Affiliates, Choose Your Google Adwords
by Stephan Miller
I'll have to admit that I didn't believe all the hype about
Google Adwords for the longest time. Then I caught myself clicking
on some of the Adwords ads instead of the search results. That
made me think. Five bucks. What's five bucks? Lunch at McDonalds.
I could skip that for a day. So I surfed Clickbank for a while,
found something new and really targeted, popped a few keywords
in and wrote the ad. Basically, I used the sledgehammer method
of marketing. Fifteen minutes later, I was getting clicks. Then
I went to bed, of course. A few things I have learned. If I'm
on the computer at one in the morning, I must hide my creidt card
from myself. Or maybe I was wrong?
I woke up the next day and discovered a few things. One, all
of these gurus I decided not to listen to weren't lying. I had
made sales. In fact, I made more instant affiliate sales in 12
hours than I ever did before. Another, I had a lot more to learn.
But I was hooked. So I bought a few ebooks to learn more and went
to work. Why the hell had I waited so long?
Adwords is a crash course in direct marketing. You learn quickly
what people want and what keywords they type in to find it. And
you can just as quickly lose money if you don't learn the medium.
Google Adwords takes all the guesswork out of optimizing webpages.
If you have the money, you can buy all the traffic you want. The
key, though, was to buy sales as cheaply as possible. These are
the basics. After the basics, Adwords gets complex. It comes down
to fine tuning. Fine tune your keywords correctly and you will
receive instantly targeted visitors who are ready to purchase
specific products.
Click Through Quantity
A lot of internet marketing comes down to keywords. Adwords
is no difference. You must learn to think like your customers.
What keywords would they use to find the product you are selling?
Sometimes you just can't think of them. This is where keyword
tools come into play. I have listed a few free keyword tools that
will help at the link in the resource box.
If the keywords you are using are not performing well, there
may be a few ways to fix this. One is to fine tune the keyword.
Instead of using "e-mail" to sell a spam blocker, you can use
the Adwords keyword suggestion tool to find such words as e-mail
filter, junk e-mail, and such. Then delete "e-mail." Obviously,
everyone who uses "e-mail" in their search terms isn't looking
for a spam blocker. In fact, very few will be, so don't destroy
your click through rate by using terms that are too general.
You can also fine tune the keyword by using brackets, quotation
marks, or negative keywords. Brackets around [e- mail filter]
will allow your ad to be shown only when searchers type just "e-mail
filter" in Google's search box, not "e-mail" and not "free e-mail
filter." Using quotes will allow your add to be shown for both
"e-mail filter" and "free e-mail filter", but not "filter e-mail".
Using "-" like "email-filter" will allow your add to be shown
for all searches containing "e-mail" that do not contain "filter."
You can find more details here: https://adwords.google.com/select/tips.html.
Another problem may be that your customer just does not see
your ad. Just by creating a new ad that contains the keyword that
hasn't been producing that well may improve your click through
rate. This works because Google highlights the keywords that the
searcher used in your ad. You can also try capitalizing power
words in your ad to get that ad seen. If you know the keyword
should be working but isn't, try this first. If this doesn't help
consider narrowing the keyword or dropping it. Don't be scared
too.
Use 300 keywords instead of 30. The more keywords you use the
better. You will receive customers looking for specific products
and you will have a better chance of getting keywords that cost
five cents instead of five dollars.
It may just come down to good old ad copy. An Adwords ad is
haiku of advertisements. You must pack a punch in three lines,
four if you count the url. Go for the benefits not features of
the product. Use active verbs that make your surfers want to click
instead of static nouns.
Click Through Quality
You can get all the clicks from Adwords that you can imagine,
a 20% click through rate and still not get any sales. All this
means is that you are throwing money down an internet hole. If
you are paying for every click, all clicks are not the same.
If you are trying to sell a product you definitely want to get
rid of freebie hunters first. How do you do this? Add a price
to the ad. Or if the adcopy on the product's page is killer, you
can use something along the line of "Low- priced". In other words,
use a phrase that tells the surfer that he will be getting out
his credit card.
Another way to convert more clicks through Adwords comes down
to keywords again. More specific keywords will convert more surfers
into customers. If you are an affiliate for a motorcycle helmet
company, you don't want to use "motorcycle" as a keyword. You
want to use "motorcycle helmet." Or else, you'll customers who
are searching for jackets, exhaust, pictures.
There are a few type of affiliate programs where you wouldn't
mind freebie hunters. One is site that uses cookies. Think of
the last time you purchased an ebook. Did you buy it when you
saw the first ad? Probably not. You waited. But after reading
about the product all over the net, you decided to get out your
credit card. I discovered these type of customers after I deleted
the campain from Adwords that actually brought in the sales. The
site's cookie credited me with the sales weeks after my ad brought
them to the site.
Another example is programs that pay for leads. Some companies
will pay you if the surfer fills out a form. They depend on their
professional followup to get the sale. But the point is, you have
made cash and the surfer didn't even have to pay. You just have
to get him to sign up for info.
Set a Budget
Figure out how much you want to spend a day and stick to it.
A good start is $5.00 a day. Also set your maximum cost per click.
This will keep you form spending way too much. Some products I
have the CPC set at $0.05. On others, I have it set at $0.50.
It depends on how mony clicks you actually convert into sales.
You must also set a cutoff point. Decide how much money you
can spend on a new campaign without any sales before you drop
it. It could be 300 clicks or $20 spent. Whatever you set it at,
you must stick to it.
Tracking
Google Adwords allows you to set up campaigns, followed by ad
groups, followed by individual ads. This structure is great for
testing your ads. And believe me, you have to test and you have
to track. A campaign can be set up for one product. Then you can
set up an ad group for each feature of the product. One ad group
may focus on the products ease of use. Another may focus on the
low price. And in each ad group you can have multiple ads. Using
this system and Adwords tracking features, you track which ads
work best for clickthroughs.
But you still have to track your conversions. Commission Junction
is great in that you can send each ad to a link. Then when you
go to their site you can discover which ads are producing the
most sales.
But whatever you do, know your average sale, know your average
price per click and know how many clicks it takes for you to make
a sale. Then figure your return on investment. You may be spending
more than you are making. It's easy to get caught up in the process
and forget you are trying to make money. Don't get into bidding
wars. And always test something new. Nobody's perfect.
Following the Rules
In my little experiment, I also ran into a few rules that Google
wants you to follow by breaking them. The best way. Here is the
link to the FAQ: https://adwords.google.com/select/faq/index.html.
One, you can't use trademarks as keywords. Second, you must get
a 0.5% clickthrough rate or Adwords will slow your campaign down.
Also, if you are an affiliate, you must at least put "aff" at
the end of your ad.
In summary, Adwords can get you instant sales, but you must
study the system, finetune your campaigns, and track your results.
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Stephan Miller is a freelance programmer, and writer. For more
Adwords resources, visit the page below
http://www.profit-ware.com\resources\googleadwords.htm
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