One of the members suggested that I post one of my campaigns for them to see where and how to improve them. I decided to post one of my so called failed campaigns. Specifically, Campaign #20 - Health eBook - Reiki Healing Master (download the PDF file with the link). An ebook on Reiki selling for $67 with a commission of $24.92. I tested it for over 197 clicks, paid $10.51 and got no sales then I stopped it. I chose this campaign for them to critique because it does have a slight change that it might work again because I’ve spent $10.51 and as long as I’ve not spent $24.92, I still make a profit.

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing, Pay Per Click Search Engines | No Comments »

That’s what I learnt from AdWord Mentor Forum. That’s about right for me. I have created 35 campaigns now and out of all of them only 5 of them have made sales. And out of the 5 that made sales, only 1 of them made over 1 sale.

Therefore, 14% of my campaigns make a sale. 2.8% of my campaigns make repeat sales. I am looking for that 1 campaign that is able to make repeat sales almost 7 days a week.

If you’re new to my Google AdWords blog and you’re wondering about all this Google Cash hype….. Here’s the real deal, this stuff is HARD WORK.

I’ve created 4 new campaigns today. All Clickbank ebooks and or software. I am not sure if they’ll get a lot of clicks. They’re in very competitive markets like software, dating, investment and guitar lessons. Nothing ventured, nothing gained… We’ll see the results very soon!

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I took a break from Google AdWords for the weekend through yesterday. Spent my time on my sister’s XBOX, cycling, reading and resting. I want to step back to reflect on wht I am not making $300 net profit per month and up with Google AdWords. Strange thing was, one of my new campaigns made 1 sale of $17.54 from just 40 clicks. Wow, that’s a strange event to me.

Judging from my statistics, I am averaging 1 sale in every 4 days. I have yet to make over 2 sales in 1 day. I know some people do more than that and I am sure I will be at that level very soon. I have definitely improved over the weeks and I will keep on improving till my stats become 1 sale per day… 2 sales per day… and beyond. I believe its possible now. Previously I had ZERO sales in FOREVER…. Ha!

Here’s some of my reasons why I believe I am not making $300 net profit per month with Google AdWords:

1. I’ve been promoting crappy affiliate programs that don’t convert well with Google AdWords.
2. I’ve been avoiding competitive categories like software, investment, dating etc affiliate programs.
3. I "want" too much to make net profit of $300 and up per month and missing the focus on the actions requried to achieve that level. Wanting is not enough, action is required. Actions that brings results.
4. I’ve also been avoiding Pay Per Lead programs which might convert better than Pay Per Sale programs.
5. I’ve been stuck on ClickBank too much, time to look into other affiliate networks like Commission Junction.

Even though I haven’t been promoting anything new this week. I have researched over 20 affiliate programs from Clickbank and Commission Junction in the past few days. I plan to promote 50/50 of my affiliate programs from these 2 affiliate networks. So if I promote 5 Clickbank products, I’ll stop and start with another 5 products from Commission Junction just to spread things around and see which one converts better.

I’m also looking into competitive products like investment, dating, cars, guitar and software affiliate programs this week. The reason they are so competitive is because there is money to be made in these categories. I just have to find the right keywords that bring me the clicks and sales.

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It still isn’t a profit…. I’m still making a loss with all my campaigns’ expenses. I am just not hiting my goal of over net profit of $300 a month as I would like. And I need to find out why… QUICKLY! I made my 5th sale on Monday which is outside of Clickbank and my 6th sale on Wednesday. Received $8.73 in sales but I spend about $10 promoting it. This one’s a loser.

Frustrating time for me once again. This is getting so hard… But I don’t wish to quit! There are people making tons of money with this and I must become one of them. 30 + campaigns so far and I’ve nothing much to show for it except for all this. Barry Stein created 30 campaigns and made quite a lot of money by then. Hmmmmm….. I’ve read his blog and applied whatever I could understand from it.

I’m going to get some rest. My plan to create 7 campaigns a week is on track. I created over 7 last week and this week I have created…. 5 campaigns. 2 more campaigns for the week. That’s an average of 1 campaign a day.

Categories: Vincent's Updates | No Comments »

I woke up with a pleasant surprise this morning. Yesterday, I left my campaigns alone because I was tired of creating campaigns for the week and guess what? I made my 1st sale with Clickbank.com and a nice profit of $26.96!

If you look at the screenshot on the left, I made ZERO sales from Monday to Friday… how depressing. I must have created at least 7 campaigns this week. An average of 1 campaign a day and I plan to keep that rate up.

The campaign that made that sale was quite unique. 30 clicks and it helped me get 1 sale, that’s like a 3% conversion rate with 30 clicks. I’ve added more typos in the campaign to see if it adds more clicks. I don’t trust the numbers yet till I get about 100 clicks. Right now, my goal is to get as many clicks as possible in the shortest time. If the conversion rate is consistent then I should expect 3 sales in 100 clicks.

A quick Conversion Rate Formula:

Conversion Rate = Number of Sales / Number of Clicks

My example above:

Conversion Rate = 1 Sale / 30 Clicks = 0.03 = 3%

This reminds me of primary school mathematics. I’m sure this is a sign of greater things to come! I was so frustrated after creating so many campaigns… Something’s gotta work you know and thank the heavens, something did work!

Categories: Vincent's Updates | No Comments »

Every 1 or 2 days, I receive this irritating error from Google AdWords.

This appears at the top of the page. The only way to get rid of it before the guys at Google do something to it is to Log Off, Clear the cache of your browser and Log In again!

I got that tip from one of guys at the AdWord Mentor Forum. Saved 24 hours of agony!

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I’ll take back my review of the Google Profits ebook. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. After reading some posts in the AdWord Mentor Forum, some of the guys there pointed out the flaws like:

• How it doesn’t cover what NOT to look out for in the sales page or the Clickbank products. e.g. PayPal or FAX orders which take away your commission sales
• Doesn’t reveal how to use Affliliate Alert to search for profitable products to promote

That’s the problem with these Google AdWords ebooks. Most of them focus on tiny bits on information and its all too confusing. I’m starting to feel very frustrated at my lack of any success here with Google AdWords. Something’s gotta work…. over 20 Campaigns and only 1 profitable campaign that is barely breaking even? Crap…..

Someone at the AdWord Mentor Forum recommended this Video product about Google AdWords. Seems promising to me judging by the sales page but you know these guys are great at hyping up their products. Take a look at Google AdWords Secrets.

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | 8 Comments »

All right…. I gave in and finally bought this the Google Profits ebook. I must say I am quite pleased with this ebook although there are areas that I think aren’t adequate enough.

First of all, here’s what I like about this ebook:

• Emphasis on creating fast 30 minute test campaigns with 300 click through tests
• Paints a realistic picture on the effort required to make a profit
• No hype in the ebook, just plain simple facts and easy to read content

I wish I knew the “TRUTH” about the kind of effort required to profit from Google AdWords. I really wasn’t mentally prepared to fail over 50% of my campaigns to make a profit. I was angry after reading Google Cash but not with Google Profits because it makes it sound real.

Now for the bad side of this ebook:

• No bonuses.. Actually there are bonuses but the value has been hyped up too much about the lifetime upgrades
• Not enough information on keyword research, ad group organization
• No contact information of the author

This is a must have ebook if I were starting out. But I still would recommend Google Cash because it covers the overall picture of this affiliate marketing thing with Google AdWords. Furthermore the bonuses that come with Google Cash are just too great to say no to. I’ll give my review on Google Cash in my next few posts. But then again, you don’t want to buy an ebook for the bonuses.

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | 5 Comments »

This is a follow up to the Google AdWord’s new validation tool. They even have a dynamic display URL validation tool that verifies if your Display URL and Destination URL are valid.

This is a big problem for us affiliates because the Destination URL might not match the Display URL.

For example, clickbank uses links like hop.clickbank.com which redirects to the merchant site. I personally use ShrinkMyLink.com to hide my ugly and long affiliate links. Lucky for us, Google came up with an exception but you must apply for it and that takes about 1 day.

See that screenshot on the left? That’s how it looks like. Click on it to see a larger version. From now on, you’ll have to enter a reason why you think your Display URL and Destination URL should be an exception. My excuse is that I am promoting an affiliate link. Worked a few times with Google. They seem to let it pass.

Anyway here’s the exact text I sent to Google and somehow got them to approve my URLs:

Dear Google,

My destination URL is an affiliate link and it actually redirects to the correct URL.

Right now I am using a free URL masking service from ShrinkMyLink.com to mask the URL of my affiliate links.

Furthermore, I have already indicated the ad as an affiliate with the text "aff" in the ad copy.

Please let it pass through.

Thanks.

I’m sure Google will let your ad be approved. I do hope they look into this matter. It’s such a pain in the ass to have my ads disapproved and delayed for 1 day.

Categories: Pay Per Click Search Engines | No Comments »

I learnt this the hard way. I read the ebook by the Search Engine Institute remember? They recommend to research your keywords for up to 8 hours in the beginning. I really did that religiously and I can tell you its a pain in the arse! I feel the information they taught me was priceless… but the technique in which to use it was useless.

If you’re going to spend up to 8 hours to create 1 campaign… it might take a few days of your extra time to do that. It’s a tough ask to sit in front of your computer for 8 hours straight. Now what if you’re campaign isn’t profitable? Damn! 8 hours + down the toilet…. If you’re going to have a top earning campaign after 15 campaigns…. That will take you 8 x 15 hours = 120 hours = 5 full days of work? Doesn’t make much sense does it?

I emailed Barry Stein about coming up with test campaigns in less than 30 minutes? He claims to have done it in 10 minutes in this email reply from him…. My speed right now is about 1 - 2 hours per campaign.

Hi Vincent,I only market ClickBank products.

I can set up a test campaign in about 10 minutes and I always start them in only one Ad Group in the beginning. If they are profitable I can then try adding other Ad Groups to target more groups of keywords. Bottom line is always profitability. Start with the most relevant keywords and then test adding broad keywords in another Ad Group later if you are making a profit.

When a campaign is new you have to keep a close watch on it. Any keyword that receives 100 or more impressions and no clicks gets deleted. Any keyword that gets 100 or more impressions, gets clicks, and has a CTR of 0.4% or less gets deleted. I never have any of my campaigns get slowed.

This tweaking is always done while viewing the campaign in the “all time” option and not “today” or any other option. This is very important.

When I run a test campaign I try to start off using only the most relevant keywords and I start my bids off very low, often five cents if possible. I want to run my 100 click test as cheaply as possible.

If you are not getting enough clicks for some campaigns it usually means you have to raise your bids to get a higher positon. Start with low bids and then keep raising them slowly until you get action. Again, your goal is to runa 100 click test campaign as cheaply as possible.

This isn’t easy. I’ve run about 200 test campaigns to date. My AMMs can be found in the best selling ClickBank products. Some times you have to target keywords that have nothing directly to do with what you think you should be using for the campaign, but not always. Some of the ClickBank products have lots of competition and keywords are expensive. One of my AMMs is a survey site. If I tried to target keywords that had to do with taking surveys it wouldn’t be profitable for me since many of the bids are as high as $1 each. So I target my survey campaign targeting some other types of keywords. This is a very hard affiliate product to market profitably since there is so much competition. You should think of doing something else at the same time, like creating mini websites or some other way to generate income. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Best regards,
Barry Stein
http://www.awebbiz.com
It’s all about business.

Remember to check out Barry Stein’s marketing blog about his successes with the Google Cash system! I learnt a lot from this guy. He tells it like it is and not promise you too much. This Google Cash thing isn’t as easy as the author claims. I don’t blame him, he’s trying to make money with his ebook. Barry’s an inspiration for me to carry on with my Google AdWords campaigns!

Categories: Pay Per Click Search Engines | 1 Comment »