I started off pretty small and I think I did fairly well for a beginner. Prior to this small project I have done adwords in the past but not as efficiently as I did last month. I had more tools and I was more focus on my campaigns. I was paying more attention to my landing pages and looking for certain aspects of the offers.

But lets take a look at my Adwords account which is my spending and we will take a look at one of my networks for the month of March. I will not post my other networks as they are little but they were all within the month of March and my ROI is a little higher. Azoogle is one of my higher payouts so I will post the screen shot below.

Adwords spending:

Azoogle Earnings:

You can see my adwords spending is at $592.40 and my total earnings from Azoogle is at $1375.87! For one month I came out positive and pretty high I think. Last month is one of my more improved month, since I started with several campaigns and did some testing and now concentrating on specific aspects that I saw that needed to be adjusted. This is just a snapshot my azoogle ads network, now my total earnings is higher since my other networks are not included in this. I want to show you PPC and affiliate marketing is the truth and showing you the potential.

I was Slapped Hard!

During my March madness there were issues I encountered first hand like being bitched slapped several times. I scrambled to all my resources and asked for help and even talked to my Am to find out if they knew of anything. During that time I research Google and found some issues happening at the time of the slap and other aspects of me being slapped were my QS and keywords. I simple just adjusted what was needed via landing pages or keywords.

There were several days where my impressions dropped for 3 days and then dropped again horribly on the weekends. I was so piss and angered – I asked several people on twitter and IM if they saw same results. Some saw similar results but probably not as bad as me. I let the days go by with the lower impressions and then it sky rocketed again – not too sure to make of it – I attempted to call Google between those 3 days and I really got no where, no one answered.

The weekends were horrible one week I had 75 impressions one time VERY LOW! I tend to know that the traffic on the weekends drop but since my impressions were dropping already my weekend traffic got killed. Again I waited for it to pass by and then it went back to normal the following weekend, not to sure what to make of it.

Account Managers are your Best Friends:

Prior to this post I posted how your account managers are assholes. That post was strictly towards a specific network. But my other networks helped with providing great information and what I may need to turn my PPC campaigns into click able converted campaigns. They provided me some great insights that I would not even think of or wouldn’t even try. They give a visual explanation of why it can work and how it can benefit – you really do not know until you test. So I tested most of them and found a couple to work well.

The other bad part is I only have 1 credit card (never applied for others) and I use it for everything so its kind of maxed out – so I am waiting for my direct deposits and checks form the networks so I can get back on my grind. So now I will be looking at credit cards to use strictly for PPC and marketing, any recommendations?

Thank you Super Affilaite Bloggers:

• Uber Affiliate
• Jonathan Volk
• Wes Mahler
• Affiliate Tip
• Super Affiliate Mindset
• CDF Networks
• Google Lady
• John Hasson

By simply reading and focusing on the topic you can definitely make it – I am not a super affiliate just yet but reading several blogs and tips has helped!

Related posts:

1. Don’t You Wish Every Month was December?
2. Back on the Grind: 1 Week of PPC Stats
3. Affiliate Networks Can’t Give Me Reports

But anyways…

Here are my stats for one week and promoting 1 campaign. I did not group all the other campaigns together. I want to keep this simple. So you can easily see that I started the week good with a pretty big gap on the weekend. I do not know what happened during the weekend, I got no clicks and very low impressions. You can even see I had close to coming even on my second and third day.

This specific campaign was only being published on Google Adwords. So my first day, I simply just picked my campaign and created 4 ads for rotation. This was within 1 ad group and just 1 campaign. With this specific campaign I started off with 175 keywords then through out the week I filtered them out base on average position, QS, and bid. I soon took the top keywords and made several other similar campaigns.

My Spendings

My daily limit a day was $100, but it never really met it – usually it was at $65-$85 a day. Also my max keyword bid was at .65 cents but it never really met, I was paying .05-.45 cents per click. Most of my keywords quality score was listed at ‘Great’ – so that means lower bids per click.

The next two days after my first day resulted in slow days – again I have no clue why, do not know why Google was doing this to me. This happened again on the weekends. But I lost a couple dollars – looking at it you can’t really see that I lost money but I did. But I recovered the next day and came a little stronger.

Between the two days and the fourth day I also found this specific campaign does not do well during the late nights. So I filtered when this specific campaign can be shown. I timed it to be mid morning and late at night, so my ads are more shown to more prospects and not really messing up my CTR because no one wants to do this offer late at night.

Fourth day I came strong and I added more keywords and again filtered keywords ending up with 75 keywords and added a new add. For some reason adding a new ad variation in rotation cause Google to show my ad more – not too sure if that makes sense. But once I submitted a new ad, my ad was being shown more frequently, making me money.

The weekend was the worst I do not know why none of my ads were being shown. It was not just this specific affiliate campaign but all my ad groups were not showing any of their ads – or very little of it. I was pissed I decided to IM and talk to some of the affiliate marketers I know, their ad display was also happening to the, but not as as bad as mine but their impressions did drop. I am not sure what to make of it for the weekend. I turned off my campaign mid day on Saturday and did the same on Sunday since I saw no change.

The 7th day it finally picked up to its normal routine, but I was trying to figure out what was going on with the weekend I have not found any answer, anyone have an answer? But being back on the grind and not being depressed on the BIG money I lost in January has pushed me to just do better. I know that I have to get it together and expect lost even BIG lost in PPC.

After my first day I was excited and went stronger on my campaigns researching and finding ways to get better keywords and better quality scores. Basically, PPC is all research and figuring out what is working for that specific landing page and really not the niche itself. I say this because I got the same campaign off another network willing to pay me higher for promoting it and their landing page was different. Same offer, different landing page. But fewer slower conversions. I copied the ads, keywords, ad copy etc – just different results.

In the end I came out positive. Now I need to scale it and replicate it.

I might break up my week into a learning section because there was a lot of information I can write about. hmmm…..

Related posts:

1. Back on the Grind: PPC Marketing
2. PPC Rockstar Status: Still Learning the Strings
3. Use Excel to Help you with Keywords

So I promoted 2 campaigns on March 10th 2008 and I actually stopped one campaign because it was not converting at all after $50 of spending. But one campaign showed great potential, high CTR, high EPC, and it was converting! It converted in almost 3 hours and I was getting at least 23% ROI, not bad I think. This should soon replace my $50 that I spent on another campaign and over the next couple days should be a good return. So I will be talking about something’s that I have done to have this nice return.

Talk to your Affiliate Managers

I emailed all my affiliate managers and asked them what was the best campaign to promote at this time was. I also ask them to provide popular campaigns that were converting fast with high EPCs. Now the problem with EPC data is you have affiliate marketers that are beginners and the guru affiliate marketers, all their data is mixed and you get an average EPC. This will be the next topic. But talk to your affiliate managers they know what is converting and they know how to optimize it real quick to give you the best fast results.

Failure to communicate with your AM (affiliate manager) can prove to be a poor judgment on your part, your AM is your friend and helper, especially if you are going to make the company money. Ask them for data and ask them for what is popular and how it is converting.

Call them up or talk to them on IM – they are there to help you and even provide you more money if another network is matching their creative. Discuss with them what you can do and how to apply specific tricks and tactics. Also most importantly they are your friend so ‘off-talk’ with them once and a while.

Figure out what the EPC is on a specific creative or campaign

Earnings Per Click, how much profit is made from each click from a paid ad. So how much is an ad costing per click or per visit. This is important because you want to see the affiliate network‘s EPC and on a creative basis or the whole campaign itself. This has a drawback and you will need to speak to your affiliate manager to get good data. There are new affiliate marketers and guru affiliate marketers which contribute to the EPC – so the average may not be what you want it to be. The EPC can be real low or real high.

What I asked my AM is to provide me the EPC of their top affiliate marketers and lowest affiliate marketers, this gives me a ballpark range. This also gives me a good idea of what I should be bidding on a keyword.

Create Multiple Ad Variations

I always create multiple ad variations max of 5 and a minimum of 3. This can tell me what my ad copy skills are and which ad is getting more clicks. I can alter the ad if need be and remove the less clickable ads. The way I came up with my ad copy is simply copying others, I mean why invent the wheel again. So I just do a Google search on my most popular word and copy someone else’s ad with some adjustment if need be.

Creating multiple ads shows you which header is more valuable to person more so than another. Having multiple ads will give you more of an advantage and more data to figure out what is working and what isn’t

Track your Results!

I use Tracking202 – this is one of the best tracking software out there and it proves to be the best out! I use to track everything via excel and it was time consuming. I did have an issue with my stats but their customer support is very helpful and my stats were up in no time. Once my stats were up I was able to see popular keywords, my net income, lead rate, etc. Here is a snap shot of my success. Click image to view bigger. Here are results after 2 hours of throwing up some ads – I was just looking to test 5 ad variations. In the end I found 3 ads that were working great!

So after some painful moments from the beginning of this year I have learned to just take another dive into PPC marketing. Words from John Hasson and other marketers I met at ASW and online have encourage me to make it and with good return I found myself doing real well and I will continue to get and earn more. I just need to add more campaigns to receive more net income. So I will be putting up my stories on my blog and my tactics that I am currently using, whether it is failed tactics or useful tricks!

Related posts:

1. Back on the Grind: PPC Marketing
2. PPC Rumble: Chitika, WidgetBucks, TTZMedia
3. PPC Marketers: Tracking 202 is in Session

I met John at Affiliate Summit West and we interacted a lot. Spoke of certain aspects at the convention and just hanged out. John was one of the speakers at “Ask the Experts” – his table was the most populated table. Many just had to stand up because there were no more chairs to sit in. A lot of users were attacking him multiple questions which John has answered honestly by experience, I like that. I do not like speakers speaking out of their ass because they are labeled as an expert.

As you can see below at the Affiliate Summit Ask the Expert Session, John had the most crowded table there.

John spoke about PPC marketing and he really went in deep details from his past experience. He was also polite to all questionnaires. Giving each and everyone a chance to ask questions. If you have not already seen a ‘paparazzi’ recording of John by an SOB, you can view him live at Affiliate Summit while speaking to others. Mr. Hasson is a really friendly guy to talk to an energetic, he even gave me a small opportunity to speak about one of my better PPC networks, ClickRiver.

During the phone interview, I talked about why John’s PPC table was more packed than everyone else – the ‘popular table.’ Here is my reason why John’s table was the popular table. The convention was all about Affiliate Marketing and John’s table was about PPC marketing – which is related to affiliate marketing.

If I was an affiliate marketer I would be at the table too – his table targeted the affiliates more so than the other tables. Users and beginners wanted to know more about how to work with Adwords to get better conversion or even click through rates. Adwords is being used by so many affiliate marketer, beginners want to know the key aspects of PPC.

While on this phone interview with John we discuss how John became and affiliate marketer and how he arrived at it by accident. John Hasson has been in affiliate marketing for almost 2 years and he has created multiple programs to help him through out his affiliate marketing years.

To listen to our phone interview just hit play below.

Related posts:

1. John Chow vs John Cow: I Can’t Spell
2. Affiliate Summit West 2008: Ask the Experts
3. John Chow Received a FaceLift: Pros and Cons

For example, if you go to the Health section of CNN.com you may see health related ads, Forbes.com with business related ads. I did notice some ads were out of placed, but that may be the marketer themselves. So what I did was just click on the advertisement link within the ads and it re-directed me to Adsonar. Below is where the ads are located on Forbes.com.

As you can see these ads are targeted to the readers of Forbes.com, some ads you will notice are not even relevant to the current content or Forbes.com. The point I am getting is CNN.com, USAToday.com, BestDietForMe.com, and so many others are directly connected to Adsonar, which is already targeted readers and potential buyers. If I can get my ads on these niches specific sites, I could possibly get better and higher conversion. It makes sense to put ads to their targeted areas, right? Since Forbes is all about business and what is going on in business, it would make sense to promote money related items on here, correct?

So how was my first time experience with Adsonar? First, there is a huge list of news sites where you can advertise on. I was advertising something for fitness and there were some great information sites out there, also big name websites as well. Below is a snapshot of a small section under health and fitness. As you can see, Adsonar is a network of compiled sites where you can advertise on, content base. Similar to Adwords or Y!SM but not base on keywords. It simply rotates your ads within each of the network you chose to advertise on and the higher your bid the higher your placement and impressions you will receive.

Below you can see I am bidding to advertise on USAToday in the health section and other news sites. These are targeted areas where I want to promote affiliate products or services. Each section has targeted readers, so I want to put my ads where they are in the state of mind of reading something related to what they are already reading. <- makes sense?

Creating a campaign is fairly simple, just click on create a campaign. I have created a campaign and here are stats for 1 days work. So far my stats really suck. My CTR is at .05% that is really bad! The campaign dashboard is really simple to maneuver through and the best part for me is it exports data to excel! When it exports to excel, I have data I can play around with and create graphs. But simply looking at the numbers, I do not need to do so and get my morale even lower. I mean these stats really suck!

A total of 122484 impressions got me 58 clicks, which means my CTR is only at .05% – GOSH! I did a total of 2 listings for 1 campaign, even my listings stats were horrible, I mean what should I expect from a CTR of .05%? These listings are distributed through out the chosen news site, but how are they distributed? I wonder if Adsonar use specific algorithm to determine where ads should be rotated? I mean I spent an extra .25 cents over the highest bid to just get the higher impressions and place higher over the other ads. With all these impressions and little clicks I began to worry where my ads where placed?

Well maybe it was the ad placement of the news’ sites themselves that may have caused this poor CTR? Below are where my ads were displayed among the network that I have chosen. You can see for each network Adsonar either showed my ads or did not. Now I do not know how it calculates on distribution of my ads but some received higher impressions than others. At least here I can find some relief since my CTRs are a little bit higher, but are under 1% – BAH! Now I went to each of the sites where my ads were seen and saw where their ‘Advertisements’ were located. To me I think they are in good places, next to content and links. So I do not understand the poor CTR I was receiving. Could this be a case of ‘banner blindness’?

Conclusion:

I like Adsonar because I do not have to critique keywords. My ads are rotated among the network that I have chosen, which I like. To me advertising on networks like these shows that there is a more likely chance to generate an affiliate commission from those that search and ‘might’ be click happy. BUT with the low stats that I am seeing I am not sure if I will be playing around with Adsonar anytime soon. I will still take into affect that I do have an account with them and may test them again later down the road. They do have a good stat system and it takes a day for stats to actually come up. So far Adwords is still at the top at my list and my other secret PPC marketing technique which I will be talking about it soon. All in all, I think Adsonar is a good newbie place to start to understand PPC marketing and what CTRs are. It is also great for a newbie to understand PPC marketing without the thought of keywords as well.

Related posts:

1. My Ad was Seen: Intro to Adwords
2. Yahoo Search Marketing: First Time Experience
3. Intro to My Blog Affiliate System: Video