I plan on making an ebay affiliate site, but I am very new to this. Reading some threads, I saw people spending thousands on Adwords. I'm not quite ready for that kind of investment. If I were to set my budget at only 100$, would it be likely that I would see any net profit?
This really depends on a number of factors. First, how much are setting per click? Second, are you using the starter edition or the advanced edition? But despite whatever answer you provide to the above mentioned questions, the simple answer is you can and you may not. That depends more on your marketing tactics and advertisements than on your budgets. There have been those who have spent thousands and haven't made squat and then others have made a lot with a little investment. So $100 is not the key, your strategy is. But I should forewarn you that your thread indicates that you have low budget. Now you do not want to use a strategy that leaves you broke and then you become disheartened and leave the whole thing. Hence, learn some techniques before you invest. But yes you can see net profit with that much if things are done right. It's just that the margin for error is less than if you were spending a lot. Good luck!
Boy, I wish I was more versed on this side of the affiliate fence to offer you a complete and comprehensive response to your question. In time, I will be more adept, but for now, I can only offer some thoughts on one aspect on your effort. I think that before you begin spending money on campaigns, that you first have in order your plan to help promote the product you wish to capitalize from. In other words, if you feel that, you as the customer, would be interested in the product (or service) based on what you, the affiliate marketer, have done in your advertising message to entice you, the customer, then you might want to go about promoting using SEO, free submissions, etc. and see if that creates any results. If you have any form of success through any free methods of promotion (those methods can be found all over Digital Point), then spending money on your campaign will certainly be your next step. Of course, what you do as far as setting ppc and what words trigger that is best left for the more versed professionals here on the board. However, I doubt you'll see much success, IMHO, if your advertising message is weak in support of the product/service you are promoting. If you're in doubt, create some visual campaigns and step away from them for the night or two. Then go back and look at what you created from the standpoint of the customer. If you feel compelled or intrigued by what you see, then get it up and start promoting. However, I would feel a bit hesitant to spend loads of money until you have a better understanding of the process and have sought, and received, the advice of others who are successfully managing their own campaigns. This is not to say that you should not experiment using some of your bucks (doing so really makes any success or failure more internalized), but if you are truly unclear on the whole process, try inexpensive means first to cut your chops. Again, my glossed over inexperienced analysis (at least when it comes to the execution of Adwords campaigns). However, when it comes to your advertising message, whatever will get the potential customer to click through and buy is the method you'll want to embrace -- whatever that may be for that time.
Haha, yea, I figured low investment because I'm obviously a beginner and don't have the techniques down. What do you mean settings per click? Starter Edition or Advanced? And I guess my main question is: AdWords isn't sufficient by itself? I would also need to build links, submit it to directories...ect?
I'm sure your questions was meant for Uniqueasitis, but since I'm here, I've posted a few links to Google's explanation: A. Adwords Starter Edition B. Adwords Standard Edition (I could be wrong, but I think 'advanced' is really the "standard" edition) I believe everyone, when they open an account, begins with the Standard Edition, but can convert it to the Starter Edition if they lack the standard (or advanced) experience with the Adwords feature. As for 'settings per click', that one's best left answered by others, but there's a lot of information on this at Google's Adwords site. Here's one page that talks a bit about CPC -- you can go from there. Good luck!
I have never had any success with free advertising methods. I have only tried these on one site, a humor blog, but I don't think I really got any traffic from it. It is on blogspot, so I'm not exactly sure if I can see where the traffic is coming from. I used the this guide http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=224828 and submitted it to many directories. I don't know much about SEO though, could that of made that much of a difference? Thanks for the advice though, I will definitally try free advertising before I shed out any money.