Easiest way to start is probably just to imitate someone else -- if peeps are running the same type of ads + landing pages for a while, it's probably profitable. Make a similar one, it's a quick way to get started.
ok this is probably the best advice here. don't just go straight out ripping ads and landing pages but use them as a reference, you'll learn more. 10 people all making review pages? - well make a review page. all direct linking? well direct link. with little to no experience and a lack of funds this is really you're only way to go without going bust. leave the "thinking outside the box" stuff to later on when you've got a testing budget and some experience of what works. because i can tell you now what you think will work, won't.
it sounds to me you are using the edison approach ie just slinging things at the wall in the hope things are going to stick. it might be more prudent to adopt the approach used by tessler (edisons nemesis). now tessler, unlike edison, was famous for building his machines inside his head. in fact he went in to so much detail he would even factor in wear and tear on the parts before he even lifted a tool. the result? 9 times out of 10 when tessler built something it worked first time. now while there is merit in both approaches when applied to aff marketing if you are on a low budget i'd go with tessler, building 2000 campaigns before finding a winner could get expensive (and edison had a team behind him).
so how can you adopt some of what tessler did? well firstly google really is your friend here. from google you can fully research every aspect of your competitiors campaigns. now i'm not talking about some dumb inaccurate spy tools i mean actually do this stuff yourself. firstly print out all the ads for the biggest keywords you can find for your offer in order and analyze them. ask yourself why the top 3 are the top 3. what are they doing the others arent
then find a similar but non cpa offer (clickbank works good for this) and cross reference the top ads for that. hopefully if you're not a total retard something will pop up here saying try this. (you're looking for something the cpa boys
arent doing but that could make your ad stand out) write down 4 or 5 ideas for split testing.
next, landing pages. once again print out all the top landing pages for the highest traffic keyword you can find. imitation is key here. with them all printed out on the floor look for the best bits from each page, fire up photoshop (or call your designer) and mangle them all together (with a few variations for split testing). this works period.
finally think about the "scent trail". warning ad? warning headline on landing page! scam ad? scam headline etc. you want your prospect to seamlessly flow from ad to landing page to offer (with credit card in hand lol). remember they clicked your ad, they are interested - only you can fuck this up. your stats will show whether you got it right or not.
now the offers. once again you can let everyone else do most of the split testing here for you. look back at those landing pages you printed off earlier. what offers are being promoted and in what order (if multi-review pages). once you have an idea of 2 or 3 offers you think are going to work check what networks have them (livehttpheaders) and divise your split tests between offers and networks. add a little php magic to your landing pages to get them offers rotating and you're set.
as you can see with a bit of research you can pretty much plan out most of your campaigns before you even spend a single dollar. and this works on content network and banners too but i'll leave you to work out that out for yourself.
finally the other thing i think you are doing wrong is the high bidding. this in itself is an immensly powerful strategy and in my eyes anyway the best way to game google for quality score right now. the problem with the strategy is that you will lose a bundle of money if your campaign is not profitable. so test with low bids in a test account and when that bad boy is optimised fully then move it to a seperate account, jack up the bids and let her rip.
it sux to lose money but hopefully some of this thread will help get you on a winner a bit sooner. it only takes one campaign and you'll be looking back at all this laughing while recouping all that lost money. good luck
