All I do with adwords is lose money and keep losing again.

Have you tried dynamic keyword insertion?

 

Use negative keywords to eliminate anyone looking for second hand, cheap, unrelated variations on your keywords.

install google analytics, and then there is a patch that gives you the full search query the user submitted, you can learn a LOT from it

 

First I assume the Perry Marshall book others are talking about is the one available on home page at http://www.perrymarshall.com/. I haven't read it, so I'll point you to it and if you also find it awesome, then let me know.

In terms of whether you can learn and become someone who makes money off of Adwords, see my recent blog post Win-Loss Record 1 - 17. I talk about how I finally have one winning Adwords campaign after 17 (at least) losers. And yes, it has cost me quite a bit to get to the point of having one winner.

I'm still not at the level of most of the people giving you advice here. My bids on the winning campaign are between 17 and 32 cents. I've been inching them downwards and waiting to see if I maintain my current positions (about 2 - 4) and clickthrough rates (3.something%). I'd love to get down to 5 or 10 cents even, then the profit margin would be significantly better.

The people on this board are great though, aren't they? I've gotten more good tips from digitalpoint than from the ebooks I've bought.

Speaking of which, so those that recommend the Perry Marshall book -- is it really more than the common stuff -- good landing page, negative keywords, etc?

 

You will need to buy it. You can also watch it as video. It's not as detailed, but should give you a good idea of what you need to do.

http://www.adwordsvideo.com/Video_Guide/Media/Video_Guide/Misc/Menu.htm

Christoph

 

First of all, everything in the Perry Marshall guide is available in the adwords learning center (Except DKI documentation). Watch the videos. Watch them again.

Have a read of this:
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog...your-adwords-quality-score-a-mini-case-study/

Exact match your long tail phrases. Exact match even your short tail keywords. Improve quality and relevance. It's not that hard.

 

Testing different methods is always best.

One thing I might add is to try and promote newer programs or programs that aren't so competitive.
Remember that most programs save cookie information for 30-45 days plus.
Even if they click your link last chances are if they've been looking for that type of product they already have a cookie from some other affiliate.

If you're promoting webhosting mainly then good luck with that. You'll need it..
You stepped into just about the most competetive sector on the web.

Good luck!
Sean

 

To get a good conversion rate from your Adword keywords, there's a few things that you must do (at least I have done with great success).

1. Research your competitors. Don't know who they are, then using some of your main keyword phrases, do a keyword search for them on Google and you will find them. By doing this, you will find what kind of ad copy they are using which can help you to create better ad copy yourself.

Next go to Alexa.com and find out what there rank is (this will allow you screen the people who have been in business for a long time and are successful, from those who are new to your niche market and just testing the water). A competitor with a traffic rank under 500,000 is good. Under 200,000 is super! When you find these sites, look at their source code and most of the time they will have keywords in their META tags. Swipe these and you have some good keywords to use.

Examine your competitor's sales copy and style. If they have been around for awhile and have a good Alexa.com ranking, chances are they are making good money -- so why not do what they are doing? I don't condone copying anyone's stuff, but you will go alot further by using someone else's model which is successful instead of reinventing the wheel.

2. If you have a little bit of money, check out wordtracker.com or keywordcountry.com. These are GREAT resources for finding the best niche keywords for your buck.

3. When testing out your keywords on Adwords, start with a small budget (let's say $10 a day), test and tweek until you find what you like and then go BIG when you start making money. Always give your campaign a time budget and a monetary budget (ex. I will spend no more than $500 on this campaign for Widgets.com and spend no more than 1 month testing and tweeking it without success). This will prevent you from wasting your time on a garbage campaign, so you move on to something more profitable.

Always keep your keywords between position #2-#10 -- never take the #1 spot.

4. Always track what keywords your sales (or affiliate clicks) are coming from. Ones that work, keep -- the ones that don't, junk them.

5. Use Dynamic keyword insertion {KeyWord: Generic Keyword Phrase} in your Adwords if you have a whole bundh of keywords.

6. You can buy all the $39.99 and $47 e-books you want on Adwords and affiliate marketing and they will give you great information, but I have found that they give you the same stuff in different packages. All the info you want to learn you can find on this forum and best of all -- it's FREE! (just my take on things)

7. What I believe happens to most people who start out with their Internet business is they are always trying to read, read, read everything on internet marketing (which is good), but they never end up taking any action. The money is made when you take action.

If you have been on this forum for more than an hour reading stuff, it's time for you to stop reading, go do some designing, set up some keyword campaigns, and make some money! *HINT* *HINT*

 

Does using adwords to promote CJ affilate links work for profit ?

 

Bascially you need to learn how to use Adwords effectively
Like all advertising online, adwords is very ineffective, especially if you use it the wrong ways. Its quite normal for new people to lose money hand over fist

I would suggest you take a long hard look at your keyword and keyword phrases setup
Look at things like whether you are listing general match, phrase match or exact match

Remember too that people are pre-disposed against affiliate links. Google actually have somewhere in the TOS that affiliates are supposed to put Aff somewhere in their ads. You can get round this by having an article about some product followed by a link, and get Adwords to link to your article, not to your affiliate code

I would also say you must always protect your affiliate codes where ever possible, because people are not stupid, they know you are an affiliate. People dont links going to one site, and then ending up on another - it all looks abit dodgy to your visitors

However it is possible to make money via Adwords. After alot of trying I came up with a formula that works for me. Adwords actually send me traffic that makes me alot more money than I pay them, so if you keep on trying and be creative, you will succeed in the end - but it will take alot of time

 

I'm reading Perry Marshall's 'ultimate guide' and agree that there is good info in there! In the meantime you might try working on improving your copy and try split testing to see what works best : )

 

well if perry marshalls guide has an affliate link then buy it through mine and we'll split the commission 50/50

 

My suggestion will be always try with organic with your product first.
If you can make sell with that, then increase your sells amount with Adwords.

 

I completely disagree. Why would you want to spend MONTHS working on an organic SEO campaign when you can, with little investment, drive targeted traffic and find out in a matter of HOURS if your product will sell?

Also, with PPC you can know EXACTLY what keywords convert and optimize for those only.