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

I'll chime in now since I've lurked for a while. I've been at this for about a month now. For April is managed about a 40% return. Not too bad for my first month. I learned a few things I'll pass on.

1. If it's making $$$ leave it alone!
I say this with a caveat. I'm sure it pays to tweak one's ads but do it with a new ad. For example if you have an ad that is generating a 20% return or more create a duplicate ad and tweak that one. I had a good ad that was averaging a 70% return. I got greedy and tweaked it. My ROI plummeted and it took me a week to get it performing well again.

2. Go slowly if you don't have the cash to burn. I was telling a friend about this strategy and I saw the $ signs in his eyes. I don't think he really saw the hard work and risks involved in this. Yes you can make $1000 a month but how much are you willing to risk/pay for ads to make that $1000?

I know if he had gone head long into this he would have lost a ton. I started out slow and am still being cautious. I know I could probably make more by being more aggressive but I'm happy with my success so far.

3. Adbrite is not the end all be all. I'm sure people have had success with Adbrite, lord knows their model certainly works in our (advertisers favor) but their low click prices are not necessarily what YOU are going to pay. They are averages. I ran a campaign where my CPP was .26 and the average was .05 for that site and my industry. I'm sure I could get a lower CPP out of them with time, but I wanted to let people know they may not get these low cost clicks. I'll use them again b/c I got a return but I was hoping for cheaper clicks.

4. Experiment, experiment, experiment. There is no book on this strategy. This thread is great but the only way to get a handle on this stuff is by doing.

My 2 cents so far.

 

Agre with that My Friend,
I if I see what keywords work best, build new campaigns only with that keywords.

Reason? CTR of course...Google love that

 

Exactly Jawin. Great post

 

That goes both ways. They estimated an average of 7 cents cost per click and I ended up with a 4 cent cost per click because my click thru rate was high.

My ad read:
Don't get scammed
Find out which money making methods really make money online.

I got a high click thru but no sales. So I decided to redesign the site and rework the copywrite.

 

I'm sure you're right. I just haven't had than happen for me yet.

 

Got any good result in this industry (paid survey + data entry)?

 

None so far but I just changed the copywrite and design a few hours ago.

I picked those industries because they fall under the money making category and they had high gravity ratings. However, I can't help but to wonder why clickbank uses the gravity system. I guess they use that system to hide the low performance of some affiliate vendors.

This basically is my last attempt at a clickbank site. I want to see if I can really get high conversion rates selling clickbank products and If I can't I will move on.

 

I am just start Campaings on MSN ADS Center

 

Well, if you want to make some money out of these highly promoted affiliates, you'll have to be VERY competitive and I don't know if you are, but I would rather try something else (that's my mentality).

As I haven't tried promoting many products (mostly only high gravity ones) I haven't got any results yet. I might try pomoting less high gravity ones and if I do not get result I'll think about writing something I could sell online or maybe writing a software (as I know some programming).

If I can't sell the software, I'll sure use it because the first objective of this software will be to fill task for me.

Anyway, I just think you should try on less gravity affiliates if you're beginning since there might be less competition (even though I'm pretty sure there is...)

 

I've already sold a ton of low gravity products on clickbank with very low conversion rates so if this doesn't work then I am going to abandon clickbank for good. I'm going to move on to selling tangible products like specific clothing or goods etc on cj.com or shareasale.com. The only problem is that I need to find something that will give me back a decent percentage of the sale, doesn't have too much competition and has high enough conversion rates.

I've gotten better results selling tangible products but the percentage they pay you is so low that you can't really make a profit using PPC.

 

Anything that pays a decent commission and converts well on Cj.com will almost certainly have a high amount of competition.

The best tactic is to watch for new programs just coming on to Commission Junction, look at the commision offering, then visit the site and try and figure out if they have landing pages that convert. If so, jump on the programs right away. With any luck, you'll get a good CTR and lower price in adwords from which to fight off the competitors who'll pile on once they see those green bars in cj.com.

 

I meant industry competition. If the PPC is too high then I can't make a profit.

 

I work with MN affiliate programs that for one product have on overture $8.01 but, again I make profit. I f you make profit per sale average $175 and have conversion average 1:11 for right keywords

 

What are MN affiliate programs?

 

men's niche?

 

porn...............

 

nah, herbals, pills, that kind of stuff.

 

Viagara and other male enhancement products.

I keep hearing that they convert well but I never wanted to go the pharmaceutical route. Sunchy definitely makes a good point though.

 

well, it's because those product generally convert if you're looking for them...

People could look at mp3 just to see what's the latest news about them but no one really check out viagra or herbals if they don't have buying in mind (maybe to get info about those pills but generally not that often).

They are somehow already "converted" visitors when they come to your landing page.

 

OMG! I was getting around 75 hits a day from adbrite and only getting 2 or 3 clicks out to my affiliates. If I hadn't installed the click tracking then I never would have known. I'm going to ditch the mini sites and start using landing pages on adbrite.