is affiliate marketing that hard?

webdev · #1 (**permalink**) 10-19-2007, 05:59 PM

I have been working really hard in this past few weeks promoting this one product and I'm have heck of a time make a sale

(I know i have been inactive from this forums for while mainly because of this)

I wonder how ppc marketers are able to bring so many sales and earn so much promoting clickbank products where i can't even get one sale with this product. Thou i did get 2 sales initially. But that was on the 2nd day of my promoting when i didn't even have a landing page. I'm guessing it was pure beginners luck.

(Warning: This is gonna be a rather lengthy post but please do read it).

here goes my story...

I mainly used ppc to promote this product. The product doesn't have too much competition either. It caters to young people between the age of 16-25. This product teaches you how to pass your driving test.

www. getreadytopass. com/

When i started i didn't have a landing page. Then soon after i used a pre-made landing page from the merchant, drove 100 so hops to his page but no sale. Then i refined the content of the landing page further, drove 100 so more clicks and no sales. At this point i was convinced that the problem was with with my landing page, thou i had good click though ratio from my page to the merchant.

Soon after i scraped everything and reworked on the landing page form scratch. I basically redesigned the landing, rewrote the content and refined it further and basically changed everything. I drove another 100 so clicks but no sales. The click through ratio was the same as before.

Mean while, the merchant reported that him and affiliates are making regular sales to the product. He had a snap shop oh his clickbank analytic report. I was puzzled why i'm not converting? The merchant himself helped me out a lot, tweaking my landing page at every step of the way and giving me suggestion every now and then but i just wasn't making any sales.

At this point I''m convinced there is something wrong with what I'm doing or I'm missing something but i don't what it is? After all i should have had some sales by now.

While searching I stumbled upon Ewen Chia's SAW program. For those of you who don't know Ewen Chia's been a super affiliate for many many years. I saw his video interview at someones blog where he gave out a lot of valuable information into his marketing strategy. One of the things he talked about was making squeeze page and capturing your visitors name and email. He says it takes some exposure before someone buys a product. You need to expose the user to the product 5-10 before they will purchase it.

So, i researched a little bit on Ewen Chia and found his SAW program. For $9 he gave out a lot of information. I read up on all his ebooks he offered in this program on affiliate marketing. time to time he stressed about building your list. So off i went to apply the opt-in theory to this product.

So, next I scarped my landing page, bought a subscription to aweber and made a brand new squeeze page instead. Next i wrote few article on driving test, so that i can offer these to my visitors in exchange of their information.

At first my squeeze page little too big. I drove 60+ clicks and got 1 or 2 subscribers (have you noticed how so many people just don't check their confirmation email. So basically those are wasted leads

).

Next, i read up how to make a convincing squeeze page because mine was way too long. They say your squeeze page should be short and concise to the point. Its purpose is it to capture the users information and it should do it pretty good. So, i refined my squeeze page to the point where i think its pretty convincing and here is the final thing (sorry im gonna include my link here. im not tryying to promote anything but im just trying to get help.)

www . driving-test-help . info

I think now Im at the same point where a intermediated affiliate is who know swhat is doing somewhat and this opt-in strategy (thou im convinced) should work doesn't matter what ever product is.

But there is one problem. Now, I have no job and i can't keep spending money on ppc..lol.

This past few weeks have taught me a lot for ppc marketing to making convincing landing and squeeze pages. One thing I don't understand is why i can't convert. I still think that there is something I'm missing. I don't blame the product because I'm convinced that you can sell any product out here if you market it the right way which goes back to making convincing ad copies, landing pages, tightly grouped keywords and having highly targeted keywords and so on.

Oh wow I wrote so much. But i hope now you guys know where I stand and perhaps steer to right direction. I really don't want to give up but I'm running out of money and energy to continue

Any inputs would be appreciated as I'm screaming for help...

ppcFanatice, sherif, lisa any thoughts? I know your guys are much experience with this business.

ssmorgan · #2 (**permalink**) 10-20-2007, 02:35 AM

webdev,

I am sorry to hear that your driving test ppc campaigns did not go as well as you had hoped.

This post is probably not exhaustive, but I will attempt to highlight important points for you to think about... and I apologize for my lengthy post (i already know it's gonna be long... you know how i like to babble

)

Here goes:

1) what kind of keywords did you use?

it's great to have highly targeted keywords, such as "how to pass my driving test" - that's a great targeted keywords, because it will pick up those who theoretically would be very interested in the product... BUT (and most people in PPC miss this)... how likely will this keyword convert? Let's see... the keyword "how to pass my driving test" is rather general in the sense that the person is just looking for information, probably free, to prepare him/her before their driving test. They may or may not be reeeeeaaaaaalllllly concerned about failing their test (btw, do a lot of kids fail?).

But how desperate is this person to buy your product? Probably not very desperate, so when they see the price tag, they will probably think back button let's see what other information is out there before I spend the 20 or 30 dollars. So think about... who would be desperate to buy this product? Think like them... pretend you're extremely nervous before your test or maybe you've already failed your test and want to pass it this time... also, do not restrict yourself to the age of 16-25... some people get their license later in life (and I have heard a few times that these people tend to fail... so maybe that's another target population... but do more research on this first).

In the first scenario (extremely nervous)... think... why are you extremely nervous? Did you hear horror stories from friends? Did your best friend just fail? Are you not a very good driver yet? etc. If you've already failed once or twice, think about what kind of keywords you would use, e.g. "why do i keep failing my driving test" or "how to stop failing my driving test". These keywords may be more desperate kw and may be more likely to convert.

2) was the landing page relevant to their specific needs?

In either case, in your landing page, touch upon their fears... In the extremely nervous scenario, add in a little statistic about how many people fail because they are nervous... or something to feed their fear (i hate saying this, because it sounds like you're playing with their emotions) but you have to relate to them... if there is something they are scared of, touching on it will only help them open up to you more, because they will feel you understand where they are coming from... AND they will begin to think that the product you will be selling to them addresses their personalized problem!

Then, by listing the benefits/how your product will help them pass their test by addressing their unique problems will probably convince them that they need your product!

I would create multiple landing pages, each one worded slightly differently to relate to and address the specific needs of the target audience.

The key point here is "relevancy" - can you identify the right keywords that are relevant to someone who is a) desperate, and b) has already done some research on the topic, and will be ready to buy soon.

So, with most products, you have to research and think like the person who is in desperate need of your product... AND then bid on the keywords that you would use when you're about ready to purchase the product.

Does this make sense?

3) Did the author share some of his/her marketing strategies? If not, did he/she bid on the same keywords you bid on? How much competition was there on the keywords you bid on...

What I am getting at here... if there were supposedly a ton of conversions from other affiliates, what strategies did they use? what keywords did they use that helped them convert so well...

Another thing to consider is foul play... I don't want to get all conspiracy theory on you here, but is it possible that somehow the templates the author provided stripped away your affiliate code, perhaps through a re-direct to another page with his/her own affiliate code? - - - a bit out there, but just something to think about. Although it may be hard to prove/track, at least it would tell you to avoid working with this person. Again, hope you're not rolling your eyes at me, but you never know.

Ok, so I am sure I will have a lot more to say, but I am drawing a blank for now, so I will add more in the next couple of days, but... what I shared with you here is crucial to success in ppc, so if you feel something is unclear or not important, please let me know.

I hope you're doing well... By the way, did you quit your job?

Sherif

lisa · #3 (**permalink**) 10-20-2007, 12:02 PM

Hey Webdev,

So sorry to hear about your job situation... what a bummer. I hope I can help but as I've mentioned before I do some ppc marketing but I only do it for branding and to draw traffic and don't pay much attention to my conversions. I'm amazed at people who make a living doing ppc because it is very challenging.

I don't know the typical age of the person who types in "pass driving test" but if you're bidding on similar phrases I would have to assume that most people who type that in are younger people between the ages of 16-18. When I was that age, I probably wouldn't have bought it. As Sherif said, there could be older people searching for that information but I would guess the majority of them are younger.

Now, let's say you are bidding on "motorcycle driving test" I would assume (and I could be wrong) that this is searched for by older people. I don't know too many teens with motorcycles so I'm just basing this on my experience and what I've seen. Not only is this a much more specific (and probably not as competitive) keyword, but you may be able to attract an older audience with buying power.

Again, I am guessing and doing a lot of assuming here and that's the tricky part of PPC. You have to be able to connect and get inside the head of the person doing the keyword search. What are they expecting to find? Something free? Probably. So now it's time to prove to them why this report is different from any free information they can find on the web.

But the key is in those keywords you are targeting. As Sherif said, relevancy is everything and I like his idea of creating multiple landing pages to test things out. I read somewhere that when you first start promoting a product with PPC you should have 10-15 different test campaigns coming from different angles/keywords so you can see which ones convert the best.

I wish I could offer you better advice. Again, I don't have much experience with ppc for making a profit since I only use it for traffic. I did try to use it to promote SBI! once but I lost waaaaay too much money in the process.

webdev · #4 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 01:39 PM

Thanks so much for replying both Sherif and Lisa. Your input is always appreciated.

Sherif, I'm going to attempt to answer your points. Bare with me if I miss anything.

Keywords:
From the beginning i used tightly grouped ad groups with related keywords. In the beginning I tested all the keywords with broad matches. I checked time to time which ad groups had high impressions but low CTR, which keywords were having high bounce rate and so on. Then i kept refining, dropping irrelevant keywords and perfecting my ad copies. I almost had 10 different ad groups with 5-15 related keywords in it. Now I have 3 highly targeted ad groups and hight targeted keywords and yes "pass to pass road test" is one of them.

With the highly targeted keywords I have now, my CTR is high, bounce rate is low and the opt-in conversion is almost 30%. The only problem is that my clicks have dropped significantly from 100+ clicks day to less than 20/day.

Landing pages:
I didn't split test my landing pages. I basically tweaked and refined the same landing page as i was playing around with the keywords. I dropped the landing page and now using squeeze page instead.

I think it all comes down to wining your visitors trust. If they trust you they will buy from you. So, what i have done now is, set up 6 follow up emails with helpful tips on driving and passing road test. I promote the hop-link non-intrusively at the end of my email. Soo I'm just trying to basically experiment with email marketing and see how that goes.

webdev · #5 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 04:31 PM

Forgot to mention. I got laid off from work. lol sucks but what can you do. looking for a new job now but hope i don't have to continue working on a fixed salary for the rest of my life. that's why im take a shot at affiliate and internet marketing.

ssmorgan · #6 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 04:39 PM

I like how you go about monitoring your keywords. I know I have mentioned it before, but I could not emphasize more the importance of the "relevancy" of the keywords when doing PPC.

With Opt-in, though, you get more chances to convince them of the value of the product... hopefully without pissing them off

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

The only problem is that my clicks have dropped significantly from 100+ clicks day to less than 20/day.

If your CTR remained the same as your clicks/day went from 100 to 20, then maybe it's things beyond your control, i.e. search volume has gone down.

Or... has your CTR gone down?

webdev · #7 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 04:49 PM

Quote:

If your CTR remained the same as your clicks/day went from 100 to 20, then maybe it's things beyond your control, i.e. search volume has gone down.

That's because I stopped broad matches and general keywords like driving test, drivers test, driver license test and so on. I also found that keywords i thought were highly targeted turned out to be unprofitable like "practice drives test" and "drivers test tips", and so on.

So now, i only have those keywords which are highly targeted like "how to pass road test" which have good ctr and low bounce rate. The only thing is that volume on these keywords is low as compare to general words like driving test, road test, etc.

Which brings to me to my next question. I noticed with highly targeted keywords your volume will be low, no matter what the niche but then how do you make sales with long tail high targeted keywords since they don't generate so many clicks. Super affiliates make $5000+ a day, you would imagine these guys don't waste their clicks on general keywords and only have high targeted keywords running but then how do they profit so much with so less traffic?

webdev · #8 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 05:12 PM

BTW i forgot to mention, according to the merchant the conversion rate of this product is between 1-2%. I have no idea if this is good or bad for a click bank product? I have read experienced affiliates saying that you should promote a product which has high conversion rate but i began prmoting this product because i can relate to it better.

ssmorgan · #9 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

That's because I stopped broad matches and general keywords like driving test, drivers test, driver license test and so on.

I am glad you did... general keywords are the fastest and best way to lose money on PPC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

I also found that keywords i thought were highly targeted turned out to be unprofitable like "practice drives test" and "drivers test tips", and so on.

This is exactly what I mean by keyword relevancy... highly targeted traffic is good, but ready-to-buy targeted traffic is what we're after!

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

I noticed with highly targeted keywords your volume will be low, no matter what the niche but then how do you make sales with long tail high targeted keywords since they don't generate so many clicks. Super affiliates make $5000+ a day, you would imagine these guys don't waste their clicks on general keywords and only have high targeted keywords running but then how do they profit so much with so less traffic?

That's true... long tail highly targeted keywords bring in less traffic... BUT this traffic is very quality traffic... i.e. I would much rather get 10 clicks (low traffic) with targeted traffic over a week and convert once... Than getting 500 clicks over a week from general traffic and still convert once.

So the key is to keep searching for long tail targeted keywords, and collectively, they will bring in the traffic. And remember, don't be disappointed if you don't get as many clicks with targeted keywords... the key is conversions not ad clicks (I know it's intuitive, but it's a mistake/trap many marketers, including myself, have fallen into).

As for super affiliates, I would imagine they are working several niches. Even if they are working down the same niche, they have probably identified multiple very specific sub-niches that are highly profitable. Also, they are probably working with different strategies, i.e. ppc, article marketing, email marketing, etc.

ssmorgan · #10 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 06:10 PM

First, I wanted to say that I am sorry to hear about the job situation! Hang in there, buddy... you're a smart guy, you will find a better job!

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

BTW i forgot to mention, according to the merchant the conversion rate of this product is between 1-2%. I have no idea if this is good or bad for a click bank product? I have read experienced affiliates saying that you should promote a product which has high conversion rate but i began prmoting this product because i can relate to it better.

I think, 1 to 2 % is pretty typical. Of course, you can get much much better conversion rates than that, but I think that's pretty average.

webdev · #11 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 08:01 PM

Quote:

That's true... long tail highly targeted keywords bring in less traffic... BUT this traffic is very quality traffic... i.e. I would much rather get 10 clicks (low traffic) with targeted traffic over a week and convert once... Than getting 500 clicks over a week from general traffic and still convert once.

So the key is to keep searching for long tail targeted keywords, and collectively, they will bring in the traffic. And remember, don't be disappointed if you don't get as many clicks with targeted keywords... the key is conversions not ad clicks (I know it's intuitive, but it's a mistake/trap many marketers, including myself, have fallen into).

Makes perfect sense. It was hard to know all this when i first started out.

Now, I have my campaign running on high targeted keywords with less volume but high CTR. Having a high CTR is important because then Google adword gives your ad campaign a high quality score which in turn will lower your minimum cpc.

I first thought minimum cpc was the same across the board for everyone, but that is not the case. The way Google determines how much you pay for a keyword by examining your ctr, your bounce rates, etc. So, having a good ctr and good quality score is key to having low cpc.

Even thou, I get less than 20 clicks a day now i have high ctr and high opt-in and i save money on wasted clicks. I was first discouraged to see my click go down, so i let the general keywords run for a while but lost a lot of money.

I still think when you start out a new campaign, you should experiment with general and broad matches to see which keywords give you high clicks, high ctr, etc and then start refining your campaign and start cutting down.

Not to mention, with any ppc campaign, having good landing pages or squezee pages is essential. That's a whole new topic on it own.

It's funny. A month ago i didn't even know what squeeze page was (www. driving-test-help. info. This is for anyone who wants to see what a squezee page looks like). The more you dig into ppc marketing the more your learn but it is been really exhausting past few weeks is been for me working on this. Requires a lot of work

webdev · #12 (**permalink**) 10-21-2007, 08:35 PM

Oh one thing we didn't touch upon so much is that the reason for so low sales on this product could be the fact it is targeted mostly towards teenagers. Teenagers don't really the ability to buy online themselves, often have to convince their parents to buy for them. I mean when i was 18, i didn't have a credit card, and didn't have the guts to ask my parents to give up their credit card. Few years later i did open up a paypal account but rarely used to buy initially since i was on a student budget. So perhaps maybe age group should be taken in consideration before choosing a product? thoughts?

lisa · #13 (**permalink**) 10-22-2007, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

Oh one thing we didn't touch upon so much is that the reason for so low sales on this product could be the fact it is targeted mostly towards teenagers. Teenagers don't really the ability to buy online themselves, often have to convince their parents to buy for them. I mean when i was 18, i didn't have a credit card, and didn't have the guts to ask my parents to give up their credit card. Few years later i did open up a paypal account but rarely used to buy initially since i was on a student budget. So perhaps maybe age group should be taken in consideration before choosing a product? thoughts?

Webdev, I actually did make this point in my earlier reply. You may have missed it so I posted it below. I definitely think targeting young people is part of the issue. I had a site on soap operas and discovered it was visited mostly by teens. I used to promote products all the time that were directly related to their interests but never made any sales because of the low buying power. I couldn't understand why I had 250 visits per day (which back then I thought was a lot but wasn't really) and couldn't get any sales.

But a big part of that was it was targeted toward teens. Now if you can somehow find a way to choose keywords that target older people like I mentioned in my reply below then that may be a better way to go.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lisa

Hey Webdev,

So sorry to hear about your job situation... what a bummer. I hope I can help but as I've mentioned before I do some ppc marketing but I only do it for branding and to draw traffic and don't pay much attention to my conversions. I'm amazed at people who make a living doing ppc because it is very challenging.

I don't know the typical age of the person who types in "pass driving test" but if you're bidding on similar phrases I would have to assume that most people who type that in are younger people between the ages of 16-18. When I was that age, I probably wouldn't have bought it. As Sherif said, there could be older people searching for that information but I would guess the majority of them are younger.

Now, let's say you are bidding on "motorcycle driving test" I would assume (and I could be wrong) that this is searched for by older people. I don't know too many teens with motorcycles so I'm just basing this on my experience and what I've seen. Not only is this a much more specific (and probably not as competitive) keyword, but you may be able to attract an older audience with buying power.

Again, I am guessing and doing a lot of assuming here and that's the tricky part of PPC. You have to be able to connect and get inside the head of the person doing the keyword search. What are they expecting to find? Something free? Probably. So now it's time to prove to them why this report is different from any free information they can find on the web.

webdev · #14 (**permalink**) 10-22-2007, 02:15 PM

oh wow! i totally missed that. sorry about that lisa. You're right, age could be the issue here. I didn't experiment too much with motorcycle related keywords. I focused on driving test and road test. I've never been a motorcycle rider myself so i couldn't relate to much therefore hesitated to to focus on these keywords. Plus i thought motorcycle riders probably won't fall this product since they are more mature?

I don't see any one else bidding on google for this product anymore. I tried many of my targeted keywords and as well general keywords and don't see any competitors? Maybe they are bidding on keywords that i don't know of. But it seems to me that its may not be drawing many sales through ppc or in general and people are pulling out or perhaps people are focusing more on article marketing to get sales on this product (i saw some ezine articles promoting this product recently).

But all in all, im starting to believe that it may be harder to get a sale with product.

lisa · #15 (**permalink**) 10-22-2007, 06:58 PM

Yeah, plus I think it can be a bit tricky promoting products that people may believe they can get for free. Some information just seems like you should be able to find for free and driving tips falls in that category for me. So I wonder if people are turned off by the fact you have to pay for such information. Maybe they feel they can or should be able to find this kind of info without paying for it. I think Sherif eluded to this as well.

PPC is tough and I still haven't really mastered it from a profit standpoint, so I understand your trials. I didn't start using PPC until I was making profit so I've just been using it to bid on really cheap keywords and draw in extra traffic. I've gotten sales but my CPA (cost per acquisition) is extremely high and I wouldn't recommend this option if you're on a tight budget.

But I'd rather spend the money on that (advertising) for a tax break and hope that the people who don't buy are at least bookmarking my site and coming back later.

And what's even trickier is that people who are successful with PPC are pretty tight-lipped about specifics because they don't want to give away their secrets/niches that are paying well. And of course, who can blame them.

So what about your php site? Any improvements in traffic/sales there?

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