yes there is risk involved but if you do your homework in the long run you will make money as you do have to spend $$$ to make $$$$$$$ ... the key is finding somethign new or something someone has done before but do it better, promote it better or whatever it is just do it... if u sit back and just think about it thinking doesnt make you money action does..
and investing does But I agree, if you don't want to spend money, you don't even earn it, to make money!!! Money's gotta roll... I'm investing $250 this month, let's hope it turns out okay! Made around $300 this month, so can afford this gamble this time!
Allright. After reading this post yesterday, I decided to just jump in and try it. As a test I selected one lovely and quite pricey coffe-table book on a certain aspect of fine art (it was the most expensive book I could find quickly on Amazon). I then shot over to Adwords and created a campaign of 2 different ads for that book. No presell page, as I don't have a site that even remotely relates to the topic of the book. I bought just over 100 keywords, including all sorts of variations and misspellings, etc. I intend to learn about this first hand. Anyone else up to the challenge? I challenge you to give it a try. Who will take me up on this (who isn't already doing direct adwords-to-affiliate marketing)? The prize is bragging rights and a learning experience. You can start for dollars a day, so there's no excuse...
I just started this week - does that count? I have never done any other sort of AM either. So a complete noob to this... but I'm not bad at SEO Jim
I am game. I have been thinking over options along these lines for a while but haven't put them to the test yet. I do AdWord for other stuff but only flirted with "direct to affiliate" so this will still be a learning experience for me.
Jimboot, AlexT, and Allthewhile are in! Excellent. Allthewhile, If you don't wanna go with Amazon, there's tons of others. LinkShare and Commission Junction are two "affilate aggregators", each giving you access to a buttload of vendors. ClickBank is the same, but for electronically delivered info-products. I'm gonna ask User fivestaraffiliates to weigh in over here. She may have some other guidance to offer.
AdWords-to-aff is not a bad thing but thank about all you are missing you can promote a one page landing page on any site about any aff product. here are a few thoughts + side of not having a web site you do not have to worry about your copy on the site if it converts or not. you do not have to have a site or hosting fees nothing - side you can't track the keywords that are making money (part of becoming a master of adwords is knowing what keywords are paying off) you can't work in some SEO work to help the site in the rankings for free clicks(the best ones)
umm well i have sued AdWords for few months and spend some money but no luck. so ya you have to gamble, most of the time it works..
ive never done it this way. Yes ive used adwords but never so targeted. Ill give it a go. ps. ill start on 2 products with 2 separate campaigns with about 3 targeted adverts for each product. And ill throw $100/day budget to each. Ill monitor it for 2 weeks. Lets see if it pays off!
Hi Mister Tut, Got your PM. Sorry for delay in answering. I think this is a great challenge and a good way for people to get their feet wet. However like anything else in business it takes some knowledge and some trial and error to make money this way, so not sure green newbies should just jump in without knowing what they are doing. Is everyone aware of the new Adwords rules about affiliate advertising? Only one ad per merchant. Many times the merchant takes this spot, so that means you can not just plop up a link direct to the merchant. Also some merchants convert better than others, so you could try a little test campaign and not make any money but if you had used a different merchant maybe you would have. So all I'm saying is don't be discouraged if this little test does not make you lots of money. There is a science to making this work. Here are some tips - especially good are my tips for creating an Adwords affiliate landing page if you need to. http://www.5staraffiliateprograms.com/Google-Adwords-affiliate.html Have fun and good luck!
Thanks, Linda! Now as I understand the one ad per merchant rule Linda referred to, it is on a per-keyword basis. This means that if you bid on Blue Widgets for your foobar affiliate program, and someone else already has a bid in for Blue Widget with a display URL going back to Foobar.com, Google will evaluate who deserves the higher placement, gives it to them, and the other party will not show up anywhere (not even on page 10,000) for Blue Widget, although it will not be listed as INACTIVE FOR SEARCH. You can, however (again, this is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong) still rank for Pink Widgets or Blue Widget Kabobs, etc resolving back to Foobar.com. Please nobody spend more than you can afford to lose! Start sharing your plans (using general terms like "widget" rather than the actual product or specific vendor) and your results as they come in. I'll post mine tomorrow.
I have my ad up. I picked a book from Amazon in an area of my personal interest. It is a good book and is cheap for what it is ($17). The temptation was to pick something expensive, but as it is I am the only one bidding on most of these keywords! My ad group has a few hundred keywords. I picked a few likely keyword phrases and developed combinations of misspellings. CPC runs from .05-.10 for the search network. For the content network I set the default bid for .03. When stats start coming in, I'll see how things need to be adjusted. I do find it annoying that I am forced to up my bids on keywords that no one else is bidding on. Summary: Jan 13, 2006 Amazon Item "WS" cost $17 CPC .05-.10 (.03 content net) $4/day My personal feeling is that a landing page with more options would be better, but I want to see what happens with this. Added: I just did some checking and with the misspellings I am the only ad. On the correct spellings I am on the front page.
I love what you guys are doing and will follow this thread with earnest. Please do report back how things are going! Excellent
I've posted this already in another thread but basically after 200 clicks no sales. I think my merchant landing page sux My CTR is 1.3% I have also tried putting my own LP in between but no change. How long does CJ take to report a sale? Is it less than 24 hours? I am using negative keywords as well as putting the price in my ad so I know it is not freebie CTs Jim
Alex has pointed out that we've sort of hijacked this thread, and that the Challenge will be easier to find and follow in it's own thread. Taking his advice, we're moving over to The Official DP Winter '06 Affiliate Noob's Challenge thread. See you all on the flip side!
Lmao I wasnt even notcing what happened to this thread. But this still defeats the purpose of what I said. You guys are using adwords to make money. Which ultimately means spending money.