"Free" Will Pay You Thousands - Rethinking Free as a Negative Keyword for CPS Offers
Just a tip that might help you make more money on CPS offers...
A lot of Adwords experts will tell you that if you’re selling something, the word “free” should be one of your first negative keywords. The prevailing wisdom is that someone searching for something free will not be a good candidate to whip out a credit card to make a purchase.
However, I have found this not to be the case. I always noticed that I got a lot of sales from keywords containing the word free, but I never actually sat down to calculate their exact value. So, I recently looked at one of my monthly Adwords keyword reports in detail to see.
The product is a software download, and it was sold right then and there on the first contact. There was no follow-up sequence or trial offered. Typically the customer was searching for a free download, and they ended up paying for access to that free download and others. It's a very common model for Clickbank and other affiliate networks.
Here were the results:
In the month I examined, I had a total of 159 keywords containing the word free. These keywords cost a total of $5,344.56 in click costs. They produced 999 sales conversions, giving me a cost per sale of $5.35. My commission was $25 per sale, giving me a total revenue of $24,975. After subtracting out the click costs my profit was $19,603.44, all from keywords containing the word free.
The cost per sale data was particularly enlightening for me, because my cost per sale for non-free keywords was substantially higher. This was due to the fact that the cost per click for the free keywords was slightly lower, and the conversion rate was surprisingly higher.
It seems counterintuitive, but many times people searching for something free have no problem with being out of credit card. Depending on what you are selling on Adwords, you may want to test using keywords with the word free. It definitely does not work in all markets, but I have noticed that I make a substantial amount of money across many niches with keywords containing the word free.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone to make more money with Adwords. As I do more and more coaching and consulting, I see that most people automatically make free a negative keyword if they are trying to make a direct sale.
So, don’t be scared off by the word free. It might be worth a test. You may find that you’ve been leaving a lot of money on the table.
Just a tip that might help you make more money on CPS offers...
A lot of Adwords experts will tell you that if you’re selling something, the word “free” should be one of your first negative keywords. The prevailing wisdom is that someone searching for something free will not be a good candidate to whip out a credit card to make a purchase.
However, I have found this not to be the case. I always noticed that I got a lot of sales from keywords containing the word free, but I never actually sat down to calculate their exact value. So, I recently looked at one of my monthly Adwords keyword reports in detail to see.
The product is a software download, and it was sold right then and there on the first contact. There was no follow-up sequence or trial offered. Typically the customer was searching for a free download, and they ended up paying for access to that free download and others. It's a very common model for Clickbank and other affiliate networks.
Here were the results:
In the month I examined, I had a total of 159 keywords containing the word free. These keywords cost a total of $5,344.56 in click costs. They produced 999 sales conversions, giving me a cost per sale of $5.35. My commission was $25 per sale, giving me a total revenue of $24,975. After subtracting out the click costs my profit was $19,603.44, all from keywords containing the word free.
The cost per sale data was particularly enlightening for me, because my cost per sale for non-free keywords was substantially higher. This was due to the fact that the cost per click for the free keywords was slightly lower, and the conversion rate was surprisingly higher.
It seems counterintuitive, but many times people searching for something free have no problem with being out of credit card. Depending on what you are selling on Adwords, you may want to test using keywords with the word free. It definitely does not work in all markets, but I have noticed that I make a substantial amount of money across many niches with keywords containing the word free.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone to make more money with Adwords. As I do more and more coaching and consulting, I see that most people automatically make free a negative keyword if they are trying to make a direct sale.
So, don’t be scared off by the word free. It might be worth a test. You may find that you’ve been leaving a lot of money on the table.
