Hi, I'm a young webmaster, and I'm interested in getting started in being an affiliate. I know about google adwords and all that, but I'm cautious of not losing my money without knowing everything. If I had a $20 / lead offer, and I invested $20 in adwords, is there a guranteed hit, or do you need to have lots of experience to make it work? I would appreciate it if people who have been an affiliate for a short time replied and told me how they got started and thier thoughts.
In the begining you will lose money... everyone in affiliate marketing does especially when starting out..... However never jump into a market without testing the waters... this is usuallly the first step. if you have test a campaign to see if it is profitable b4 you pour money into it.
Find something you know a little bit about, then find an offer that is similar. I wouldn't start on adwords, try yahoo first as the bids are cheaper, less competition and the conversions are better. Spend maybe 2x what the offer is paying out, testing keywords and what not. If it doesn't convert, move on to something else.
do your reasearch hardcore, search for other pages selling similar products and see what they are doing
Don't forget about driving traffic with SEO. It is a good way to get into Affiliate Marketing with little up front expense.
$20 is certainly not enough for your Adwords experiment before meeting success. Even though there are tonnes of guides out there showing you what is the killer ways of writing ads or boosting conversion rate, practically it is still something for you to fail at the start.
Ok thanks for all the help guys, I'm gonna start with yahoo, but I was also wondering, should I get landing pages as well, are they worth the hosting and domain costs?
I have said this on other posts - to help you I will say it again here The key to Internet marketing is test and change - so test everything - from the headlines in your ad's to the words you use - 1 word changed in a PPC can change your conversion rate and push it through the roof. There is no magic formula - Learn as much as you can - make lots of mistakes - be in it for the long term and always include a method of collecting a list - with the right list you have gold....
Normally I feel bad plugging my own stuff, but I write posts for questions just like this. Read my blog to help you get started with affiliate marketing. It's what it's there for. http://www.afftoolbox.com