The Unofficial DP Winter '06 Affiliate Noob's Challenge thread

Here's what I've done. It's not very scientific and sure not to work.

1. Browse around amazon.com and find peculiar items worth over $100.00. So
2. So far I've found 3 things, gonna move that up to over 3, just haven't found anything interesting yet. I've got a tire for a specific model of car, an animal related product, and a specific type of drill.
3. I've tried to find items that are niche enough to be fairly non-competitive. I consider non competitive to be in the top five while under 75 cents a click.

So far I've recieved about 100 impressions and 0 clicks. To me, that's kind of a good thing, I guess. It allows me to mess with adwords and getting the system down without having to pay an arm and a leg. I'm going to keep adding items left and right and not worry about getting clicks. I think adding products will help me find the niche rather than worrying about what clicks.

 

I'd love to have a copy of that excel sheet. If you wouldn't mind sharing I'd appreciate it! If you could email it to me I could put it up somewhere where everyone who wanted could use it.

 

I emailed the blog owner. She is working on getting it up again. She said Google closed it down. She thinks they may have thought it too spammy. When I have a link I will post it here.

Hey what is the etiquette of posting one of my affiate links in this thread if it is on topic?
Thanks

 

Date Imp/Clicks/CTR/CPC/Cost/Avg Pos

Adgroup 1: Amazon Item "WS" cost $17
1/14/06 57/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/8.5
1/15/06 79/1/1.3%/$0.04/$0.04/8.2
1/16/06 89/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/8.7
1/17/06 161/1/0.6%/$0.14/$0.14/7.2
1/18/06 151/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/6.8
1/19/06 715/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/10.1
1/20/06 418/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/8.9

Converts 50%! There is no way that will continue, but it is fun to say. I got a sale on the 17th, so I am ahead for this campaign... $1 or so! Woo!

As you can see I have been adding new and improved keywords. For some reason one of the keywords is getting a lot of content impressions. Since I have content max CPC set to .07$ I am happy to have found that KW. If this campaign doesn't work out I think I may be able to use that KW for something else.

The CTR is pretty low, which I did figure on, but not this low. I know exactly why it is getting a low CTR since I know this area and what people are looking for.

On the 16th and 17th I started to adjust CPC for certain KWs. On the 19th I had my new KWs in place.

Still tweaking CPC and KWs on this one.

AdGroup 2: Physical Item "10" cost varies
1/14/06 37/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/47.1
1/15/06 60/2/3.3%/$0.38/$0.77/38.2
1/16/06 106/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/33.1
1/17/06 91/2/2.2%/$0.48/$0.95/31.8
1/18/06 81/0/0.0%/$0.00/$0.00/31.1
1/19/06 119/1/0.8%/$0.45/$0.45/32.2
1/20/06 250/2/0.8%/$0.49/$0.98/30.8

I am working with a limited number of KWs since I do not know this area well. So far I really don't know what is going on with this one. I bumped up the CPC to get some more data.

Right now the ad drops the surfer off at the front page of the site. I did this since it offers the person a coupon and I mention that fact in the ad. I thought that might improve CTR in this very competitive area. However it might turn out to be a lot more productive to make the ad more specific and drop them at an inner page. We'll see.

 

From what little expirence I have with Amazon, is that "orders" show up in near realtime. However "earnings" don't seem to show up for 1 to several days.

For instance my ad generated 1 order on the 17th, and I have yet to see any earnings from it.

 

I have a question. Do high priced vanity items have a low conversion rate? What price range has the best conversions? Is there a hard and fast rule?

 

Which is why I like CB. Bigger profits and daily totals

 

I think there are too many factors to make a general statement. Conversion ratio is a funny thing and unless you know the exact condition under which it is mentioned it doesn't mean anything.

As a crude example:

if I put a link on my gaming site with the anchor, "The coolest thing I have ever seen!" and it links to a rare book that goes for $2000 I bet the conversion ratio would be kinda low

However if I had a site on rare books and I put a link "A fine copy of X rare book for sale" it would be different.

But speaking as reasonably non-material oriented sort of person, I am consistently shocked at how much people drop for silly things all the time.

Sorry I can't make the connection, what is "CB"?

 

I have 80 cents clicks for a 1,500-5,000 dollar vanity item (depending on model). Here's my ad:

Specific Brand of Widgets
10% Savings - Fast Shipping
151 different models
www.amazon.com

Code (markup):

The scary thing about items like this is actually TESTING your conversion. How much money can I spend before getting scared!!! I mean even spending 50 dollars before I get a conversion would be scary not knowing if I actually get it.

I'm gonnna at least put 50 dollars towards this specific test. It's like gambling, but hey.

If I don't get any conversions after a few days, I think I'll change it to the following:

Specific Brand of Widgets
10% Savings - Fast Shipping
$1,500 to $5,000
www.amazon.com

Code (markup):

That might scare off those who aren't committed. I could then raise my bidding a little bit and get a higher placement. Although at 80 cents I'm getting 2nd or 3rd.

I'm also getting the idea that I should do this for hundreds of different items but ONLY for search words for something like this: "Buy Blue Widgets" "Cheap Blue Widgets". But with a bid that'll put me near the top. That way I'll get less clicks but they'll be more valuable. Just a thought. We'll see how this goes.

 

Okay I'm impatient but I changed it to this already!

 Specific Brand of Widgets
10% Savings - Fast Shipping
Prices from $1,500 to $5,000
www.amazon.com 

Code (markup):

I am worried that the high prices will get a lot of people who just want to see expensive blue widgets, and not actually shop, though.

 

If you are interested in that Adwords Excel sheet, I'm hosting it on my blog. If it's helpful, let me know.

 

If this is your first go at something like this, then I think you are shooting pretty high Nothing wrong with that, but at $.80 max CPC and $50 you are only going to get 60-70 clicks worth of data. However low end, $1500 * 5% = $75. Top end, $5000 * 7.5% = $375. If you don't get a sale, are you really sure that this ad campaign doesn't work?

That is a very interesting test though and I would very much like to know the results!

Specific Brand of Widgets
10% Savings - Fast Shipping
151 different models
www.amazon.com

Code (markup):

I like this ad better. The second ad with the "$1,500 to $5,000" doesn't add anything and I would guess at that price range item people will already know they are expensive. Or wait, maybe "Starting at $1500"? But I am not an expert, just imho.

You might however run into problems using the brand name in the ad. Some brand names will be automatically rejected. The AdWords system will let you know.

Good luck!

 

CB is Clickbank

I look at conversion rates rather than $ amounts. Not too sure if this is wise or not. If I have no sales withing 150 clicks I tend to move on . Keep in mind I have only ran about 25 campaigns so far

The frustrating one I have at the moment is that I have just enough sales to keep me just out of profit. I am thinking I will have to create a landing page for this one with a review of the product to convert more.

 

Ok Since no one said I couldn't post an aff link here it is.

It is what I have used for the basis of how I am approaching things.

Most people have heard of it it is called the Google Cash method. If you don't want to use my aff link - go direct.
Whilst like a large % of ebooks you can find the info you need on the net I found this ebook helped me shortcut some things. Most of my posts here are based on it. I think it is good advice though.

http://www.googlecash.com/

 

>>>From what little experience I have with Amazon, is that "orders" show up in near real-time. However "earnings" don't seem to show up for 1 to several days.<<<

Earnings don't show up until the item has been shipped, if it's not in stock this can take anything from a couple of days to weeks.
If it's the latter often the customer asks for a refund so you lose the sale.

I have found the best way to use Amazon is to create a landing page first, a lot of people won't click on Amazon ads.
Another advantage of this is you can capitalise letters in your URL, this is very important if the URL matches the topic searched for. May not work for what you guys are selling but worth remembering. It distinguishes your site from the others and people click as they regard the site as an expert on the topic.

Don't aim for the top 3 positions, numbers 4 to 6 do just as well if not better, especially if their is a lot of bold in your add, it will really stand out.
It's also a lot cheaper.
Conversions generally run at 1 per 100 so you don't want to spend $100 to get $10 back.
I would be interested in a look at that spreadsheet too. These are the sums you have to do before you lay your cash on the line.

My first campaign I burnt through 3k to get 1k back.
I watched the positions after that for a long time. I noticed the cpc price constantly creep up for the top positions. A new player would come in, spend up big to land the top position, after a few days the add totally disappears as his cash was gone and you never saw it again. The problem is their is always someone else who will take his place and the cycle continues with the price continuing to rise.

I started again with that product a couple of weeks ago and found the price I would pay for 4/10 position ten months ago now places me down in about 60ith position or worse. This time I am only using the top 10 terms from my stats that came from organic search and which convert.
I am keeping it very tight, started the budget very low and only raise my price once a week, I find through doing this I have an excellent click % in relation to impressions which is slowing taking my adds up but keeping the price down.

I can't see how you will ever turn a profit trying to sell affiliate products via Adwords. And Amazon would have to be the worst, the commission rate is so small.

Heres a couple of tips, for this experiment try selling something like Broadband connections or Pay TV, they usually give you the total price of the first months fee as commission, any product that pays like that is good. Products like that tend to have massive potential.

Find a product then if possible sign up as an affiliate under the company with the product rather than through Amazon, Commission Junction etc. You will have a lot less competition in general and particularly with Adwords......and the commission tends to be higher as they aren't paying a huge percentage to Commission Junction etc.

 

Cyclops, That is some very interesting advice.

Of course, I'd be happy with this experiment if I could just learn to write copy that converts! If I actually profit this time around, I'd consider that gravy (at this point).

The copywriting tips in this thread alone are very cool. I can see I'll be going back over every post periodically as my learning increases to glean more.

Still looking for a new product, so I can hop back in...

 

Amazon isn't realtime. The stats get updated once a day. If a user orders something it will appear in the order section and when Amazon receives the payment they will add it to your earnings.

Keep in mind that not all orders turn into sales and that some products will be returned, if this happens Amazon will deduct the earnings from that product.

I've experimented a bit with AdWords to Amazon last year but I wasn't really successful.

 

im gonna give this a shot to i joined a program over at clixgalore its in the food industry and pays 15% per sale with a cookie of 150 days also my daily budget is $2 with a esimite of 24 clicks per day by google tool estimator max CPC .10 and for content .05 dunno whats gonna happen but hope i get 1 conversion over the next few days complete noobie here!

 

Okay a couple of points, never put 10% saving in for a start, people expect at least 10% as the norm and are looking for 50%. And forget about fast shipping, they expect that anyway.

Lets say people are doing a search for Laptop computers.

Note how the word Laptop comes out in bold because that is included in the search term.
Also the URL has caps in it that makes it easy readable.
The description appeals to twenty something year olds who are the biggest buyers of laptop computers and who are most likely to buy over the net.

I guarantee that add would stand out from the others on the page and would receive the most clicks.

[B]Laptop[/B]
Sleek New [B]Laptop[/B] design,
Hottest Technology. Coolest Prices.
www.LaptopComputers.com

Code (markup):

Make different ad-groups for the same item using keywords as the criteria.
For this one group all the terms using Laptop in one ad group.

Switch the Laptop to Notebook and make up another group with that word in it. You need the term they are using to search with to come up bold as much as possible. It immediately catches the searchers eye.

 

Thanks for the tips.

Okay I'm new to all of this. How exactly do I bold words? Does that cost extra? I'll work on my copy based on your suggestions. You seem to know what you're talking about!