Affiliates, Choose Your Adwords
by Stephan Miller
I'll have to admit that I didn't believe all the hype about
Google Adwords for the longest time. Then I caught myself
clicking on some of the Adwords ads instead of the search
results. That made me think.
Five bucks. What's five bucks? Lunch at McDonalds. I could
skip that for a day. So I surfed Clickbank for a while,
found something new and really targeted, popped a few
keywords in and wrote the ad. Basically, I used the
sledgehammer method of marketing. Fifteen minutes later, I
was getting clicks. Then I went to bed, of course. A few
things I have learned. If I'm on the computer at one in the
morning, I must hide my creidt card from myself. Or maybe I
was wrong?
I woke up the next day and discovered a few things. One, all
of these gurus I decided not to listen to weren't lying. I
had made sales. In fact, I made more instant affiliate sales
in 12 hours than I ever did before. Another, I had a lot
more to learn. But I was hooked. So I bought a few ebooks to
learn more and went to work. Why the hell had I waited so
long?
Adwords is a crash course in direct marketing. You learn
quickly what people want and what keywords they type in to
find it. And you can just as quickly lose money if you don't
learn the medium. Google Adwords takes all the guesswork out
of optimizing webpages. If you have the money, you can buy
all the traffic you want. The key, though, was to buy sales
as cheaply as possible. These are the basics. After the
basics, Adwords gets complex. It comes down to fine tuning.
Fine tune your keywords correctly and you will receive
instantly targeted visitors who are ready to purchase
specific products.
Click Through Quantity
A lot of internet marketing comes down to keywords. Adwords
is no difference. You must learn to think like your
customers. What keywords would they use to find the product
you are selling? Sometimes you just can't think of them.
This is where keyword tools come into play. I have listed a
few free keyword tools that will help at the link in the
resource box.
If the keywords you are using are not performing well, there
may be a few ways to fix this. One is to fine tune the
keyword. Instead of using "e-mail" to sell a spam blocker,
you can use the Adwords keyword suggestion tool to find such
words as e-mail filter, junk e-mail, and such. Then delete
"e-mail." Obviously, everyone who uses "e-mail" in their
search terms isn't looking for a spam blocker. In fact, very
few will be, so don't destroy your click through rate by
using terms that are too general.
You can also fine tune the keyword by using brackets,
quotation marks, or negative keywords. Brackets around [e-
mail filter] will allow your ad to be shown only when
searchers type just "e-mail filter" in Google's search box,
not "e-mail" and not "free e-mail filter." Using quotes will
allow your add to be shown for both "e-mail filter" and
"free e-mail filter", but not "filter e-mail". Using "-"
like "email-filter" will allow your add to be shown for all
searches containing "e-mail" that do not contain "filter."
You can find more details here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/tips.html.
Another problem may be that your customer just does not see
your ad. Just by creating a new ad that contains the keyword
that hasn't been producing that well may improve your click
through rate. This works because Google highlights the
keywords that the searcher used in your ad. You can also try
capitalizing power words in your ad to get that ad seen. If
you know the keyword should be working but isn't, try this
first. If this doesn't help consider narrowing the keyword
or dropping it. Don't be scared too.
Use 300 keywords instead of 30. The more keywords you use
the better. You will receive customers looking for specific
products and you will have a better chance of getting
keywords that cost five cents instead of five dollars.
It may just come down to good old ad copy. An Adwords ad is
haiku of advertisements. You must pack a punch in three
lines, four if you count the url. Go for the benefits not
features of the product. Use active verbs that make your
surfers want to click instead of static nouns.
Click Through Quality
You can get all the clicks from Adwords that you can
imagine, a 20% click through rate and still not get any
sales. All this means is that you are throwing money down an
internet hole. If you are paying for every click, all clicks
are not the same.
If you are trying to sell a product you definitely want to
get rid of freebie hunters first. How do you do this? Add a
price to the ad. Or if the adcopy on the product's page is
killer, you can use something along the line of "Low-
priced". In other words, use a phrase that tells the surfer
that he will be getting out his credit card.
Another way to convert more clicks through Adwords comes
down to keywords again. More specific keywords will convert
more surfers into customers. If you are an affiliate for a
motorcycle helmet company, you don't want to use
"motorcycle" as a keyword. You want to use "motorcycle
helmet." Or else, you'll customers who are searching for
jackets, exhaust, pictures.
There are a few type of affiliate programs where you
wouldn't mind freebie hunters. One is site that uses
cookies. Think of the last time you purchased an ebook. Did
you buy it when you saw the first ad? Probably not. You
waited. But after reading about the product all over the
net, you decided to get out your credit card. I discovered
these type of customers after I deleted the campain from
Adwords that actually brought in the sales. The site's
cookie credited me with the sales weeks after my ad brought
them to the site.
Another example is programs that pay for leads. Some
companies will pay you if the surfer fills out a form. They
depend on their professional followup to get the sale. But
the point is, you have made cash and the surfer didn't even
have to pay. You just have to get him to sign up for info.
Set a Budget
Figure out how much you want to spend a day and stick to it.
A good start is $5.00 a day. Also set your maximum cost per
click. This will keep you form spending way too much. Some
products I have the CPC set at $0.05. On others, I have it
set at $0.50. It depends on how mony clicks you actually
convert into sales.
You must also set a cutoff point. Decide how much money you
can spend on a new campaign without any sales before you
drop it. It could be 300 clicks or $20 spent. Whatever you
set it at, you must stick to it.
Tracking
Google Adwords allows you to set up campaigns, followed by
ad groups, followed by individual ads. This structure is
great for testing your ads. And believe me, you have to test
and you have to track. A campaign can be set up for one
product. Then you can set up an ad group for each feature of
the product. One ad group may focus on the products ease of
use. Another may focus on the low price. And in each ad
group you can have multiple ads. Using this system and
Adwords tracking features, you track which ads work best for
clickthroughs.
But you still have to track your conversions. Commission
Junction is great in that you can send each ad to a link.
Then when you go to their site you can discover which ads
are producing the most sales.
But whatever you do, know your average sale, know your
average price per click and know how many clicks it takes
for you to make a sale. Then figure your return on
investment. You may be spending more than you are making.
It's easy to get caught up in the process and forget you are
trying to make money. Don't get into bidding wars. And
always test something new. Nobody's perfect.
Following the Rules
In my little experiment, I also ran into a few rules that
Google wants you to follow by breaking them. The best way.
Here is the link to the FAQ:
https://adwords.google.com/select/faq/index.html. One, you
can't use trademarks as keywords. Second, you must get a
0.5% clickthrough rate or Adwords will slow your campaign
down. Also, if you are an affiliate, you must at least put
"aff" at the end of your ad.
In summary, Adwords can get you instant sales, but you must
study the system, finetune your campaigns, and track your
results.
----------------------------------------------------------
Stephan Miller is a freelance programmer,
and writer. For more Adwords resources,
visit the page below
http://www.profit-ware.com\resources\googleadwords.htm
----------------------------------------------------------
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
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