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Jon Busby
[edited by: eWhisper at 10:59 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2005]
[edit reason] Please no URL drops. See TOS. [/edit]
The way I see it, you have the following variables:
(1) commission
(2) avg order amount
(3) conversion rate
(4) competition on adwords
It's a fine balance between the 4. What really makes it difficult is, if the commission is high, usually that means the product is overpriced (the seller has to make money too right?). So competitive shoppers will buy elsewhere, even though they click on your link and cost you money.
If the commission is lower, then possibly the product is priced more competitively. But then you need a better conversion rate, and/or a larger avg order amount.
But if the avg order amount is high, I think a lot of people are inclined to purchase locally or make the order over the phone. I know for me, I've made a few purchases online in the thousands-of-dollars range, and 9 times out of 10 I'll probably call the vendor directly to find out information, whether it's shipping information, what their stock is like, etc., and I end up making the purchase over the phone (screwing the referrer that led me to the company).
I guess what I'm saying is, this is pretty difficult and just takes time to balance the various factors. I've had a hard time with it thus far, but slowly getting to where I'm making money.
Good luck..
-Dustin
I'd sure like to know how you're doing it as I can't get the math to ad up.
I have a very targetted web site that generates quality leads for a specific keyword, but the AdWord to get the same traffic is $1 click. The payout is about $40 per sale, but it tends to take (in my experience anyway) about 100 clicks to generate 2 sales which would put me at $-20 per every $80 earned if I paid for the clicks.
Has your experience been that direct ads get higher conversions?
I went back and checked google and overture and both of the prime keywords I need are over a dollar and the alternative keywords only say they get 1 or 2 clicks a day and most of those were at $0.40. So unless you have some magical discount PPC sites, I sure don't see where to get the traffic or the traffic for low prices in my category in the mainstread sources.
I've never spent more than $5 per day on AW for my ecommerce site, so this is a little nerve racking.
Like many AW newbies have noted before, I'm hoping the category I found is one that just hasn't attracted much attention up 'til now, instead of it being an area that all the experts know doesn't make money. :) I think it could definitely be a good area for organic hits, but the commission might be too low for Adwords.
CJ finally updated my stats around 4am this morning. I actually made a sale yesterday! Of course, my commission was only $9.52, and I spent $42 on Adwords to get it. <laugh> Nail biting, but fun.
I did find a place I screwed up, though. I didn't realize that I could add a different SID to each keyword, so I have absolutely no clue which keyword brought me that sale. Not very smart. Before I went to bed this morning, I added them.
One weird thing, though. Adwords cost me $42 yesterday; today, I'm already up over $50. This time yesterday, I hadn't even spent $5. CJ has at least got some reports for the day up, and no sales showing, yet. Is it normal to have this much disparity? I think I'll ask that in a new thread if no one answers it in here.
VERY strange.
And this is on a campaign that has a recommended budget of $470 a day.
Can you please explain SID? How you add it to keywords. If that in your Adword campaign? Thanks
I'd guess that your ads were just approved for partner search sites (like AOL). If these are relatively new ads, that's a likely explanation for the sudden rise in clicks.
AG
Has your sale percentage remained on par for the number of clicks? It's too soon for me to tell, unfortunately.
Oops, just saw your post, Archie. Thanks so much for the idea; I hadn't even thought of that, and it definitely makes sense.
Zeus, the company I'm trying to send traffic to wants you to put SIDs (shopper ID) if you change the destination URL so they'll know what keywords the customer was searching for. I didn't change the destination URL, but did add a generic SID so they'd know the general area I was targeting. When I looked on my CJ reports this morining, I saw it there plain as day. If I'd put a different SID for each unique search phrase, I would've known exactly where that sale came from. Hope I'm making sense here. I just found out about it this morning, so I might not be explaining it very well. :) The links wind up looking like this:
www.example.com/affiliatenumbersandletters?sid=keyword
[edited by: eWhisper at 6:38 pm (utc) on Feb. 22, 2005]
[edit reason] Please use example.com for sample URLs [/edit]
For CJ campaigns bid prices are usually set between $0.20 and $3.00. ROI is 100% and up for most campaigns. One key to remember is that keywords are only worth what you are willing to pay for them. ;) If $1.00 is to much, set the bid prices lower. Depending on the keywords, you can pull in hundreds of thousands of quality referrals over the course of a year from the 2nd - 4th page of listings.
Do your AdWord campaigns link directly to:
a) the CJ's advertiser site
b) your web page with CJ affiliate ads on them
c) a mix of all the above
But I wish I could make money.
In this thread, linking AdWords directly to the merchant's site.
Using CJ affiliate programs?
They don't have problems when you don't use their tags verbatim?
Guess I got some research to do.
When you click on your merchant to get links, one of your options will be "keyword link". They don't give you any specific copy to use in the ads (at least none of mine do), just a URL to copy and paste. You make the ad up yourself.
I have some merchants that don't offer a "keyword link". I'm guessing on these accounts, they don't allow you to point AdWord ads directly to their site.
As far as the image links, some of them say "Advertiser allows image redirects for this link" which permits you to use your own graphics in place of their graphics based on what I've read. If they allow this, perhaps using text in place of images is OK too.
There was a convo about this before:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Dunno, think I'll as CJ this one :)
What happens if more than one person is trying to place an ad for the same affiliate web site on the same keyword?
Who wins?
Is it "First come first serve", highest paying or does Google rotate them?
