my PPC journey

Discussion in 'ClickBank' started by web_dev, Oct 27, 2007.

  1. #1
    Today I'm gonan talk about the past few weeks I have spent promoting/testing clickbank products via PPC. I have spend over $300 bucks this month.

    I had a little bit of experience with PPC before i decided to spent this much. The first product i picked was NCMedia's GetReadyToPass.

    To test things out, I created a content network campaign, had it run for one day and made two sales before hitting 100 clicks. Pretty good I would say. Soon after, i created a search network campaign with highly targeted keywords, setup a landing page and raised my daily budget. My CTR was great but after 3-4 days and having spent $100 I had no sale. I tested a little more, and not after almost 300 clicks i had no sale, got frustrated and closed the entire campaign.

    This product was fairly new so i didn't how it would in the market but to me it seemed to have a potential. After spending $150 bucks and getting $38 in return, i was running at loss of $112. I couldn't afford to go on with it.

    So, now I'm off to test a product with already a successful track record. I decided to promote truthaboutabs.com. This product is a proven product with good sales record. Affiliates are having success from ppc with product. Not to mention mike made an excellent ppc guide for affiliates to promote this product.

    I applied all the winning strategies mike mentioned in his articles and started promoting his product through content search. To my surprise, i made my first sale after 200 hops and after spending just $22. I got a return of $38 and i made a whopping profit of $10.

    Next, I raised my daily budget to $100, added more keywords and went through the entire $100 on content networks and after nearly 2000 clicks I have no sale.

    I really don't understand what happened in both cases. I made my first sale quite normally, then everything went dead thereafter. To my understanding on average people make 30-50% ROI.

    For people who didn't have big budget to start with on ppc how did you manage to make your campaign profitable? How do manage to make ANY return with ppc with a budget of $20 a day?

    After spending $200 and no sales, should you quit? Now i don't have enough money left and I'm confused if just had a bad luck, or I'm doing something wrong or ppc just doesn't work? I have spent countess hours researching keywords, making landing pages and heck i even bought aweber subscription and started collecting email leads but after spending so much money, I running at huge loss which i can afford to carry on. I need some motivation and help guys.
     
    web_dev, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  2. mjewel

    mjewel Prominent Member

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    #2
    Stay away from the content network - it's not for beginners and most professionals steer clear.

    Refining your keywords is the key to success. It can be a difficult learning curve - if it was easy, the authors would just do it and forget about paying commission.
     
    mjewel, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  3. PaidForumPosting

    PaidForumPosting Banned

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    #3
    Gosh, this is the reason that I have always avoided schemes like this. All I ever hear of is people losing money like you have. I have yet to hear a success story.
     
    PaidForumPosting, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  4. web_dev

    web_dev Peon

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    #4
    Believe or not, people do make money from ppc. There many successful PPC affiliates out here.

    I think authors have better chance at selling their products more with more affiliates in their pool. Not to mention, some product owners share their winning strategies with their affiliates, as in the case of truthaboutabs.com where mike claims that some of his content network campaign bringing more profit. He shared some of them in his guide.
     
    web_dev, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  5. Swerd

    Swerd Active Member

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    #5
    make small changes to your campaigns so you can easily track if your changes are good or bad.... Take it easy and go slow... you may lose money for a week but if you keep on top of it be deleting keywords that dont convert you will eventually end up with a winning campaign.

    nobody throws up a campaign and starts making money. Delete non-converting keywords and after you have lost a few hundred bucks it should eventually start making a profit.

    Dont go for a competitive niche

    make a landing site.. not a landing page - this will reducing your CPC A LOT

    catch emails via your landing site

    SEO your landing site even for PPC - use keywords on your landing page

    TRACK EVERYTHING - track every keyword, track every ad - you will lose money at first, most people do - but as your make changes is when you become profitable.


    The most important thing in marketing a product is the product itself. Test products, dont get stuck on one product.

    Hope tis helps
     
    Swerd, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  6. web_dev

    web_dev Peon

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    #6
    I shut my campaign way before i see any return. It all boiled down how much money i could afford to lose. It seems, I'm always in a rush to make a campaign profitable as soon as possible because i can't afford to lose much.

    Here is something i always wondered about search network? Is it possible to come with a winning combination of keywords which convert well at more than 1% and bring you profit? That's only possible if you manage to get your cpc at say $.10. Is that possible with search network? And once the campaign is successful, can you expect it to runs on autopilot bringing profit therefater? Or do you always have to keep changing things always?

    What if a campaign which proved to be successful one week and fails the other? Should continue riding it or change this about?
     
    web_dev, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  7. anteclimax

    anteclimax Active Member

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    #7
    That is something I want to know too.
     
    anteclimax, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  8. Swerd

    Swerd Active Member

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    #8
    it depends if you are going straight to the merchants page or via your landing page.

    You have a better chance of long term profit by using your own landing page.

    If a campaign is profitable one week but not the next i would still run it. But it depends on how much you can lose. I make sure i collect emails which makes the profit curve much smoother (unless there are problems with clickbank)
     
    Swerd, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  9. RichUser

    RichUser Banned

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    #9
    PPC with affiliate work well, and I still don't give up on it even when I pick up a bad offer, Usually if I waste $70 on an offer and it brings me no returns, then I go to another offer and so on.

    What works well when your first experimenting is buying accounts with $50 credit in them already, and using the accounts to experiment. I do that myself, and it saves me bundles. I can hook you up with 10x Activated Adword Accounts with $50 in them for a grand total of $150. So you would be saving $350.
     
    RichUser, Oct 27, 2007 IP
  10. Devour

    Devour Active Member

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    #10
    RishUser
    How do you get Activated Adwords Accounts with money? When i have activated my adwords account i have not recieved any bonus.
     
    Devour, Oct 28, 2007 IP
  11. prisonbreak

    prisonbreak Guest

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    #11
    me too:eek:
     
    prisonbreak, Oct 28, 2007 IP
  12. RichUser

    RichUser Banned

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    #12
    I know a secret way. ;)
     
    RichUser, Oct 28, 2007 IP
  13. Devour

    Devour Active Member

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    #13
    Adwords Coupons? Isn't it? =)
     
    Devour, Oct 28, 2007 IP