davewray - 3:39 pm on Apr 26, 2007 (gmt 0)

I generally run affiliate programs via PPC methods, so that's all I can answer to. What mistakes does an enthusiastic newbie make? Here are some:

1. Doing minimal keyword research...and then wondering why they're getting no clicks. Put in the work in the beginning to come up with a kick butt keyword list!

2. Bidding way too much and draining your budget and declaring your campaign a failure because of it. Bidding high at first can work, but you need to watch your campaigns closely, and then adjust bids accordingly.

3. Test ONE thing at a time. Kind of like a controlled experiment. To start, test different ads with one landing page. Try and establish a good ctr, and if possible, good conversion rate.

4. Once you've found an ad that performs...then test different landing pages so that you can find the best converting one.

5. Keep doing keyword research by looking through your weblogs...you'll find some diamonds in the rough there. Using the same technique, look through weblogs to find negative keywords...keywords you don't want your ad to show up for! If you come up with a big list of negative keywords, this could mean the difference between a successful campain and a failure.

There are lots more, but this is a start :)

Dave.