Ok so I've been doing affiliate marketing for a grand total of 5 days, and have yet to make a sale, have spent over $50 on adwords, countless time reading, and I don't think I have the persistence to make it. Let's hear some pointers and some words of advice. My CTR is in the shitter FWIW (<1% IIRC). Argh Any kind of help would be appreciated by a noob in need. Thanks (It's the shoe site and the pricecomet site in my link)
Don't worry. We've all been through this. If you feel frustrated, pause your campaign and regroup. First thing, you have to make sure you're promoting a good program. Your AdWords campaign will be fundamentally flawed if you're trying to promote products that simply will not convert. Expect failure initially. Seriously. Any other business has start-up costs, why not PPC? You will lose money, but set a limit for yourself and think of any lost costs as the best education you can get--better than any of those guru ebooks.
Ok. Affiliate programs if i had $1 for each one i tried i would retire. I keep going to new ones and trying sites. Some sites seem to never make a sale. Some sites i make good money off. Adwords will cost you money and i think your better off trying to make site and getting it ranked for some search terms instead. Yes adwords can work but you have to know what your doing and how to find CHEAP keywords that convert. You alos need affiliate program that has something that sells. Try different programs make a blog and websites. Once you find a site that you make sales with then try adwords.
Well without adwords the traffic would have to come through search engines. I won't get ranked in a search engine immediately, it would take at the very least, a few months, no?
All it depends on niche markets. 2 ways for Adwords... 1. If you find untapped niche market and product of affilaite program that related to the niche market. So you don't need high traffic and you can generate sales through Adwords. 2. You choose niche market that have high demand and high competition for Adwords. You need high traffic to make sales. And also need autoresponder system to convert the traffic to subscriber. Research niche market... research niche market... until you find proper niche market! Don't give up!!!
Good day, I would definatly take your time with ppc and do some research and when you think of the real world business investing $50 in advertising is really nothing. For some reason online we tend to forget how really inexpensive advertising is compared to the outside world. Have a look at your landing page. Search Engine ranking is vital to your long term goals and this is done thru title,pages,keywords meta tags etc.
things take time and money..do you have a website your promoting with affiliate products,or are you just promoting a certain place or thing?
I promote other merchants' products on my site. I'm with cj because they have an abundance of merchants with them. The above poster is correct, $50 is nothing compared to the outside world. But this aint the outside world. Anyways, I think I jumped into this thing too quickly. I'm still raw and haven't done enough reading IMO. I think I'll be working on SEO more now, and focus on the PPC later on, maybe during the summer after I'm done my summer courses.
Ive read a few things about this ADwords Make Money stuff. I don't get it. Don't you pay money to Adwords? How do you make money? Anyone got a simple asnwer to this?
You pay money to Google to advertise your site on Adwords in hopes of them clicking on affiliate links on your site which will result in you getting a commission after they buy something from that link.
Oh, so basically you are the middle man? It's like referrals, but in this case AdWords does the referring and you get paid, well that is the idea?
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I run a site where I talk about widgets. On my site, I also have links that tell people where to buy widgets. If people go Widgets Inc. and buy a widget, I get a commission. To get people to come to my site, I advertise my site on Adwords. I'll have to pay google each time someone clicks on my site in the ads, but I'm hoping once that person clicks, they'll click on my Widget link and buy a Widget.
Your clickthrough rate is a clear problem (how big a problem depends on your advert's position) - it's dragging down your Quality Score, and as a result, you're having to bid more to appear in your chosen position (or you're appearing lower for your bid, if you prefer). Your advert isn't catching people's eye - I'd test lots of different advert text, and see what works. Try DKI, unless all of your competitors are, and make people WANT to see your site...
Thanks for the advice, I'll work on testing more. I haven't used DKI yet, but I will start testing with it. What is (in your opinion) an optimal CTR?
I'm not sure there's anything like an optimal CTR, though you might say that below 1% is too low. The reason I say there is no optimal is because I have some adgroups that get 25% CTRs, but that pertains to *those* adgroups and keywords, which concentrate on very specific words. There are some generic keywords for which I'd be happy if I got a 3% CTR.
Clickthrough rate depends on a number of things - what you're offering (is it always what they are searching for?), how well your advert is written, how well your competitors' ads are written, the strength of your brand name, the strength of your competitors' brand names, the quality of the natural search results... And, of course, your position! I've got campaigns with clickthrough rates from 2% - 80%, but all of my campaigns are for companies offering goods and services - I've not done any affiliate marketing. What is clear is that no clickthrough rate is ever 'good enough', as the higher it is, the better your QS, and the less you have to pay to appear in your chosen position, so you should always be trying to improve it...