10 Lessons I’ve Already Learnt From PPC Affiliate Marketing
February 11, 2008 by
Adam
Filed under
Entrepreneurship
As some of you may have noticed in previous posts, I’ve started to delve into the world of affiliate marketing. Whilst I have not started many massive, full-blown campaigns that you may have been reading about on blogs such as Zac Johnson or Super Affiliate Mindset, I’ve started off slow with affiliate mini-sites and a small budget to direct traffic to them.
In the relatively short time that I’ve been doing this Pay-Per-Click > Affiliate Marketing, I have learnt a number of lessons which I wished to share with you in this post. These are lessons which I think could help you on any future campaigns you wish to start, but also to warn you as to what you are getting yourself in for.
My 10 PPC Affiliate Marketing Lessons
1. Affiliate Marketing Takes Patience
Bucket-loads of patience might be a better phrase. Whilst there are people on the net who say that it’s easy to slap together a campaign on Google Adwords and to instantaneously get targeted, cheap clicks on your ads and good commissions on top, in reality, PPC is much harder than I expected.
It’s very easy to get irritated when you see that you’re losing money, or when you see that you’re getting absolutely no leads but the key is not to give up. Perseverance is the aim of the game here, and it will separate the winners from the losers.
2. Affiliate Marketing Requires Time
Prepare to spend hours thinking up new keywords for your campaign, optimising your ads, re-positioning elements of your landing pages and continually split-testing. Whilst many people have automated systems for doing this (for example using Wordze or Keyword Discovery), I’ve found that using my brain is a pretty good tool in itself. I suppose I could benefit from more automation and a better tracking system - but I’m still learning the ropes.
3. You Need Some Startup Capital
Whilst it is possible to find targeted visitors for only 1 cent a pop, chances are that the field that you’re competing in is very saturated, which pushes up keyword prices and makes your campaign that bit more expensive. At the same time, it is possible that you may get a tonne of visitors, but no conversions.
So a rule of thumb therefore, is to make sure that you have money that you’re not afraid to lose. Whether this is $100 or $1000, it is important that you won’t need this money to pay the rent, otherwise you could find yourself in an even greater hole. Assess your risks sensibly and act accordingly.
4. Reading Is Very Important
Affiliate Marketing like most industries, is constantly changing - whether it be because of changes in Google’s algorithm or simply a change in your payment structure from an affiliate network, you must always be on the lookout for new knowledge that will give you the upper hand over your competitors. Spending an hour or so at first reading up on various blogs and forums and familiarising yourself with affiliate marketing resources will really help you in the longrun.
5. Too Much Reading = Time Lost In Testing
This may contradict the point I made above, however if you read too much and force yourself to visit that one extra blog, or to read a few more threads on Wickedfire, you will never get any real affiliate marketing work done. It is easy to let procrastination get the better of you, so make sure that you find the right balance between research and work - otherwise no matter how much knowledge you have, you will never experience PPC in the first person.
6. Diversification Is A Necessity
It’s all too easy to rely upon the premier pay-per-click advertising service that is Adwords, however, what happens if you suddenly get hit with $10 bids, or if Quality Score changes work against you? As a blogger, a lesson I’ve learnt is that it’s important to monetize your site with a few alternatives (for example I use TextLinkAds, ReviewMe and private advertising). As a result, if one performs poorly in a month, I can expect the other sources to back me up.
In the same way, try and diversify your sources of traffic. Yahoo and MSN Adcenter have lower volumes, but can apparently still give you a lower cost per conversion and a better EPC (Earning Per Click). Also, optimising your site for the search engines organically can have a huge impact on your profits, as you are getting visitors for free.
7. Relationships Are Key
To my Blog Consulting clients, I preach that every blogger should make some sort of effort to communicate with others in their niche, or even outside their niche. The key here, is that you can bounce ideas of like-minded individuals and they may even prove to be a good point of leverage to have (that isn’t to say that you should start chatting up the A-List Bloggers because you want something in return).
Relationships are all about sharing, so if you can help someone else learn the ropes of Affiliate Marketing, chances are that they will be able to assist you in some form in the future. Developing a relationship with your Affiliate Manager at your chosen Affiliate Network is also very important, because they want to see you reach your maximum potential as much as you yourself!
8. Put Yourself In Their Shoes
Everyday you are targeted by hundreds of different companies, all looking for you to buy their product or service. As a result, you know what it feels like to be marketed and advertised to, and you know which signals encourage you to purchase a product. So once you’ve written up an Adwords advert, put yourself in the shoes of a potential visitor and ask yourself whether you would click here, or buy now. If you wouldn’t, then you need to change your advert to make it more appealing to your target audience.
9. Break Free Of The Mould
Some keywords that you will be bidding on, will have extortionate PPC costs. As they seem to convert very well for affiliates, those particular keywords are in high demand, and this pushes up their average cost for you. Many normal affiliates will follow the crowd (for example in trying to bid on ringtone related keywords), and may thus get hit by high running costs of a campaign.
Instead, I’ve learnt that you need to think outside the box, or break free of the mould in order to have the highest chances of success. Try writing non-conventional ad copy, or throw in a piece of multimedia on your landing page to really catch the eye of the visitor, or even bid on peculiar keywords - whatever works for you and whatever will bring you the highest chance of success.
10. Test, Test And Test Again
This final point is by far the most important. As I mentioned at the beginning, it is near impossible that you will find a campaign that converts immaculately straight off the bat. You need to be constantly testing your ads to optimise the CTR (Click-Through Rate), constantly split-testing your landing page to see which elements convert the best and testing every other aspect of your campaign. This is one rule that every single affiliate lives by, and it’s a rule which requires extreme dedication to the case in hand.
What Lessons Have You Learnt?
If you’ve taken a dip into affiliate marketing, can you share any lessons that you’ve learnt? As always leave a comment below so that the Blogtrepreneur community can learn and take our PPC efforts to the next level.
Affiliate Defined
As a related side note, my online pal David Wilkinson is about to launch his new product called Affiliate Defined. Whilst there are a whole load of affiliate-related products being launched everyday, I know that this is going to be a good one, and seeing how David is still a teenager, it’s particularly impressive.
The product will cost $97, however, David is giving you a chance to become a JV partner in promoting the product. All you have to do is sign-up here, and you’ll be able to earn 60% commission on any first-tier referrals, and 5% on second-tier referrals.
The product is set for launch on the 13th of February, so it would be a good idea to get a move on!
Hey,
Great posts! I have just sparked an interest in regards to affiliate marketing over the past few days. I have been researching it quite a bit and I have set a February 20th deadline to lunch my first campaign. I agree with everything you wrote and I wish you the best of luck in affiliate marketing!
Good post! Some good points there. Like Neil I have also been looking at affiliate marketing, and started signing up to some networks to have a look at the offers and systems they use.
Thank you for your advices, this will be of great help to us. Keept it up
I’m right there with ya Adnan. It takes a lot of time and patience for sure. I started messing with PPC Affiliate Marketing a while back and kind of got sidetracked with a couple websites I’m working on, but I made zero money thus far. It definitely isn’t as easy as it seems when you read all of these super affiliate blogs.
@ Neil: It’s great to set a deadline with yourself, as you’ll actually get your butt into gear and stop procrastinating! That’s the biggest problem I have at the moment…to many ideas in the head, but not enough action! Let us know how your first aff. marketing venture goes!
@ Tom: Thanks mate - and keep us informed when you do take the plunge. For a bigger list of affiliate networks, checkout our post on 81 Useful Affiliate Marketing Resources.
@ D Web Design: No problemo!
@ Deron: Nice to see you here buddy. Hehe yeah it’s very easy to get sidetracked (especially when you see no real financial benefits trickling in!). Perseverance is definitely the key, and is how the big guys managed to get to where they are today. Yeah, sometimes those super affiliate blogs do dress things up a bit
I recently began advertising with PPC on Facebook. It has provided some of the most targeted advertising I have ever seen. I think it will become huge in the coming months as people catch on.
It may be the thing that helps save my wife and I from selling our house. To watch our story go to our blog.
Thanks for the tips Adnan, they look great. I’ve been thinking about venturing into affiliate marketing myself, but I’m still in the massive resource reading phase, also I need to get a capital running :D. It’ll be a while before I start my first campaign, but at least I’m experimenting
I was just talking to my wife about starting an affiliate program, and was reading a bit about affiliate programs in and EBook. This post has a lot of information in it that I may have to take my time to digest.
Most the above can also be applied to blogging in general actually…
Thanks for the great roundup of information. I agree with just about all your points.
I think time also plays an important role in all this which you do highlight - but it should be said that patience and time combined make for successful campaigns. Also - 1 days results do not make a trend!
PPC takes a long time to learn and unfortunately it will cost you a little in the beginning while you are learning. In the long run you will make it all back plus some. Amit at SuperAffiliateMindset.com has had some really great posts recently about PPC. If you haven’t read them you should. Also, Ruck at Cashtactics.net has had some awesome informative posts lately.
With affiliate marketing it is the same as with every other business. It needs time to build a real business and you must work hard in the beginning.
Affiliate marketing can be done without any investment. This takes even more time to build but it’s possible.
Daniel
Far too many people rush in to affiliate marketing thinking it is going to be an easy way to earn a few bucks. The key elements, like you rightly point out, are patience and time.
I have a lot of patience but work full time and family ties make it hard to do things effectively.
A lesson that I’ve learned as an Affiliate, and website owner is that PPC can be quit expensive … If you don’t know how to do it!
If your doing PPC Advertising you must have an opt-in form on your website, otherwise your efforts are in Vain.
You also need educate yourself on SEO and the Google Adwords system.
The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords really helped me with my PPC Advertising.
I noticed that my cost per click’s were cut in half.
Anybody else tried it?
It certainly takes a lot of time and effort to be successful at PPC. And YES it is easy to get sidetracked…but real effort and real time often equals real money.
well. I made my Feb goal. Now it is nearly novemeber and I’m doing very well for my self :-). This affiliate marketing stuff works if you buckle down and test stuff out.
Congrats Neil - that’s great! Would you be able to email me, and maybe we could feature your success story on Blogtrepreneur?
I have not been successful with PPC affiliate marketing. I moved towards free promotional methods instead. I seem to be more successful with the free methods
I’ve dabbled in ppc marketing for a while but just couldn’t be profitable. I read and read and read. Spent quite a bit buying e-books. Then I found a program that provides tutorials and 1 on 1 sessions to learn how to establish a profitable ppc affiliate marketing business. Guess what! After just 4 weeks, I’m starting to show profits. Based on my assessment and the performance of the participants ahead of me, my goal of getting to $xxxx per day appear to be achievable.
Great post patience, the ability to learn affilate marketing correctly. And the eye of the Tiger killer spirit that never gives up, are good attributes to have for online success.