Ok, So I've been in the internet industry for about a year, mostly doing cpc stuff and promotion on myspace sites, arcade sites, etc. But I really don't enjoy that too much and I've recently started getting my feet wet in ppc affiliate marketing and I love it. I've been doing PPC Arbitrage (working great so far) and I'm trying to get affiliate marketing to work but I'm having a horrible time. Through Adwords, YSM and 7Search I have yet to convert one of azoogle's credit report or new car quote offers . I've tried direcly directing to the offer, I've (just started) directing it to a landing page with an iFrame and a some "preselling" stuff..but still no luck(that's another question - what goes into a successful landing page for things like this?)....it's really discouraging, but for me it's only motivating me even more to figure it out and succeed. Does anyone have any advice? I think I'm covering all the basics like directing relevant traffic, finding good niche's, etc. but nothing's working at all. I even sent over 250 relevant clicks from yahoo to a credit report offer and got nothing . I just keep testing, testing, testing and it's not quite clicking yet. Don't get me wrong - I'm actually having fun doing this stuff. It's so much more fun than trying to get link exchanges for a myspace site or something like that. I didn't expect it to be easy and I'm here for the long haul...so any advice would be appreciated - Thanks
The bad news is: You have to test your landingpages for ALL the different porribilities, colors, different designs, different locations of the creatives and so on, that takes time, money and creativity. The good news is: You can do that with split testing your page i.e you serve every visitor that comes to your site one of your, lets say 10, different landingpages a different one and after a week or so you can say exactly this one converted best, and based on this one you build others, and again: test them... there is no where something like an holy grail or so, i too had lost money, time and a LOT nerves and hapiness while i was diving in this business, but it pays off if you dont give up. For almost all affiliates terms deliver oher conversions, for me "blue widgets" delivers an conversion rate of 10% while the same term delivers for you only 2%... Even if you copy my landingpage its not sure that you earn the same money that i do, therefore almost all affiliates have to do their own tests and all help you can get are general things, like the split testing i mentioned above.
I know you're playing around with 2 expensive and highly competitive areas, credit reports and car quotes, and you're paying a higher CPC just to get noticed (like anything above $0.30). Your test budget can evaporate quickly. I would recommend testing and cutting your teeth on the less competive offers with cheaper keywords, $0.10 and less. Sure the average eCPC may only be $0.20 but you're doubling your money and refining your skills at the same time. (Your Azoogle rep will give you the eCPC data for any offer.) I remember you from when you sold your Myspace site, so I know you're a smart guy and have a strong work ethic. So, don't give up -- You will definitely figure it out and be successful.
I agree completely to many people jump in on the money offers and get burned... which is fine for me less competition but they key is use what you know in the areas you know and apply it then try to expand and as always test tweak test tweak.