Forum Moderators: skibum
I set up an adwords account and chose an affiliate program from Clickbank, it was something about paid online surveys, it was at the top of the list on Clickbank so I figured that it must be the best one to try...I generated a hop link and put that link into my Google ad. I then used the Google keyword tool and selected every keyword that Google gave me that related to stuff like "work from home" and "home based business" and "job searches." Google generated hundreds of keywords and I selected all of them. Then I thought, "I know...I will try to target people who are doing job searches with their city names". So I bought a list online from a list broker for $15.00 that had the names of 32,000 US cities in it. I then loaded the city list into 16 different ad groups (2000 cities at a time because an adgroup can not contain more that 2000 keywords), and then I added the word job to each city name so the list was like ‘job los angels’, ‘job Dallas’ etc...Then I set my cpc globally to 12 cents per click and let the campaign run. I was so excited...until 12 hours later when I saw that several of my keywords were being put on hold without even getting a chance to run, and even though my ad supposedly served 3200 times during that 12 hour time period I only got 2 clicks! My position was reported as anywhere from #1 (especially for city names that were small towns) to 50 or so for cities like LA and Chicago. I deleted both campaigns in anger. That was my first run with adwords. I spent $20.24 ($15.00 for the city list, $5 for the initial adwords account setup, and 24 cents for 2 clicks). That was discouraging...
Now I come to these forums to ask you for direction. My specific questions are who should I partner with as an affiliate? What programs are selling? Are there certain industries to stay away from? For example I see that the mortgage industry programs on Commission Junction have very high payouts...does that mean that they are the best? How do I choose a product to promote? Was Clickbank a mistake or should I try them again? Are there some affiliate networks to stay away from? If I use Clickbank or CJ should I always shoot for the programs with the highest gravity number or payout per 100 clicks or whatever those numbers mean? I feel like I am immersed in a sea of ebook scams from people trying to sell me plans to make money and I suspect that many of them never made a nickel using the plans that they are selling. If anyone here could guide me in setting up a successful first time program with adwords I would really appreciate it (by successful, I mean if it makes five dollars a day I will be thrilled and filled with hope). I just need some help navigating through the garbage and connecting with the **real** information. If anyone can set me up with a working program that teaches me the ropes I will gladly pay you every dime it makes for the first several weeks in the form of PayPal payments.
Please help...!
Your first idea, well maybe sounding good at first, doesn't sound that great to me. It looks like you didn't really research your product, just took the what looked like the most prominent at clickbank.
You are getting people that are looking for work at home solutions and home businesses. I myself have once searched Google for such things, and I assure you I looked at the online survey ads and didn't bother. Who's gonna get rich taking online surveys? The people you were targeting are not interested in surveys, what they want is something that is going to viably allow them to leave there job and work at home - and I admit that there are not many content providers giving much realistic information in this department.
For that first area you aimed at, I would say that the money is in showing people how to make it with a home business, for free - not some ebook and not some SEO'd site that doesn't help at all (I've seen loads of these). But as you're quite new at this yourself, I guess you can't really help others at it yet, maybe later.
Your second idea - I'm not really sure what you were trying to do but it looks like there wasn't much planning involved. Someone else will be able to tell you why it didn't work maybe, but I know I wouldn't have tried it.
Both your ideas were in heavily competitive areas - the job market and the work at home market. You need to specialise in a niche, something much smaller than these to make it.
Find something you are passionate about and make a content site about it. Now there's loads involved in making a content site which I won't go into here, but it sure sounds like a better idea than what you've been up to recently.
The PPC to direct merchant thingy is faster, but of course because it's faster people think that you can make a "fast buck". Well yes and no, if you know what you're doing you can. But without proper research it's a waste of time.
