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The Unofficial DP Winter '06 Affiliate Noob's Challenge thread

Discussion in 'Affiliate Programs' started by Mister Tut, Jan 13, 2006.

  1. sunchy

    sunchy Active Member

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    #321
    I sell only products that I know or I think that work ;)
     
    sunchy, Mar 14, 2006 IP
  2. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #322
    Wow A new Record for me.
    Google took 13 days to approve an ad!
     
    jimboot, Mar 21, 2006 IP
  3. Mister Tut

    Mister Tut Guest

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    #323
    Was there anything borderline about it?
     
    Mister Tut, Mar 21, 2006 IP
  4. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #324
    Religous overtones. Seems Google is also scared of the religous right
     
    jimboot, Mar 21, 2006 IP
  5. sunchy

    sunchy Active Member

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    #325
    And that is very Strange :confused:
     
    sunchy, Mar 22, 2006 IP
  6. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #326
    AAAAAAARRRGH!
    I'm about to email Google but I thought I'd drop a line here as well.
    I started a new campaign yesterday and realised I hadn't switched the content network off after about 50 impressions on it. So I went in and switched it off as soon as I realised.

    I just logged on this morning (8am here) to find that my ads have had 53,000 impressions on the content network over night! With only 20 clicks! So it has basically destroyed my ad quality. I doubled checked to make sure content was switched off and it was.

    Anyone else experienced this before?
     
    jimboot, Mar 23, 2006 IP
  7. Mister Tut

    Mister Tut Guest

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    #327
    Well, I've forgotten to turn it off, but I've never had G turn it back on behind my back, and I've never accidentally run up a huge content network tab either (so far).

    That is sucky.
     
    Mister Tut, Mar 23, 2006 IP
  8. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #328
    weird thing is it shows that it is turned off but the impressions keep goin up
     
    jimboot, Mar 23, 2006 IP
  9. blinxdk

    blinxdk Peon

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    #329

    Doesn't google say that content network does not affect your ad quality?

    I'm pretty sure.
     
    blinxdk, Mar 24, 2006 IP
  10. Cyclops

    Cyclops sensei

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    #330
    Well after three weeks of running three ads someone must have looked at them and disapproved them all. It's weird two were because I had the word NEW in capitals. The other because the URL that is shown wasn't right :confused:
    The weird part is they all had NEW in them and all had the same URL :confused:
    They were doing quite well too.
    So I changed what had to be changed and left it at that. I have no idea about the URL because it is right so I changed the letter I had capitalised.

    The people at Google are a strange lot :D
     
    Cyclops, Mar 24, 2006 IP
  11. Mister Tut

    Mister Tut Guest

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    #331
    OK, a question. I'd like your concensus on this:

    You are running a campaign for an item and you are getting no sales. What percentage of the commission do you allow your costs to reach before pulling the plug? 100%, 150%, 300%?

    Or, do you have a different yardstick?

    Assume an average CPC of 18 cents on a $20.00 commission.

    BTW, I forgot to announce, but I'm back in. I'm shilling 2 related CB products, sharing a keyword list (bids adjusted for each product).
     
    Mister Tut, Mar 25, 2006 IP
  12. alext

    alext Active Member

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    #332
    This is my (conservative) thinking:

    At $.18/click you are only going to get 111 clicks for $20. So you will need to have a conversion ratio > 1% to make money. So unless I knew something about the product and/or had some experience selling it, this doesn't sound like a very green pasture. But then again I have tried things with less profit potential just to see.

    If I really did want to try it though, I would set a finite amount of money I was willing to risk. Like say $200 or maybe $20 max per day and see what happens after a week. Or something that I felt comfortable with losing.

    Good luck ;)
     
    alext, Mar 25, 2006 IP
  13. Cyclops

    Cyclops sensei

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    #333
    I set the budget at the price of the commission or $20, if I have no bites by then I move on.

    I'm getting really dumb in my old age :rolleyes: .
    I have taken on a new product and it's been running for a few days now.

    I wrote a pretty good ad and put it up.
    Now instead of using my proxy to look at it's placment in the US I believed Adwords position tool and it said my terms ranged from #2 to #6.
    I wasn't that worried about the position, I figured anywhere on the first page will do.

    I started off great, lots of clicks and good conversion rate.
    Then it dropped off, Adwords tool still said #2 to #6 so I put in my proxy and took a look.
    Every term was at #12 or in most cases worse, some back on the third page :confused: .

    Then the penny dropped, because I had directed the campaign to all the english speaking countries Adwords were giving me the average position my term is in accross all of them.
    I am in #1 in most of those other countries but not in the US where most of the traffic and interest comes from, hence the average position Adwords reports.
    It's a nice little niche but I thought .15 was a good deal.
    I will let all of you in to this one when I find out how good it really is.
    It's a MLM product :( and normally I wouldn't go anywhere near MLM .....but this is an excellent product.
     
    Cyclops, Mar 25, 2006 IP
  14. Mister Tut

    Mister Tut Guest

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    #334
    So , Cyclops, will you move to separate campaigns targeted to US and Non-US, or can you manage that at the ad group level? (I've always restricted to US, so far).
     
    Mister Tut, Mar 25, 2006 IP
  15. Cyclops

    Cyclops sensei

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    #335
    I think I will break it into two campaigns, I don't really like being in #1 to #3 to start with.
    It can cost more than necessary when someone who wants to be their at any cost ups the bids.
    I think I can do the non-US countries for around .06.

    I will have to raise my US bid to break into the first page, I think .25 will do that but I really don't want to have to pay that much.
    I will concentrate on writing better ads hoping the CTR will carry me higher.

    I had lunch today with three guys I met at a small convention that spend a lot of money on Adwords to promote their products, 5/10k per month.
    Two have given up as the costs have, as one said got out of control, the other person said that after our lunch discussion that he will probably give it away as well.

    The consensus was that what is the point of giving Google 10k a month to reap 1/2k per month and if you have a bad month you can actually lose. Google wins, they get a shitload of cash and all we get if we are lucky is a tax write-off.
     
    Cyclops, Mar 26, 2006 IP
  16. Mister Tut

    Mister Tut Guest

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    #336
    I've always been unclear on the concept of "improving the ad quality". Does Google have specific things they are looking for, or is it just that they look at whether the new ad generates a higher CTR?
     
    Mister Tut, Mar 26, 2006 IP
  17. amnezia

    amnezia Peon

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    #337
    ok so im gonna jump on the band waggon as well, have used adwords to drive traffic to a site but never used it with affiliates. Have already picked up some great stuff on this thread already!

    I've set up 3 campaigns, 2 selling a books and 1 selling web hosting

    max per day is $12.00
     
    amnezia, Mar 26, 2006 IP
  18. Cyclops

    Cyclops sensei

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    #338
    I'm pretty sure they just base it on the percentage of the CTR
    Some say they take into account the quality of the ad and the landing page but I doubt that, they would need a human to review all that which is time comsuming and therefore expensive.



    I think you will find that using Adwords for web hosting will be too expensive, it's a very competitive market.
     
    Cyclops, Mar 26, 2006 IP
  19. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #339
    You will get a higher CTR if you use the KW in your headline and other copy. Better quality to my understanding is initially based on the copy and then CTR as well. So make the copy relevant to the search.

    green widgets = the words green and widgets turn up anywhere in the search string
    "green widgets" = the words turn up exactly in that order in the search string
    [green widgets] = Only those words in that order are in the search string.

    I am finding around 20 KW seems to be optimal.
     
    jimboot, Mar 26, 2006 IP
  20. jimboot

    jimboot Active Member

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    #340
    Up until last week I was not bidding anymore than 7 cents US and my best campaign was generating 20usd /day for 2.8 us cents/day.

    I now have a campaign running that is costing me 20 cents US /click but my CTR is 16%! I have had two sales so far = $35USD and my costs have been $5.92 .

    I want to make at least 100% profit on a product but I aim for 300%.

    I've been getting a lot of really good advice on another forum (Sorry DP!) of folks who do this for a living.

    I have 3 products at the moment that I have had sales from that I think have potential. If I can achieve at least 2 sales a day from these products then my revenue will be around $100US with costs of around $18US.

    I also pay attention to conversion claims for the product. If they are not achieved I hunt down the merchant and ask them why. This has helped improve at least one campaign.

    Jim
     
    jimboot, Mar 26, 2006 IP