Please Help Me Understand...

TheMoMan

New member
Sep 5, 2009
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Canada
This is sorta long, please bear with me.

So I started up Keyword Elite 2.0 and did a search for colon cleanse and it returned several hundred keywords. I then took the keywords AS-IS and took them into my AdWords account to the estimator to see what it would potentially cost me to run a campaign. Of course, there were some words that you would not want to bid on like COLON ($2.25 - $2.87 CPC with approx 1,600 - 2000 clicks per day) or CLEANSE for much the same reasons.

The others seemed OK - range in CPC between $2.25 and whatever.

Then I took those keywords and plugged them into KWE Market Research Sleuth and got pretty much the same information. Though it did return some CPC as low as $0.05 but I don't think those would trigger any actions as they were keyphrases such as "pros and cons of colon cleansing" or "dutch international colon cleanse".

Anyway using the same tool I ran the CPA Magnet to see what offers are out there and there are quite a few... some from Clickbank that pay out around $14.84 - but obviously more difficult to convert and always the risk of returns. Then there are the CPA networks such as NeverBlueAds that lists a payout of $32 all the way to $40 -- I am guessing that this payout is for someone getting a free bottle of the stuff for S&H -- is that correct??

So I am guessing that the strategy would be to try out the 5 different CPA programs on NBA first to see which one converts the best.

Now I'm reading that direct linking isn't the best option.

So would the process be to purchase 5 different domains, one for each offer OR one generic domain with 5 keyword rich sub-domains off of that?

Next run groups of keywords for certain sub-domains, so keyword group 1 might contain 100 or 200 keywords but route them to sub-domain #1 (or TLD 1), next set of keyword to the next sub-domain or TLD etc.,

Am I getting this right so far?

The sites that you set-up, it sounds like are better off to be static rather than WP/CMS/BLOG and the landing page could potentially be what the CPA site actually is but within the LP you have links to additional articles to try and capture some organic search results.

Am I still getting this right, so far?

So suppose I run a campaign and get 100 clicks per day at $2.50 = $250/day. If I can convert 1% @ $40 CPA = loosing A LOT of money, 5% @ $40 CPA = loosing only a little money, 10% @ $40 CPA = making some money.

So why would you run a campaign like this unless you could get clicks REAL CHEAP.

Is building a quality site going to help keep the CPC low, or is that what the gurus are using to blow you over and buy their $$$ courses?

The keyword "free colon cleanse" costs $2.48/click with estimated 4,000 organic clicks and 400 paid clicks and there are 8 campaigns running for it (all according to Keyword Elite).

Am I missing something here, or isn't this a "good" campaign to run?

What are the chances of getting 10% or more conversions on your clicks? I realize that your ad may not get 400 clicks or whatever the estimate is as there is an equal chance for each ad to get a click or not get a click.

Looking forward to what you think...

...no, not plugging KWE. It's just the tool I'm using.
 


Just thinking about this... I have a bunch of great health related domains stashed away. I could also run a WP blog on the main domain with a bunch of articles and no advertising on it whatsoever -- keep it informational and instead link keywords to various offers that I could run on sub-domains, so free-colon-cleanse.blahblahblah.whatever-- right?

Does that make sense?

Is there a wrong or right answer, or is it just down to personal preference?
 
My advice is not to start off running rebills in competitive niches. You'll get in over your head way to fast and just end up losing money and quit. Try some email or long form submits.
 
aeisn - thanks for the tip. I've got an account on MarketLeverage and did notice a few zip/e-mail submits for health products and will try those out. My quick research into the keywords looks promising with some relatively cheap keywords available...
 
Another question. So I'm taking a look at some of the zip/e-mail submit offers that ML offers but most are just plain-jane banners. Not very nice. Are there any "rules" around dressing up plain banners into something very landing-pageish? I'm pretty handy with PhotoShop and Jasc PSP and could make something much nicer...
 
@kimboslice - thanks, I've been reading that. I'm not totally new at PPC/CPA but want to ensure I get my bearings straight before diving in. I guess I need to spend more time reading "What to promote" - though I did try the two suggestions > ask someone or pick a few at random. I don't like random. I like control.

@PhillipMarlow - Heh... only if they fail to convert. ;-)
 
...I guess beating my head on the keyboard could be just as effective when you're trying to pick an offer. Heh.
 
Hey Jack... thx. This QS thing doesn't make it easy to get a campaign up quickly. I've started down that road though by building another blog with some good articles and inbound/outbound links... Trying not to make it a flog and am doing KW research so that it can stand on its own.
 
Random thought process here...

I worked for a superaffiliate right when I was learning about PPC. He gave $2k/month buget, said a success at the game is $5k/month gross... I basically barely broke even, felt like a failure, and left the AM gig to do PPC management in the corporate world.

Wells... fast forward to now - I run the PPC division for a Fortune 500 company, my average client gets a 2-3x their return by hiring me, and I feel like I'm kicking some PPC ass.

I've helped some buddies of mine make their affiliate income grow, but I still am left with the bitter taste of failure on the affiliate marketing side.

Your' post is cool - I like how ur getting into it, and hope that your success can be an inspiration...

Thanks 4 sharing :)
 
So suppose I run a campaign and get 100 clicks per day at $2.50 = $250/day. If I can convert 1% @ $40 CPA = loosing A LOT of money, 5% @ $40 CPA = loosing only a little money, 10% @ $40 CPA = making some money.

Marketing by numbers just does not work. I know a lot of the affiliate marketing 'guru's' sell training material with marketing by numbers as a key component.

But the reality is things vary a lot with conversions

Sometimes things stick and at other times ... well they make loses

On the keyword research thing. I agree with the guy who talks about doing marketing without too much focus on keyword tools. They are a guide but just that
 
Random thought process here...

I worked for a superaffiliate right when I was learning about PPC. He gave $2k/month buget, said a success at the game is $5k/month gross... I basically barely broke even, felt like a failure, and left the AM gig to do PPC management in the corporate world.

Wells... fast forward to now - I run the PPC division for a Fortune 500 company, my average client gets a 2-3x their return by hiring me, and I feel like I'm kicking some PPC ass.

I've helped some buddies of mine make their affiliate income grow, but I still am left with the bitter taste of failure on the affiliate marketing side.

Your' post is cool - I like how ur getting into it, and hope that your success can be an inspiration...

Thanks 4 sharing :)

Hey lamarketinggeek - you bet. So between my wife, kid and spending time with the family this weekend I finally managed to get one of my domains up and running and found some CB products (yes, I know what you're thinking) that work well with the theme (personal and womens health) along with some CPA from Market Leverage.

So I'm trying HARD not to use my tools for keyword research but am relying on what's available out there - gotta tell ya - the tools do make it easier. But I have a ton of garbage ebooks that I've bought over the years and some actually have some good information in them.

So I am doing a lot of brainstorming (it hurts) to come up with keywords that describe the campaigns that I will start adwords/msn or yahoo on soon and am using qualifiers (i.e., treatment for, how to treat, natural treatment methods for etc.,) to better target "buyers" instead of just lookers. I figure I can get lookers by using organic marketing such as articles (either written by myself or from the dozens of directories out there).

I tried one thing differently this time around, in that I am following one of Gauher Chaudrys suggetions of "silo" sites - where your main theme contains a few sub-themes then you create Squidoo lenses, Wordpress/Blogger blogs and HubPages and/or any other relavent social media sites to point at the main site. It seems to be working, as I've had quite a few visitors from my newly created Squidoo lenses.

Tonight I did set-up two HubPages sites and tomorrow I'll work on creating 2-3 WP and Blogger blogs. I've also set-up Twitter accounts for the primary domain and have a few (what appear to be) legitimate followers.

Hoping this effort is duly rewarded by the CPA gawds...
 
Marketing by numbers just does not work. I know a lot of the affiliate marketing 'guru's' sell training material with marketing by numbers as a key component.

But the reality is things vary a lot with conversions

Sometimes things stick and at other times ... well they make loses

On the keyword research thing. I agree with the guy who talks about doing marketing without too much focus on keyword tools. They are a guide but just that

You are right. I was going nuts playing with my Excel sheet and trying to figure out how much I'd need to make to break even... make some profit... guh. I always hated math and stats.

While I will watch what I do so as not to end up spending $1k to make $50 - from all the posts I've read here and on diff. blogs, it comes down to a lot of testing.

I opted for a blog format - test #1 - so we'll see how that goes. What I do like about the blog format is that PINGS can get you into the SERPS reasonably quickly and easily. Problem is trying to do any split testing or multivariate testing.

I know it can be done (testing) but it's a bitch putting it together. Oh well, lets do things "right" this time.
 
Wahoo!

Well there might be some truth to using the silo method when building site (Gauhers method). So over two days (elapsed time is about 4 hours) I created a blog on an existing domain that I own, made it all pretty and added about 11 articles.

I created Twitter account, and BlogCatalog accounts.

I created Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages, WordPress blogs and Blogger blogs all pointing to the main domain.

Normally I never have a problem getting indexed but a recent experiment with the mortgage niche (yes very tough to break and VERY expensive to bid) was just the shits. Getting indexed but barely...

This new site (old, OLD domain) is indexed and I had my first visit from a Googler. No sales/conversions yet - but I haven't started that as yet. I'll do a bit more KW research tonight and get ready to start.

I feel totally guilty duping visitors - the site isn't quite a flog but I did pay someone to write meaninful comments to the posts, and I am taking on a new "persona" on the blog in order to sound legit. But I'm sure once I see a few thousand in sales and conversions I'll feel less guilty.

The information is good quality, the site is well done with plenty of links to authority sites.

Will keep everyone informed if and when something sells or conversions start happening.
 
Hi moman,

I think the space you are looking at is too competitive. The kind of conversion rate you need to get to be profitable is too high, usually it is less than 5%. Also, the cpc is largely dependent on your google QS.