How Much Money Did You Lose In PPC Before Profitability?

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Killface

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Mar 20, 2013
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The very first time you started PPC, how much cash did you have to lose before you got the campaign profitable? I was up about $500 month 1 even after startup expenses like domains, cpvlab, hosting. That was with search, which I am now unable to run on. Now it's month 2 and I've already lost $500 trying to figure out how to make display ads frigging convert.

Account managers tell me thats just a tiny amount, and not to try another campaign so soon, because that is not a good budget for testing. Of course, they want my $, but I've also made it clear how much $ I'll be spending with them if I get profitable (7 figures a year minimum), so I'd hope they're giving me the truth since they'd rather have me long term.

Talked to a rep at sitescout who said most guys lose a couple grand before they find something that works.

What about you?

P.S. People making like $10 a day on dating, or people making money on SEO/Arbi/etc, please do not respond. I respect that and you're doing better than me currently, but I have chosen the PPC Rebill path.
 


You're concerned about the wrong things I think. You shouldn't be concerned with how much money someone else had to lose in buying data before they became positive ROI; rather how much am I willing to spend / work / optimize things before I give up. You're account managers are right, you have to be creating as many campaigns as you can with your limited ad spend and hope you find a winner. If not move on and try again. In short Affiliate marketing is all about being able to adapt and spot trends
 
Thanks, that answer was insightful. Maybe I should stop dicking around with the offer I'm currently running and test the other one I have waiting in the wings (or at least run it simultaneously) that has a google trend score that shot from 3 to 100 this month. HMMMM....

Not to argue since you're more experienced than me, and I do appreciate the spirit of your answer that it's a personal thing, but clearly someone should not expect to come into the game slanging rebills on a $20 budget. I guess I'm just looking for a typical ballpark figure, or even some anecdotal stories so I don't feel like I'm crazy for blowing money on something that is yielding no tangible value...yet. I don't need motivation, but perhaps I need solidarity? Idk.
 
It doesn't sound like a solidarity thing to me, it sounds like an ego thing. You lost money, it sucks, either move on or create more campaigns by buying more test data. I really don't think that it's going to help you in finding out how much ad spend someone had to blow through in order to find profitability. Unless you are just trying to elicit their entire campaign strategy on rebills ok, sure but nobody is going to do that on here. What will help you is getting back to work and testing more or choosing a different offer/traffic source/whateverthefuck else.
 
Killface said:
I don't feel like I'm crazy for blowing money on something that is yielding no tangible value...yet
Click to expand...

The biggest difference between entrepreneurs and other people comes down to risk tolerance.

Are you willing to risk losing money and time for no return?

Most people aren't, which is why they are more comfortable working a job that "guarantees" them a paycheck of $x per hour of work.

If you want to make your own money, you're going to need to put your time and your money on the table, and you won't know what's going to come back.

Your risk tolerance will dictate how much time and money you're willing to put up, and your tenacity will dictate how many times you'll come back to the table after being wiped out.

You want somebody to tell you that it's all going to be ok?

It's not.

You might fail miserably, wind up wasting large amounts of money, and never seeing any returns.

Not everybody makes it, and maybe you won't be one of the ones who does.

You won't know who you are unless you keep going.
 
research as much as you can about the traffic source + offer. then add your own tweaks. Run. Track. Optimize.

failed? go back and see where you messed up on.
 
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