Internet Business Daily

Introduction
A few weeks ago I had started my first PPC to CPA marketing campaign. Although I lost money (about 15% of my $500 investment) I gained valuable data and experience. Since then I have been doing research on my second attempt at affiliate marketing. Zac Johnson was promoting this Ultra Green Tea diet campaign through Advaliant and it looked very interesting.

I knew there was already a good amount of competition because Advaliant is running a contest that gives big cash bonus’ to the affiliates with the most conversions. I decided to go with the Ultra Lean Green Tea diet campaign anyways. This campaign was different than my first campaign because instead of a simple zip code submit as a conversion, a conversion would only count after a 2 page form including a credit card submit. Obviously this will have a much lower conversion rate than the zip submit but it pays $26 CPS (cost per sale).

Research
The first thing I did in the process was research who else was running the same campaign as me. I learned this strategy later in the process during my first go at CPA marketing. This is exactly what I meant by gaining valuable experience even though I took a loss. There were 4 or 5 other competitors in Google’s sponsored results running the same Green Tea campaign. They all had very similar landing pages that matched the advertiser’s page. I did some quick keyword research with Google’s keyword external and found that I would be paying between $1.25-$2 for the top 3 spots in sponsored results. I grabbed a bunch of keywords for my campaign and began the setup process.

Calculations
Next I had to set goals for my campaign. This is an important step in the creation process because without a goal, you will just be spending money and will not know how to tweak the campaign properly. Using the same formula as the first time (CPA/ROI * CR = CPC), I plugged some numbers in and got a general idea of my goals for this campaign. ($26/2 * CR = $1) Calculating this formula gives me a conversion rate goal of about 7.7%. I wanted to give myself enough room to hit my targets, which is why I went with a CPC of $1. This also means I will get less clicks because I will be in lower ad positions.

Creating the Landing Page
The next thing I did was get a landing page. It used similar graphics to the advertiser’s sales page. One thing I did not want to do with this campaign was iframe the form onto my landing page like I did with the last campaign. The landing page is important for “pre-selling” your visitors, which increases the conversion rate. I also included all of the normal components of a quality landing page: contact info, terms of service, privacy policy, about etc.

Setting Up Adwords
The next thing to do was setup Google Adwords. I used my previous method of creating an ad group for each keyword variation, which allows me to directly test the quality score of each keyword. I setup a broad match version and exact match version ad group for each keyword. After setting the campaign live I closely watched the real time traffic of the site and for each keyword that came through, I would create another exact match and broad match ad group for it. I would continue this process until I extracted all of the different keyword variations from my broad match terms. My goal was to have traffic only coming from my exact match keywords.

The Results
I will cut the suspense here and now, I made money on this campaign:). After talking to a few of my affiliate marketing buddies, they all agree that making money on only my second try at PPC to CPA marketing is rare. That being said, let’s get into the results:

The above image shows the data for the entire life of the campaign, including the time it took optimize the keywords. Overall, I had 60 conversions (according to Adwords, which I will discuss soon) at a cost per conversion of $17.84. Since my CPS (cost per sale) was $26, you can easily calculate my profits with the following formula: ($26-$17.84) * 60 = $489.60 profit. Keep in mind this is only according to Adwords.

Many of you will ask: why didn’t you just leave the campaign running if you were making money? When I started the campaign about a week and a half ago, I was making around $100/day profit. My campaign was converting at ~10% and all was going well. I hadn’t even optimized my keywords or CPC’s and I was already making great money. Obviously this was very exciting for me and I thought I finally could move up in the affiliate marketing world. Then, basically overnight, my conversion rate dropped from 10% to 1%. I am still not sure what happened. I kept optimizing my keywords and ad groups, and they were optimized well. My QS was good, my CTR was good, everything seemed to be the same or better but no one was purchasing the product any more. Maybe everyone had purchased the product and there was no longer a market for it, but that seems unlikely. I kept spending money for another 5 days or so, losing money every day. Finally, I turned off the campaign and was happy with the profit I made.

The Curve Ball
One thing that really screwed with my profit margin was the fact that Advaliant was reporting 10 less conversions than adwords was. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the CPA was $1.20 like my first campaign, but since it was $26 per conversion, I really felt the discrepancy in my profit margins. I am still working with my account manager at Advaliant to try to figure out a way to level off the discrepancy, and hopefully they will do good by me. Since 10 conversions equals $260, that means my profits dropped from about $500 to about $240. Advaliant said that the discrepancy was caused by Adwords double counting conversions because of visitors reloading the page, but I do not agree with that. I proved that individual keywords that were converting were not being counted, so that meant double counting was impossible.

Conclusion
Overall, this was a positive experience. I made money and gained even more experience with PPC to CPA marketing. I spent about $1000 and came out with anywhere between $1300 to $1500 depending on whether I get the missing conversions. I am still confused as to what happened when my conversion rate dropped to basically 0%, so maybe someone reading this will have an answer. My experience with Advaliant was decent and I am still waiting to see if they make up the missing conversions to me. I will update everyone with whether they do or don’t. Keeping affiliates happy is very important, so hopefully they do the right thing. I would like to note that they were willing to wire me my money early so I can pay off the credit card bill I had accumulated, which was a big plus for them in my mind. I am already doing research into my third campaign, so check back soon for updates!

Not many people know about Google web history. I personally do not like the fact that Google knows everything about your searches. They know every search you’ve made in the past 2 years, and everything about it. They have research scientists to analyze this data and make predictions about you. I am not a spook or anything, but that does make me a bit nervous.

That being said, there is one very cool feature that does not require much data about a person to calculate. Google tracks the number of searches you have made as long as you have been in there system (or up to 2 years I believe). They display this information on a calender and you can get an idea of when you search most often during the month. Enough talk, check out my search activity calender. I’ve made 7,000 searches:). How many have you?

One of the SEO blogs I read quite often is SEOmoz.org. They have some great information and Rand Fishkin (head of the company) is said to be one of the best SEO’s out there. One of my favorite recurring segments on SEOmoz is “White Board Fridays.” It’s a video segment that usually covers beginner’s topics, but is helpful to anyone. Today’s edition is embedded below and has great tips on PPC (pay per click) basics. Since I have been diving head first into PPC to CPA marketing, I figured this would be a great video to share. The guy in the video talks a bit fast but he definitely knows what he’s talking about. Check it out:

Introduction
I have recently been trying to figure out PPC to CPA affiliate marketing. My first attempt was through an offer on NeverBlue Ads promoting a $250 grocery coupon. This CPA offer required a zip code submission to be counted as a conversion. The offer had a low $1.20 CPA, which means for every sign-up (acquisition) I would make $1.20.

This was the first offer I had with NeverBlue, and PPC -> CPA marketing in general. This means I had no history with Neverblue and they would be less willing to accommodate any special requests I had. Also, since this was my first time trying this I did not want to take a huge risk with my money. After reading countless forum posts I realized that you have to take a risk to make a profit. That being said, choosing a low paying CPA deal often means that the CPC’s will also be proportionately lower, reducing my risk.

Some Quick Math
With a CPA of $1.20 I did not have much room squeeze out a profit. Assuming I want an ROI (return on investment) of 100% and my conversion rate (clicks compared to people who actually signed up) was 15%, I would need my CPC’s to be $0.09. This is based on the formula: (CPA/ROI)*CR=CPC. This formula says my CPC should be equal to my cost per acquisition ($1.20) divided by how much I want to make (100% profit) multiplied by my conversion rate. I had asked my account manager to raise the CPA amount, which he did to $1.35. You can use the same formula to calculate what my target CPC’s were at this rate.

Creating the Landing Page
Many affiliate marketers will tell you that creating the landing page usually takes the most time with regards to setting up a new CPA offer. I also found this to be the case. Since I am not a designer in any way I had a difficult time coming up with ways to make creatives for my landing page. So I did what any beginner would do and I put together pieces of other people’s landing pages along with some customization to create mine. I went through many iterations before finalizing the design, but here it is:

The main thing to notice is the zip submit area. Originally, that was not there and was actually occupied by a “continue to the next page” button. The actual zip submit form is located on the advertiser’s landing page, which lowers the CR (conversion rate) because it requires users to click an extra page before signing up. I was not happy with this so I iframed the zip submit area of the advertiser’s page onto my page. Can you tell? This increased my CR. I’m not going to go much deeper into creating landing pages, but feel free to ask any questions and I will answer them.

Setting Up the Adwords Campaign
I will give a quick overview on how I was taught to setup Adwords campaigns. Basically, every keyword should be in its own ad group in the singular and plural form along with exact and broad match types. With this method you should have 4 ad groups per term. This is to control quality score and to better analyze at a more granular level. Each campaign should only have one root word. My original root word was “coupon” so I created a campaign called coupon. I used both the singular and plural form of the word and also had the broad and exact match types. Here’s what it looks like: Coupon, Coupons, [Coupon], [Coupons]. I did this with every variation of coupon-based keywords I had.

The Data
One thing that I was told very early is that you have to run a campaign for a little while before you start to see CPC’s lower automatically. After about 3-4 weeks, here is what my campaign was shaping up like:

This data is for the life of the campaign. In the beginning, my stats were poor and I was losing money. Towards the end I was able to start making money but at that time it seemed almost impossible to actually turn a profit. At that point I decided to cut my losses and stop the campaign. Based on this data it is obvious that for every conversion I had, I lost $0.57. This multiplied by 223 conversions means I lost $127.11. I do not think this is very bad for a first time and I had gained a lot of experience.

Conclusion
Although I had lost money I had learned many valuable pieces of information. I learned how to optimize an Adwords campaign, how to extract keywords from broad match type, how to lower CPC’s through optimizing my campaign and much more. You can read forums and blog posts all day but unless you get your hands dirty, you’ll never know a thing. As always, feel free to email me about any questions you have about my experience.

I am a huge fan of Google Maps. I use it almost every day for everything from finding a place to eat to checking traffic before I head home. I even use it on my iPhone on a daily basis.

Today, right before I left work, I went to check the traffic reports and noticed a very cool upgrade to their traffic system. Normally they only have red, yellow, and green to signal volume of traffic. Now they have added another indicator: red and black. Whenever traffic is between 0-15mph it is signaled by a red and black line. This is great news.

Sometimes when I would check traffic reports and it would say red (which was 0-30mph before) I would sometimes risk taking the freeway. Now with red and black I can really tell if it’s closer to 30mph or more like a parking lot. Here’s what it looks like (yes, this is what LA usually looks like):

If you can watch this video without shivering, I’m impressed.

I have been working on a guide that outlines everything needed to make money online. You can find it through that link or click the IBD Guide tab next to “contact.”

Over time I will make this page into a comprehensive guide that covers everything from monetization, traffic generation, social media, marketing, research, and analytics. Everything and anything I have learned over the years will be placed here, in an easy to read page.

Check back soon for updates!

I just finished this site’s redesign a few days ago, and figured now would be a good time to throw up a quick post about it. I had been looking for a new theme for IBD for a few weeks now, and I finally came across one that I liked. There were a few common elements that I wanted to keep from the old design, and some new elements which I really wanted for the new design.

• Header Image – One element from the previous design that I wanted to keep was the header image. I absolutely loved displaying a beautiful picture of Santa Cruz, Ca at the top of my blog, sort of as a goal for myself (and others) to want to live in a place like that through making money online. The new design allows for a header image, but I decided to use a different image I took a few years ago. The picture is still of Santa Cruz, but it is one of the beautiful valleys rather than the beach. Do you like the image?
• 125×125 Buttons – One of the main reasons for wanting to change my blog design was that I desperately wanted to accommodate for 125×125 ad buttons. You see these buttons on most business/money making blogs, and there’s a simple reason for that: they work! When someone clicks on one of my buttons and signs up, I get a referral commission. Now I get to display these buttons to everyone who comes to my site.
  

• Easier to Contact Me – Something I really appreciate when visiting other people’s blogs is the ability to easily find/contact the webmaster. With the new design it is now very easy (and obvious) where and how to contact me. I have used visuals to draw reader’s eyes towards that section, so hopefully more people will feel free to contact me. I listed Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn.
  

• RSS Readership – Another thing I wanted to improve with this blog is the RSS readership. On the old design I only had a small RSS button, that no one seemed to see. Now I have a great big RSS button that probably everyone will see:).
  

• Wider Margins – Lastly, I wanted my blog to have wider margins to allow for more content. I really think the new blog design looks much better, and is easier to use.

These are all very important features to me to have on my blog. Although it took me weeks to find a decent theme to hack up and make my own, it was definitely worth the wait. When you decide to redesign your own blog, you should make a list of features that are most important to you before you start looking for a theme. There are enough Wordpress themes out there where you don’t have to sacrifice any feature for another. If you need help finding the right theme for your needs, feel free to contact me.

This is a guest post from AffiliateTips.com – a great place to get started in affiliate marketing and find affiliate programs in almost any niche.

Use Offline Marketing to Increase Your Online Earnings

It can sometimes be difficult to understand how offline marketing can be important for your online affiliate marketing business. Well, if all of your marketing efforts only occur online you’ll risk missing a huge part of your segment. If you want to make some serious money you should consider all of your marketing options.

It’s good to know that it isn’t that difficult to integrate offline marketing into you overall promotional plans. To get the best results possible from your efforts it’s good if you know the basics before you set sail. Read this blog post and you’ll get a head start to your competitors and you will understand why it is so important to get offline to make money online!

Reaching New Customers

Even though you want to make money from the Internet and most people use the web on a regular basis, it’s imperative that you think outside the box to reach as many potential customers as possible. While most use the web, not all of your potential clients/referrals can be found on the Internet doing their daily tasks, such as making purchases and researching products.

To get these potential clients to visit your affiliate marketing site you have to use offline methods to get them motivated. With little effort and often small costs you’ll be able to inform them about what you have to offer. Who knows, this might be exactly the thing that is needed in order to increase your earnings. Even though it might seem ancient in these modern times, don’t overlook the possibilities to post fliers on notice boards in your community. Always try to target the right kind of people for your particular business. Look around your city and select places that potential customers would pass by often. If you for an example promote a weight loss supplement, it might be a good idea to put up fliers close to places like gyms and health stores.

Increase Your Trust

Many people still feel anxious when purchasing something on the Internet and if you have the possibility you really should do everything you can to increase your trust. With millions of sites selling and promoting products, the most successful are the ones that in the consumer’s eyes are the most trustworthy.

If you make an initial contact with potential referrals offline your credibility and trustworthiness will surely increase. People tend to feel a lot more comfortable to make purchases online if they know that there is a real person behind a site. Some of the things you could try are guest appearances in appropriate forums, television and newspapers ads and direct mail. Also check out the possibilities to advertise on your local radio, since smaller stations often have quite affordable prices.

Create a Buzz

Another great thing about offline marketing is that it’s a great way to get people to talk about your business. If you succeed in this you’ll have one of the most effective tools that exist, hardly any other marketing tools can compete on the same level. If recommendations come from someone a potential customer knows chances are great that they’ll visit your affiliate marketing site.

One way of creating this buzz is to hold a giveaway contest that should be promoted online as well as offline. Contact your local newspapers and radio stations and post your promotion on popular bulletin boards at community centers. It’s more likely to be successful if you can get people talking about it, so you need to be original. Spend some time thinking about how you can make your contest more appealing than the others that are out there.

So now that you know the basics it’s time to put it in practice and watch the cash roll in!

A little over a month ago I was contacted by a Kontera rep who referenced a blog post I wrote a while back comparing Kontera vs. Vibrant ads. Both of these networks provide in-text advertising for both large and small sites.

My first comparison determined Vibrant Media to be the winner, because they paid more and were more of a well known brand. Since switching back to Kontera a month ago, my revenue has stayed pretty much the same. My eCPM is around $1.25, which is actually decent. Assuming Vibrant and Kontera were making me the same amount of money, the question now becomes what other factors play into choosing an ad network.

My account manager, Katherine, has been very helpful. This is one of my most sought after features of any company, not just on the Internet. Customer service and quick response time I value more than making slightly more money with an ad network. Any question I have had she responded to in the same day. For this reason, I am going to continue with Kontera until I get more data to review. Hopefully I can get my eCPM up to $2 through optimization. More updates to come.

You can sign up with Kontera here.