Article Marketing & ClickBank - My Documented Journey

How many people are trying to follow along with Ponynugget???

I'd like to hear some typical stats... such as...

How many hops before first sale.

How many articles, how many views, CTR.


I have 4 articles, listed on ezine and goarticles.

On ezine i've had: 179 views and 13 clicks (13% CTR)
same articles on goarticles: 92 views. (dosnt show clicks)

My clickbank is reporting 53 hops -- No sales.

I'm sending visitors stright to my domain with a redirect to the affiliate. I dont have a site.



Ponynugget -- are you still on 1 sale? how many articles / clicks / hops etc.

Anyone got any stats to share???

Cheers.

 

Hi I will post my stats for you, after reading many people posts I realized I was lucky in the product I picked. My first article I got a sale on the first day and now with another article for that product I have 458 views and 208 clicks which gives me a CTR of about 43%. And 3 sales and total profit of $100.

But another product I picked to endorse was not as successful. I only wrote one article for that product and I have 486 views but only 58 clicks which gives me a CTR rate of 11%.

So for my grand total of articles (3) I have:

Articles: Live (3) | Pending | Modified | Problem | Draft
Page Views: Your articles have resulted in 971 page views.
Published: 2 times the EzinePublisher link has been followed for your articles.
URL Clicks: Your articles resource links have been clicked 266 times.
Emailed: Your articles have been referred to others 0 times.
Comments: 0 have been posted on your articles.
Votes: 1 have been cast on your articles.

And only four sales. For a total profit of $135.

And a CTR of 27%.

So my point is your success greatly depends on the products you choose to promote. For me I will not continue to promote the second product instead I will focus on the first product. So if you have an extremely low CTR but you have been working very hard and you have no sales you might want to change the product you are promoting. Think about it would you personally buy this product? Because there are some real shit on clickbank try to pick the rare good ones.

Also if you are working very hard and it just does not seem to be working. Instead of working harder you might want to work smarter and try to figure out what the problem is. And only after fixing the problem continue ahead. These are just my thoughts.

 

Oh No, Wait a minute Emon878.

Your stats are amazing even with the second article! This is 40% due to the quality of your writing and 60% the market niche you've picked. Well done, for both picking the right niche and writing a good article. Now consider this ...

When readers click through they haven't seen the product yet! So your click through has nothing to do with the product. Double digit click through is brilliant. This tells you a very high proportion of people are genuinely interested in finding out more. So stick with the niche(s).

Now to the product. Let's get this bit right. The readers never see the product, right?! They only see the salesletter if you send them there directly.

"Product" quality only affects the refund rate. Sales page is what determines the sales rate more commonly known as the "conversion rate".

I know you really meant changing to a produyct with a better salesletter. But I just wanted to make it clear for the other readers.

Now, the problem you're having is the mistake that many people make and it is this:

It sounds like you're sending people directly to the product salesletter. So now your 4th article is published and not selling, there's not much you can do about it (I don't remember if ezine allow you to change the bio or not).

Yet you're getting an 11% CTR!

The other huuuuuuge loss to you is that the reader goes to the sales page and either buyrs or doesn't and then they're GONE.

Here is the way to do it:

Finding something valuable to give the reader. In your bio tell the readers that's what they get free. Example: if the product is about "poker tips", write a 4 page review of say 3 poker tips products.

Now when the reader goes to your landing page, ask them to optin to your list and you'll let them have the review. When they optin and click Submit, then you can either redirect them to the salesletter or you can give them a confirmation message and refer them to the salesletter telling them it is a good product and they should consider it.

Even if they don't buy, you have their details. You knwo they are interested in the subject. You can email them with the details of other related products.

Also note: on average prospects take 7 contacts before they buy something. more than 70% of those opting in will buy a product you recommend by the time you send them your 7th email. Some will buy multiple products.

Now here are 2 big big big points about article marketing:

Big Point About Article Marketing

I just can't emphasize these enough:

It is not the first sale that matters but ...

(a) the life time value of the opt-in subscriber (even if they choos not to buy) ... who will take on average 7 contacts before they buy. If you don't collect their details, you're leaving 95% of your 1st year income on the table for someone else to grab.

(b) BACKLINKS and SEO

You must have a web site, even if it is small with very few pages. It does not have to be pretty - don't get emnotionally involved with the beauty of the thing. It just needs to have good content.

The more articles you publish and the more backlinks you generate. This alone over time will raise your web address in the search engine rankings and will start to get you increasing amounts of steady traffic without any further effort!

And THAT my friend is a much more effective use of article marketing than the one-shot (buy or not buy) game of roulette if you send readers straight to the sales letter.

Million-dollar tip:

Yes it is worth at least a million. There are many Intenet millionaires to testify to this one ...

When someone is on your list and they buy, they are worth 9 times (8.7 actually) any other subscriber or reader. Reason: People who have bought from you (or a product you recommended) are 9 times more likely than the average person to buy from you again.

Let me put that another way: For every dollar the average reader of your article spends with you (eventually), your existing buyer will spend $9.

Wow. Where will you put your efforts now?!

But you can only approach your existing customers if you send them to an opt-in page and keep track of them.

The general rule of thumb is: for every person on your list you can make around $1 - $1.50 per month.

But hey who wants to be average! Reach for the stars my friend and you'll be in the heavens.

Stay the course guys
Samo

 

A quick message Cocomonkey

The average sales pages on the web today has a conversion rate of around 1.5% to 2%!

With just 53 hops, your first sale "may" be in the next 47 hops.

But do take a look at my previous post ...

the opt-in rate for a free report is around 40% - %60!

So by now, you could well have grabbed some 20 - 30 subscribers from your 53 hops!

Stay tuned for more info soon

And stay the course.
Samo

 

PonyNugget may be gone...but this thread is insane!

Beyond the bum marketing course, I have never learned so much useful info in just one place. Big thanks to Samo and internetsmart for your valuable advice.

 

I am definitely still here I've had an insanely busy week (offline) but I will be typing up an update shortly.

 

Yes, unfortunately I'm still on one sale. Currently I've written 59 articles and have had 304 clicks. In the past 30 days I've received a little under 600 hops to 10 different products -- each product has an average of 80 hops each.

I must admit it is a little discouraging to see that I'm averaging around a 7% CTR for my article's resource links. Every article is well written and does offer unique information. They are all bringing in a decent amount of views each day, but the article's resource links are rarely ever clicked.

My articles are being picked up by blog owners and they are frequently being published on their blogs/websites. A little under 50% of my mini-website's traffic are referred from them.

Day 31-34 - September 30th - October 3rd, 2007



I've reached my Basic PLUS submissions cap and have submitted my (hopefully final) request for an upgrade to Platinum. There was a small issue with one of my articles last night -- my server decided to be a comedian and pull my site down for a couple of minutes. By pure coincidence, the EZA editor was reviewing the article during the site's downtime and placed it in the Problem category. As soon as the editor had declined the article, the site was back online and functioning. I immediately placed it back in for review and it was accepted within the hour. I'm hoping that this ever-so minor hiccup won't hinder my chances of being a Platinum author, but I do have a gut feeling that it will (despite my efforts to explain to EZA what happened).

Fingers crossed. Here's to hoping that my streak of bad luck doesn't continue!

 

Good Luck. You're an inspiration.

 

Based on my experiences with them it shouldn't be an issue. If you continue to write high quality articles they will have no problem upgrading your account.

 

Pick products with a decent conversion ratio, make it happen

Good luck Ponynugget, I wish you the best.

 

What is the big deal with getting you account upgraded at EZA? Are there benefits?

 

Hey Ponynugget

You are doing very well my friend. Take heart, 7% is great.

Firstly I remind you and any one who has read the bum marketing technique ... the author talks about "rapid" article writing. He talks about getting faster and faster so you can churn out 4 or 5 articles PER HOUR and then working around 6 hours per day. That means around 30 article per day!

I know you don't have the time for that many article per day and I know everyone understands that. So don't give yourself too much of hard time thinking about bad luck or not getting enough results.

Now there are a couple of easy things you can do to speed up your article writing by a factor of 10.

I have to go to a meeting by I'll do a post shortly and explain them.

The key thing to note is this:

You now have a process that works! You just need to tweak it to make the sales. I'll do another post on this too. Relax the hard work is done and the best is yet to come.

Stay the course, you'll make it big.
Samo.

 

It is my pleasure Eage324 and many thanks.

It is good to know that others are benefitting ... coz you never know if you're just writing into the "ether" for your own ego and in reality there may not be anyone out there reading your material

Good luck and stay the course
Samo

 

As a Platinum author your articles (supposedly) get approved much faster. Also, if you're not upgraded, the number of articles you can ever submit will be limited.

Tom

 

Here is what someone posted on wickedfire regarding bum marketing:

"hen I first got into Internet Marketing I did a lot of bum marketing with clickbank products ( I didn't know better at the time)

I remember getting so frustrated going my first 10 days without a sale. I stayed focused and kept throwing my links everywhere.

I still get paid $100-200 every 2 weeks for work I did over 4-6 months ago.

I have not promoted Clickbank products since I joined Wickedfire, but I still
get paid for my past work.

That extra $200-400 a month is decent beer money. Not sure how long it will last though lol

ps. I used the date as my tracking codes. So say today is sept 13, I would add 913 to my tracking ID."

So don't give up

 

Hey thanks for the advice man. I've read everywhere that opt-ins are a good idea. But I was just doing my research and trying to find a good free way to do opt-ins (for now atleast). Also I haven't had much time to work on it but Friday and Monday im pretty sure I'll have a lot of free time but before that I have some questions.

I do have a website and one of my articles leads to a review so do you think that maybe instead of leading it directly to the review I should lead them to a opt-in page and say something like "to receive this 100% free review of ... sign up for my free newsletter" Is this what you mean I should do?

Thanks again

P.S I was so happy today because I just had my first $100 day. I was so happy I just had to share. And Good Luck PonyNugget this thread is awesome.

 

You're most welcome Emon878

I'm not sure what you mean by a "free way". Do you mean a free autoresponder account? (There is a good one, if that's what you're lookinhg for). The rest of the process is of course totally free.

Certainly do look into opt-ins and learn. But before you put up your opt-in just hold fire til Monday latest. A few people have PMed me with questions and others have posted questions for me in this thread and also in one or two other threads in this forum.

I've promised everyone a kind of a report about the correct process to monetize your traffic, including your article marketing process. I've only been in Digital Point 5 days ... I've got a few large and hopefully educational posts that many people have enjoyed but they've also lead to requests about further details.

In order to give everyone a complete picture, I'm going to provide a full 20+ page report (may be even 2 reports). The first one covers opt-in forms and landing pages as part of monetizing your traffic.

The reason I have't provided it so far is, I don't yet have the right to include http links. Hopefully that'll change by Saturday or Sunday.

By the way the report is free for you guys who are active on this thread (I normally sell it). Once you've downloaded it, I'll revoke the free download.

Yes that is the general idea. But you can also test variations on that idea. Now listen up everyone ...

NASA engineers put it best: One test is better than a thousand expert opinions!

I want you to write that down and stick it to your monitors. It honestly will make you a fortune if you act on that. In my mind that statement can't be put any better ... kinda like the invention of the wheel can't be improved on

So back to your options Emon:

One option is to try getting an optin in return for the review, as you mentioned.

Another is to leave some content (you choose and test to see which works best) on your site so the reader is assured of your qualities. This builds trust and respect. And of course you also have your opt-in form on the landing page. Let's take this one step further ...

......................
General Tip: All you guys should have a small but clearly visible opt-in form on all your content pages. This will significantly increase your opt-in rate.

Place a note next to the form stating the specific benefits of opting-in and may be a bonus. Make the bonus a digital download (report, review article, software, audio or video) so it is free for you to reporduce and deliver.

....................

Another variation is to offer your review or whatever else (you're testing) but also offer (extra) bonues. Yes it is true that you're offering the review free of charge and so, "that" is a bonus in itself.

But people love gifts and bonuses. So (a) give them what they crave for and (b) Another big tip: always try to over-deliver beyond exectations. You will get it all back 10 folds or more.

One way of over delivering is to include extra downloadables on the download page of whatever you promised for their opt-in. So on the download page thank them for opting in and then clearly mark these extras as "Unpublicised Gifts"

This begins to tell/educate your subscribers/prospects that every time you ask them to take an action in return for something, even if the something is already a great reward for the action, you will still give 2 or 3 times that something or more.

It is simple: if you expect people to give you their hard earned money, you owe it to them and to yourself to look after them as best as you can. And to help their money and effort go even further than they expected.

Do you think that builds trust and long lasting relationships?!

Co'mon guys, let me know your answers ... don't be shy.

So Emon, the above are just some of the variations. But you must test to find the optimum combinations for your particular audience. Once you hit the right combination, you'll see a spike in optins, traffic and income. But even before that, by putting in these measures one at a time, you will see a nice steady rise in your opt-ins followed by your income.

Watch this space or possibly a new thread for more info on testing (at some point).

You may be wondering about where to get all these gifts and bonuses from. If so watch out for a tip about that.

I'll give you a really easy product creation tip on Friday. It is quick and every single one of you can do it. Oh and it won't cost you anything to create those products. Sorry I can't do better than that

My pleasure Emon.

Heyyyyyy big cheer for Emon, everyone. I am truly happy for you. Well done and long may it continue.

Catch you later
Samo

 

This thread sums up this whole board Great info everybody. Samo, you should be proud of your writing, potentially offer that as a service if you do not already.

59 articles and 300 hops does sound like a heck of a lot of work, however I will agree that if those articles are for 'life' i'd love to hear a report in 10 years of your hops/earning Will also agree that landing pages/articles/sticky content is absorbed well and goes far/wide/long so kudos to you - 59 ezine ads/articles is a great accomplishment. While that 300 hops can be bought as targeted as possible for $10-$20, article marketing is an absolutely beautiful way to compliment the rest of the puzzle/campaign.

While I'm personaly not the biggest fan of optins, (Looking after your own affiliates sometimes calls for purity - my affiliates like the fact that I don't collect/bug/remind emails of my offers, I let them do it on their landing pages and as a perk I do not compete). However am now thinking of adding a couple to a few of my products as a test as well.

Keep up the posts everyone this thread is great. Best of luck with biz today.
NC.

 

i am waiting for the result! Good luck.

 

Hi NC

Thank you for your kind comment. It those comments that encourage me to share as I see others benefitting.

I don't provide a service nor do any coaching at the moment as I'm well busy .. however I think one or two of you might have guessed that I do "mess around" a little, on the Internet

Even before joining this forum I have privately coached a few people and also professionally I have advised some corporations including some very large ones (blue chip companies) who consult with me.

What I have found is that "time" is a challenge as it is for everyone. Hence I've decided to provide at least one report and probably more subsequently, to help everyone.

Why do I spend precious time helping? Well, as you said this forum is great and there are a few other really good ones too. What makes them great is in my view is 30% the software making it effortless to "talk" and share. The other 70% is down to the people. And I like the atmosphere and friendship in this forum.

I think everyone acknowledges that the people running this forum and the moderators deserve a lot of credit. So a huge thanks guys ... don't you pretend you're not watching

You may have seen me repeat the brilliant maxim "give and you shall receive". Well, I practice it too.

As for providing a service, I may have been thinking of running a free "live, online webinar" during which I present/discuss an aspect of online biz and you can see my computer screen and listen to me either via the web (audio stream) or phone a number (known as a bridge line) to listen in. By the way, the number would not be a premium line. It would cost the normal US long distance charges.

And I have also thought about may be then running a second free, Q&A webinar in which I answer questions live.

My decision on doing it depends on the level of demand. But I have no immediate plans for that. It takes a lot of work. I mean a lot. It is only worth doing if there are literally dozens of people interested in learning more.

Now to the Article Marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation)

It is understandable that most newbies hear all the fantastic stories about rapid successes (and many are ture) and when they start online they are very hopeful ...

NC, I'm not counting you among the newbies by the way.

Hope is a great thing. It is what drives us to achieve more. But we also have to learn every single day.

Traffic is the fuel that runs any online busniess. Article Marketing is not a potent feul for web traffic. All the experts will tell you that it is more like coal: steady, long term and can power huge businesses (unlike rocket fuel). So you can deoend it to build your business to a size you can't imagine right now.

The only exception is the bum marketing mehtod. And that works only because what articles lack by way of speed, you make up for by the sheer number of articles/back links you generate to your site. The atrraction of the bum marketing method is it is free and anyone can do it - if you don;t have the initial money but have the time.

Yes NC it would be interesting to see if anyone gets any traffic from a 10 year old article. I guess the online world is changing much too fast for most of them to still be relevant even in 5 or 7 years time. But shorter term, yes, they may well be relevant, with some exceptions e.g. the games console related articles etc will be totally obsolete.

Also bear in mind that most of the article directories are less than 5 years old. And cheap storage to keep archives of the relevant articles is a relatively new aspect of this situation, as is the importance of wrting articles and having back links (link popularity).

So Article Marketing as a direct channel between your bio and the ClickBank sales letter?! Big no, no, in my mind. You're literally burning your traffic because most of the income from an article (70% - 95%) is due to future follow ups and mailings to your list. But if your bio sends the traffic direct to the sales letter, then you lose out on that income, i.e. you burn it.

NC imagine you "give" and people like what they get and they willingly subscribe to yor list. Then, short of picking up the phone and telling you, they are actually indicating to you that they want to hear more from you. So you're not bothering anyone. I think you're being a little over cautious.

This applies to the affiliates and to your prospects and customers too. As long as you don't abuse the info and trick your subscribers which is a one-time event (then thy're gone), then it is up to "them", your subscribers, to decide if they've heard enough.

When they decide that, then they click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of your next email. Until then, it is your "obligation" my friend to give them the info, services and also, yes, the product info/reviews/recommendations that they want to hear about.

What're you alergic to money! I'm just teasing you. I hope you don't mind.

Look everyone ... you provide the best service you possibly can and look after your subscribers at all times. Then give them credit for knowing what they want. And if that means they want to also buy something from you or via your affiliate links then honor that too. Every decent subsriber worth having knows, you too have bills to pay.

Back to SEO ... the true value of article marketing is in displaying to the search engines that you are a committed, knowledgeable webmaster who provide relevant info for the visitors. The engines will reward you with traffic. They'll send you their valued search clients.

Way does that take time to build up?

Well, firstly they want to be sure you're not like the 99% of the authors who write 5 articles or less and give up.

Secondly, on pages one to say 3 of the search results there are only 30 places. You have to rise above the number 30 webmaster and be more prolific to capture one of those places. So you have to work your way up by publishing articles every day.

But you see, you can use some major short cuts to boost your article makreting efforts. There are 2 types of boosts or fuel additives, to stay with the fuel metaphor:

1- Understanding how the article sturcture and article marketing works. (A storey for another time).

2- Using complimentary traffic channels. Oh yes, the search engines take note of that too. Long stoey but I finish with an example of this:

The search engines are becoming more sophisticated. They are beginning to work out human behavior with respect to online activities. So their algorithms (calculations) now allow for "natural" growth of sites. Growth in popularity and in content etc. It is somewhat unnatural if a small website gets lots of content too quickly.

It is also not that organic (not that natural) when the search engine robots only see backlinks from article directories, content sites* and blogs*.

* whose content is the same as the article directories, i.e. your article.

They do make an exception and not penalise you coz you make up for it by providing relevant and sometimes good content.

If you don't believe me, apply the same strategy ot say link exchanges or by backlinks quickly (don't do it). Your site will get de-indexed very quickly or at least it's ranking will sink fast. They do not make any exceptions in that case coz there is absolutely no benefit incorporated in your actions, for their search clients. Effectively you're trying to trcik their systems- bad idea.

So you can and should diversify your traffic channels as they also help a more natural growth for your site and you'lll get rewarded by the serach engines much more. So if you put 50% of your effort into say article marketing and 50% into say press releases then you get say 120% rewards compared to if you put 100% effort into one of those two activities.

BUt look, I'm not saying start 10 traffic channels. I'm saying perfect one, get some income, reinvest a part of that income, start a second traffic channel by getting help form others (joint venture partners, outsource workers such as those elsewhere in this forum, your own affiliates, etc). Perfect that and start a third channel and a fourth etc.

In conclusion - sorry I went on so long - use article marketing as a good, long term SEO method that also pays dividends steadily right now. If you want fast results with article marketing you've got to produce aritcles rapidly and systematically.

By the way I'm writing a report or may be a multi part article on how to speed up article creation by 4 to 10 times or possibly more. I'll let you know when it is ready.

Good luck everyone and note that most people (your competitors) give up very soon ... you just have to be a little more persistent than them.

Stay the course
Samo