jonstark - 6:48 pm on Jan 25, 2005 (gmt 0)

My highest ROI is around 2700%, but it isn't all about ROI. A 10% ROI can actually mean more profit - it depends on how big the market is that you're attacking. If you only spend 2 cents and make 5 dollars, well that's an incredible ROI but at the end of the day you've only made a profit of $4.98. And sometimes it isn't just a question of upping your bids to get more traffic - on obscure keywords, you might get only one or two clicks a day. On the other hand, if you hook into a big enough market niche and spend $50k in one day but only make a ROI of 10%, well you've still made 5k in one day.

If you wade into the affiliate pool, though, you're swimming with sharks. Competition is intense and most people can't hack it. Don't go into it thinking it won't be work. Something like 97% of people who try it crash and burn, and 90% of those who succeed only make like $30/day (of course, that's an extra grand a month, and I remember how excited I was when I first reached that level). But if you're a really creative thinker, you can find converting traffic at low cost. You've got to be willing to do the heavy lifting as far as overseeing your campaigns, guarding against click fraud, and tracking right down to the keyword.

What are the limits? I used to think doing $400 profit a day was a lot... nowadays I do more than triple that, and I know of someone who does 3k/day in net profit (I understand he spends 1k/day to do it... but I don't know this fellow personally, just a friend of a friend so I can't confirm. I have no trouble believing it though). I don't know that there are any limits, but it would be foolish to try to find out. Affiliate marketing is a cheap and easy way to find a good market and get a feel for how to sell to that market, but once you find a niche that converts it's probably best to abandon the affiliate approach and design your own website/product/service to fill it. That way you can cash in on the lifetime value of the customers you solicit instead of just getting the quick one-time commission. I need to practice what a preach a little more on this. :)

If you're worried about funding it, well you could take on a partner. If you're getting decent roi (and decent in ppc is usually at least over 50% daily) there aren't too many investors who would look at your business plan and say 'hmmm, 50%+ roi daily' who wouldn't want to invest.

Or you could go to a bank and ask for a line of credit. Again, with documentation of a successful business plan in action, most would be only too happy to meet your needs, I'm guessing.

But I'd be surprised if your affiliate ppc operation grows much faster than your ability to keep up with it.

As for how Google's change has impacted... sadly I haven't noticed any real changes. Maybe Google is all talk or maybe they're implementing it slowly. I was excited when they announced it, because I thought it might knock out some of the smartest competition (affiliate marketers using ppc are always smarter than straight merchants in their approach; they have to be because their profit margin is so much lower).