Or even irrelvant. Or do you wait for a specific no. of weekdays, or some other time measure? Thanks!
just another question after having read this thread twice, I wonder if there is a master list of sites to stick in the compettiive ad filter. I know it differs from site to site but myspace is always a crap non-converting site right? any others?
As for trying to duplicate this for my sister, I'm only slightly ahead. We managed to eek out about $70 profit last month. I'm finding out that the affiliate link was not working all of the time, so that may account for some of the disappointing results. Also, she still has adsense on her landing page. I'm going to re-work her site, put a new affiliate link and remove the adsense. I've read 30 - 100 clicks as a minimum. Personally, I work by dollars. I'll budget about $100. After that's spent, I analyze how that $100 worked. For example, if I only get 10 clicks for $100, and no sales, then I know this niche will most likely be way to expensive to continue. But if I get 40 clicks and 4 sales, making $50 each, then I know this will probably be a profitable campaign that I can build on. You can check out adsblacklist.com They look at poor quality sites for adsense publishers. I suppose you could reverse the logic and use it for adwords. Still, the best way to filter sites is to look at your own real life stats rather than what someone else's list. Myspace may work great for other niches, who knows? Thanks for the continued support and reps.
WOW...I read page 1 of this and then jumped to page 15....I hate reading..lol But I'm going to have to go back and check this out later. GREAT JOB ROB!!! Eddie
Again awesome job man, I couldn’t believe it when I read this, how much info you gave out , again many thanks. Started the ad words last week and now I am up to a $100 in profit for the week. You were saying you had some issues with replicating with your sisters, if so how did you make your account to grow month after month, was it just to buy more and more traffic?? . Thank you again for sharing this:: don’t worry about not answering that question , you already gave so much away. Thanks again Bill
I'm so happy some of you are getting started and making some money! As for my sister's account, the biggest problem I'm having right now is her affiliate pays less than half what lending tree pays and it's not converting as well. If she were with lending tree, she'd be up over $1000. I'm trying to build up her stats with commission junction so she can look good when she re-applies with lending tree. That will be at least another month. As for more traffic, basically it's starting to level off. I took 5-6 weeks for the traffic to fully ramp up in the content network. Now that I'm 3 months into it, I think I'm getting all I'm gonna get - all things being equal - Meaning the market for refinancing doesn't change drastically. So I don't expect to make too much this month - if any over last month. My projected income is actually about $1500 less right now by end of month. I've added a "home equity loan" campaign to the adgroup, and it's profitable after 2 days. At the end of the month, I'll post my results for that campaign. It's identical to the refinancing campaign except for the keywords. I'm using the same bid, same landing page, and virtually the same ad copy. I just changed the where ever the words "home refinancing" appeared to "home equity". Another interesting note is that a few of my keywords have gone to "poor". I even got the $10 minimum bid requirement a few times, but then it drops back to $5. I suppose this is because they had very little traffic and even fewer click throughs, so the rules for ctr kicked in. Either way, they are inactive on the search network. No problem since my conversions are comming from the content network anyway and it doesn't seem to be affected.
hey rob.... haven't check this thread in awhile and it seems like your still doing very good! good job!
Hey man thanks a ton for all the info most people will talk around the bush and not dive in but you are really giving it to us! You've inspired me to push my adwords attempts back up near the top of my todo list so hopefully I can get some results soon
Wow, I've read this whole thread, took about an hour, but I'm glad I did. Question: is it really worthwhile to have a long article on the landing page (albeit under the conversion form)? Do you think that you are losing fewer conversions to visitors reading the copy and possibly getting distracted, vs. gaining visitors who read the copy then were convinced to scroll back up the page and convert? Are you monitoring scrolling? Have you tried testing the page without the article or without so much of it?
I don't think 99% of the visitors read the article. They just go right to the fill in form and get started. I base this on the fact that less than 1% of my clicks are comming from the banner I have at the bottom, and when I had adsense on their before that. The long copy could be shortened by about 1/4. I just like it the way it is now. For the 1% who do read it, at least it's complete. I don't think it will convert any better with shorter copy, but it's best not to think and just test it. Right now it's converting rather well, so I don't want to mess with it - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Getsmart.com no longer has an affiliate program. I now use lendingtree.com which you can join at commissionjunction.com.
You said that you have removed Adsense from your lending page. But I still see a lot of Adsense on your home page and other pages that are linked from the Home page. You didn't get any marked improvements after you removed the adsense ads?? I thought you mentioned that the conversions have improved after you removed.
I still have the adsense on all pages but the landing pages. I still get a few adsense clicks when someone leaves the landing page to another page on the site.
You said not to run the ads on sat, whats sunday and friday like? I puased my first group this week pass, to try differnt ads, but back to my frist one now , staring the week again today. The way this seems to be going , if you can keep replicating it by using differnt domain names , you should be able to make 100g , keep it up , cant wait to see this months results
Fridays and Sundays fluctuate between $133 and $280 net profit. Saturdays, before I stopped running them, earned between negative -$77 and postive $72 net profit. I don't think running different domain names on the same adwords account will multiply earnings since only one domain will show for any given keyword. This month is currently on track to earn about $6700 net profit right now. I made a stupid mistake last week and changed the ad copy in adwords. Now I'm getting hardly any impressions since google seems to have reset my account with the new ad and new url. I meant to just pause the old ad and create a new one, but I wasn't being careful or not paying attention and deleted my best ad. It doesn't seem to matter that I created a new ad with the same url. Oh well. I'm sure it will build up back to it's normal volume, just kinda sucks when I was on a role. I had my biggest day ever last week before I changed the ad - $576 net profit. The home equity campaigns are doing very well, converting better than the refinancing I believe. I'll compile the numbers towards the end of the month to be sure. Right now the volume is still low, but I've managed a net profit of several hundred dollars.