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!