The challenging tales of a PPC Newbie. Aussie style.

cainer

cainer

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Sep 24, 2010
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Well I stand before you with mixed emotions, excited that the campaign I have been working on night and day for the last week is live but some what pussy hurt that there were no conversions on my Adcopy split testing. I'm roughly five weeks old in the world of AM and finally released my first PPC campaign last night, I took the recommend approach and decided to run with a competitive popular niche - Dieting / Weight Loss. I'm offering a level of transparency in the efforts to have the opportunity to mature in AM, its been quite a few years since I have actually been that dedicated in something that I will spend 20 hours a day and often forget to eat and well going out has become a thing of the past.

Like most new starters giving AM 110% I'm spending a large portion of time reading blogs and scouring WickedFire for tips and tricks that hopefully would shed some light on what can best be described as a dark padded room. Stumbling upon the thread ( http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate...eted-ads-get-highly-converting-campaigns.html ) old mate goes on to mention that you should be targeting all four personalities with your adcopys. "Huzzzar!" I said, what better for my first split testing attempt than to create a small budgeted campaign on each of the four personalities in the efforts to see what works and what doesn't. Hours later after I have created Humanistic, Spontaneous, Competitive and Methodical campaigns with a selection of what I think are relevant Adcopys and set a budget of $50 per campaign with a CPC of .80.

Now the landing page, the end result in my opinion is a well laid out design similar enough to the offers site in the efforts to not shock the prospect after action, but unique enough to not get me into any trouble. I guess its worth adding that the offer I'm promoting has a mid $20's lead conversion rate and is brand new on CJ, I have had a great deal of trouble getting approved on ANY network either due to my inexperience or geographical location (Australia) so my only options have been CJ, Linkshare, Shareasale. The offer in question is provided on a free 30 day trial and has specific instructions that their brand name can't be used in PPC, so I've used a very extensive list of keywords associated with diet / weight loss (60 keywords actually).

To appeal to the different personalities I have also multiple cue "key" images on the LP, seeing as the offer is associated with Weight Loss all the images are referencing that; Attractive Female holding a pair of fatty pants, repeat for male and also an active 70 year old and a doctor. All images are easily changed around with the aid of php dynamic links ie) /?=S1 (Personality reference = Spontaneous / SaleCopy 1).

Okay so just to recap here I have my four campaigns configured (Search network only) associated to the personalities, I have a CPC set of .80 and just out of interest I created a Content network campaign with my four "favourite" ads and set a CPC of .16. The campaign was initiated this morning (7am EST) and here are the findings;

PPC Provider - MSN Adcenter

Campaign Name - ST - 1 (Methodical)
Impressions - 0
CTR - 0
Avg CPC - 0

Campaign Name - ST - 2 (Spontaneous)
Impressions - 75
CTR - 0
Avg CPC - 0

Campaign Name - ST - 3 (Humanistic)
Impressions - 25,000
Clicks - 77
CTR - .31
Avg CPC - .46c



Campaign Name - ST - 4 (Competitive)
Impressions - 25,000
Clicks - 78
CTR - .31
Avg CPC - .60c


Question 1) Why have ST 1 and 2 not been touched? All of them are set with the same keywords and budget including CPC and started at the same time, I have since paused 1 and 2 in the efforts to give them a chance. I would have thought MSN would be hungry for the cash and pushed them all through at the same time?

Now seeing as though I have enough information on two campaigns to start removing Adcopies that provided little to no clicks, I'm a little troubled about the keywords side of things. Not surprisingly the biggest performers in keywords were;

Campaign Name - ST - 4 (Competitive)
Diet - 32 clicks
lose weight - 7 clicks
weight loss - 6 clicks
diet and weight loss - 6 clicks
diet plans - 6 clicks
losing weight - 5 clicks

Campaign Name - ST - 3 (Humanistic)
Diet - 28 clicks
weight loss - 9
lose weight - 7 clicks
weight loss programs - 7 clicks
diet plans - 4 clicks

Question 2) Do I now start removing the keywords which haven't returned any clicks? Or is the 12 hour test period just not long enough to provide any real data on keywords? Seeing as though the cycle hasn't been full completed with a day / night, maybe the fatties are a reclusive bunch and only surface in the night? Hmmmm.


Now just for interests sake I created a Adwords campaign limited to only two ads to see how my quality score was in relation to the big performing keywords. I might add their website is fucking slow to update, it still hasn't registered any clicks or impressions (12 hours) so I'm relying on Prosper202. I have imported the same wall of text keyword list that I was using on MSN and now I understand what you guys have been talking about, Quality Score you cunt.. I dunno if I'm pissed off at you or excited that there is so much room to move and that I have a great deal to learn, anyways here is a rough indication on how I've been rated in relation to QS.

Weight Loss / Lose Weight / Weight Loss - 7/10 - $1.15 CPC - Showing Ads
Diet - 4/10 - $1.25 Eligible - 2nd page chump

The rest are all around the 2/10 - 4/10 figure, now I don't know if I was naive about the whole situation or just uneducated. My initial understanding was you're in a bidding war with other interneters to see who has bigger pockets in the hassle they call Adwords. Boy was I wrong, my LP content is clearly not optimized for the vast majority of these keywords which has resulted in a pathetic QS. I have the option to pay a ridiculous CPC to play with the big boys though, but clearly my product isn't good enough to warrant that expenditure. I want to do EVERYTHING / ANYTHING possible to improve my QS, what would you suggest the correct steps? I'm a very process / methodical orientated person and find myself creating steps for the most mundane tasks so this will be no different.

1) Optimize LP content to reference keywords I'm trying to target. What's annoying is that I have no stats on "who" actually converts, do I try and identify with the most traffic orientated keywords? OR try and take advantage of long tail keywords which are more direct to my product. For the past week I have been sitting here rubbing my hands together thinking I will make bank, shit its a popular product that's supplied on a 30 day trial and with a mid $20's lead conversion.. How could I go wrong? Well clearly I have, roughly 50 people have actioned my LP and gone to the offers site which they haven't converted, is that the products fault or mine by not targeting the right person?

2) Change the short and long sale, or redesign my LP. What I would love is someone out there who has a fair bit of experience in LP's to take a look at it, I'm not prepared to show the LP publicly but I would really appreciate a clear sets of eyes that haven't been tainted from starring the shit out of it for days on end.

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So that's it, sorry for the wall of text by this shit is in my head 24/7 so its great to get it out on paper.
 


Although I have a feeling that I jumped into this offer without the appropiate research, sure the lead payout is good but are days sailed for this product already? Unfortunately I don't have access to an AM Manager resource like many of you do due to not being approved on the more popular direct companies (C2M, Ads4Dough) etc. I'm sure some of you're sitting there going "well I bet he didn't take the proactive approach, he dun goofed up", Wrong! I emailed the companies directly explaining the situation I was in and also followed up with calls. They simply weren't interested, or didn't respond to my requests. Whether thats associated to the high influx of requests, my skillset on paper with AM or living in Australia..

I'M NEW, I didn't hide that on my application.. I don't feel comfortable lying when entering what I hope to be a profitable business relationship, looking back on it now maybe I should have? Hmmm. </end rant>

Anyways to the point I was trying to archieve, I could very well be advertising a product that anyone who was going to buy it well might already have it? Is there any clear indicators? OR am I getting all hyped up and really my LP is just a piece of shit.
 
Welcome to the world of AM, where you dream big...and things fall flat on their face :)

Here is the thing, the more money you try to get from people the harder it is for them to convert. My first try was acai berries and even though it was a measly $2.99 for shipping and handling I ended up spending $500 and getting like 2 sales.

So is it possible? I am sure it is. However as a newbie I did not know the way. Hell I still do not know the way.

I am not going to tell you to throw everything you have done away, but just be aware of when to cut your loses and move on.

Here is what you need to figure out, how much money can you spend on this and even if you make no money you are still ok?

You also need to figure out at what point you consider your campaign dead. I have an issue with this myself. Even though I am getting better, I have problems with it. It seems that most people say you need to spend 2-10 x payout. Which if you notice 2 x payout and 10 x payout there is a huge difference.

Based on your PM I would spend $100. If nothing converts just let it go.

Question 1) Why have ST 1 and 2 not been touched? All of them are set with the same keywords and budget including CPC and started at the same time, I have since paused 1 and 2 in the efforts to give them a chance. I would have thought MSN would be hungry for the cash and pushed them all through at the same time?
Click to expand...

I had something similar happen to me when I was running stuff on MSN. One of my campaigns was getting minimal clicks. I re-did it with the same exact stuff and it got a bunch of hits. Maybe there is some kind of bug...or something missing.

Question 2) Do I now start removing the keywords which haven't returned any clicks? Or is the 12 hour test period just not long enough to provide any real data on keywords? Seeing as though the cycle hasn't been full completed with a day / night, maybe the fatties are a reclusive bunch and only surface in the night? Hmmmm.
Click to expand...

As a fattie I hate you. j/k

You got to wait...

Do you know the avg CTR on the conversion page? Like if someone hits the conversion page how many of them convert?

That should give you a clue. You probably have one or two keywords that are getting a ton of hits but no conversions. If you are 0 conversions out of 20 you want to start looking into those words. Its still statistically too low to tell but when working with limited budgets that last thing you want is a dumb keyword to destroy your campaign.

==========================

Question: Is this your product or someone else's?

...and yes Google is a bitch. From my point of view the only way to be able to do well in Google is to either trick Google or bite the bullet and create a blog around your page to get better quality score.

Advertising with a low quality score is asking to fail.
 
Cheers for the warm welcome Niko.

Well I continued to beat the dead horse for a number of hours until I decided that it wasn't in my best interest to continue with the campaign. I'm annoyed, NO.. Pissed off that this hasn't worked out.. Why? I had spent hours devising the stradegey of this campaign and had already picked out the strippers names in my head that I would be sniffing cocaine off and sharing bottles of Kirstal with my bulging sack of AM cash.

I got one sale over night though, seeing as though I've shut this puppy down I will provide just how difficult it was though;

CPC - .80
165 - Clicks (Offer)
330 - Clicks (LP) - 50% CTR
1 - Sale
ROI - -225%

Would have a more targetted LP and Sale be more effective? Well maybe but with those numbers there should be still more conversions if the product was still "hot", great deal of experience was learnt though so ehh.

Fuck, I want to succeed in AM more than ever now, I've learnt so much over the past few months and just the idea of what I'll know in a months time gives me promise of good things to come.


Do you know the avg CTR on the conversion page? Like if someone hits the conversion page how many of them convert?
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No idea, thats one issue surrounding my problem. I don't have access to a Affiliate Manager to ask these facts, I re-submitted my application with Ads4Dough and called Chase directly. Seems like a nice guy and fingers crossed my application will get approved. After completing some basic google searches you aren't allocated a Manager on CJ until you hit 10 - 15k per month. Clearly thats chicken feed for a well tuned AM'er, but the idea of making $200 - $250 a day seems out of reach but still close enough that I can smell it.. It smells good.
 
ADS4DOUGH APPROVED!!! BOOM.

If I wasn't at work I'd do a nude run I'm that happy. Fantastic!

Okay well enough of that titillation, time to revive that dead horse and ride it like no tomorrow!
 
don't waste money on one niche,just split it ,before making investment try to do some research..
 
cainer said:
ADS4DOUGH APPROVED!!! BOOM.

If I wasn't at work I'd do a nude run I'm that happy. Fantastic!

Okay well enough of that titillation, time to revive that dead horse and ride it like no tomorrow!
Click to expand...

Let me know if you want to get into EWA.
 
Btw I just checked your LPs.

I would have not used any LPs. I mean your LP was badass...I don't know if you designed it...but it looked pro as hell.

Problem is people click for a free trial and encounter another page saying click here for a free trial.

Its like you confused the user. I have been using the net for 16 years now and your LP confused me, mainly because of where it led me. It almost felt like I clicked the wrong button and went to a parallel page.

You failed at one campaign, but what did you learn?

Write your lessons down. And never repeat what you messed up.

Keep going yo!
 
I'm honored to have had the privilege of watching this bromance form.
 
wiredniko said:
Btw I just checked your LPs.

I would have not used any LPs. I mean your LP was badass...I don't know if you designed it...but it looked pro as hell.

Problem is people click for a free trial and encounter another page saying click here for a free trial.

Its like you confused the user. I have been using the net for 16 years now and your LP confused me, mainly because of where it led me. It almost felt like I clicked the wrong button and went to a parallel page.

You failed at one campaign, but what did you learn?

Write your lessons down. And never repeat what you messed up.

Keep going yo!
Click to expand...

Well you have to use LP's with google though, otherwise well it won't get approved. Even then you're running the gauntlet with their "bridging" policy.

Yeah LP is mine, well created by a designer but under my design direction.

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I've decided to stay in the diet verticle for now, I have applied to two offers that Chase has identified are converting well.

Tonight will be;

Research (Whats out there and whats working)
Re-designing the LP
Design split test scheme
Creating PPC campaign
Launch!

CROSSING MY FINGERS LIKE A BOSS! YO
 
Cainer, I'm from Perth mate. Give us a bell if you want to talk shit. I've been doing 50/50 PPC and SEO since about June. Happy to provide open information on my works and any help my limited experience can offer.

Also found clixgalore (has an aussie branch) and clickbank accept skips.

Cheers.
 
soup cainer, Walden. Another Aussie here, from Melbourne. Walden's offer applies from me as well. Been article/seo for about a month now, looking to get into PPC. It's all been a massive learning curve but I'm starting to get a feel for it (I think).

Let us know if you're interested in having a chat.
 
Just FYI, I'm Australian and I've never had any issues at all applying for any affiliate networks. If there is a network you desperately need to get into gimme holler and I'll see what I can do. Affiliate networks are greedy just like you and me, if they think you will drive volume it doesn't matter if you are american, asian or indian they will take your business.

Also do yourself a favor and fill out a W8-BEN form and save it onto your computer. All these backwards ass networks will ask you for it even though you don't actually need to fill one out for affiliate marketing.
 
I'd have to agree so far on having no trouble signing up. I've signed up to Max Bounty and clixgalore with no problems and have gotten through a few steps with Neverblue, so here's hoping. Us aussies almost need a subforum! It's cool to know there's a few of us out there.
 
1. You Don't have enough metrics to fully diagnose your problematic areas.

2. Your keyword targets are way to broad.


1) Optimize LP content to reference keywords I'm trying to target. What's annoying is that I have no stats on "who" actually converts, do I try and identify with the most traffic orientated keywords? OR try and take advantage of long tail keywords which are more direct to my product.
Click to expand...

This is gold. Obviously your ultimate goal is getting that conversion, but you need to relate the landing page to the audience you are targeting, which I assume by your post you have learned this.

Part of the game is learning whats going to convert and how, no one is going to just give you the golden nugget.

The Answer in a nutshell: Yes, but test, test, test.

Chances are that mainstream keywords like that, and I think this was said in a post above, you could quite possibly be better off direct linking (if allowed) with a Promo code in your ad copy or something similar.

Pairing your keywords with your LP and then split testing your LP for high click thru is whats win.

Things on a (basic) level to think of when relating to your targeted audience without giving away too much:

Geo-Targeting - Implement some into your LP. Get your audience familiar with the success story and that it hits close to home.

Comparison - I know you mentioned a slim lady holding up a pair of pants, but this isn't a jenny craig commercial on national TV. You need to convince them with photo proof before and after if possible.

$$$Deals$$ - Trial offers, Promo Codes, etc, is there a money back guarantee?

Like I said - its things you see now, but you get the picture and can apply these to your campaigns in your own unique way and find what converts best for you.

A diet offer is a diet offer, its going to sell regardless, its how you prep that user to for the purchase. Did you hit home with them? do they feel like they are getting a deal?

Diet is a tough niche to jump into as a newbie.

Kudos and good luck!
 
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