So I don't really have any idea what I'm doing. I know how to use adwords, and I've been running azoogle ads on my site for a while (with no revenue). So today I started a campaign with a pile of long-tail queries, and low bids. And I just pointed the ads to the landing page from Azoogle. Am I on the right track? I just don't understand how this works. If the advertisers are forced to shell out money for us to run ad campaigns for them, why don't they just save $ and run the campaigns themselves?
Because they only pay for guarunteed leads. They know what a lead is worth to them so there's less risk involved. Plus they get a lot more exposure when several affiliates have ads running for the same keywords that all lead to their page, whether directly, or through a separate landing page. On top of that, they have the collective power of all the affiliates covering as many angles as possible to get targeted traffic to their offer. And many of them do run their own PPC campaigns- that's why you're not always allowed to bid on trademarked terms.
Where are you pointing the adwords campaigns? Directly to the affiliates sites url, using a redirect, or to your own sites landing page?
Most affiliates do not let you link directly to their page (adwords doesn't allow you the same url to be displayed twice, which would prevent the advertiser's own ads from showing), and you can't use an automatic redirect to a url different than the one you are displaying. You should build your own custom landing page, or load their landing page in a frame (assuming they allow it).
Are you permitted to 'borrow' the HTML from the advertiser's landing page? and I guess that would explain why I've had 0 impressions in my Google campaign thus far...
You can't take their content unless you have express permission - they usually have approved ad formats - but copying their own landing page isn't usually allowed. Loading their landing page in a frame (masking the url) is often allowed - but you aren't taking their html, just loading their page. You need to read each specific advertisers TOS - many have restrictions, including what keywords and ad copy you can or cannot use.
But what's the point of putting it in a frame? Does Google even allow that? Thanks for your help by the way...
If you use an Iframe, the visitor goes to your site, which loads the landing page inside (think of a picture frame). Google allows it because they are actually on your site. I've also seen people mask the url and just load the advertisers landing page directly - this way, the visitor sees your url in the browser, not the advertisers. You probably want to create a custom landing page so you don't get hit by googles quality score.
That is exactly how I have done it in the past with Adwords. Like Jewel is saying, you can put your own URL as seen in advert but make the destination URL your affiliate link... The ifram thing is another safety layer so "G" won't have any gripes.
As long as you have the bandwidth to tailor as many pages as possible then more power to you. I think it's just more time consuming especially if your not tracking all of your keywords and using analytics to keep an eye on everything.
Well, I have very little bandwidth, and not much keyword tracking, as I can't really track conversions So this campaign will be very basic, and if I make any $ whatsoever I'll get more complex I have all of the programming and PPC experience I need, I'm just totally new to the whole affiliate thing
Frankcow, thanks for asking these newbie questions, and especially thanks to everyone for taking the time to answer them! I've had good success with Adsense, but have only recently branched out to Azoogle and CJ offers. I certainly see that the money can be much better, but am getting quite stuck on the mechanics as well. I did one small test, sending AdBrite traffic directly to a Free Gift Card offer. Got a few conversions, but it was underwater. Where is a good place to learn the basic mechanics of implementing these offers? Where can I quickly get up the learning curve on making landing pages that work? I'm fairly skilled at doing search campaigns, but am a little stumped on how to convert the traffic.
Adbrite is a tough one to start with, you are better off learning with Google or MSN. Just try to get some free credits from people so you aren't even testing with your own money
How long did it take you seasoned affiliate marketers to really know what you're doing, and start making some money?