With cost per click increasing for Google AdWords, quite a few people have stopped doing affiliate marketing using their pay per click service.

I’ve decided to investigate this and created my own google adwords campaign for one product on Clickbank.

Here is a screenshot of my earnings for the last couple of weeks

I basically picked a product which had a commission of at least $30 and promoted via a blog which was specifically setup for the product. My average conversion rate was around 1% which happened to be profitable. I used search and content network in order to drive traffic to the site. My ad groups were all setup to fit particular keywords, so were the ads inside them.

So, its still definitely possible to make money with affiliate marketing using adwords. I am currently documenting the process into an ebook and it will be out soon.

Technorati Tags: Clickbank, drive traffic, ad groups, adwords, commission

I do quite a lot of ebook web design and have been looking for a solution for getting higher quality score for the website. It looks like wordpress blog is the answer.

I have bought a new domain name and setup a blog with information regarding my product, then posted a sales letter with order buttons and started marketing to this post via Google AdWords.

I am currently paying $0.10 per click on search network and $0.04 per click on content network. The quality score is 7/10 and 8/10 for most of the keywords. Also most of the keywords also have “Great” quality score, whereas before they were only “OK”.

So this seems to avoid Google Slap and provide awesome quality score.

I am eager to hear your comments on this technique.

Technorati Tags: Google Slap, per click, Google AdWords, quality score

Question: Do you recommend using search or content advertising? Do you think that content advertising is a waste of time?

When running an AdWords campaign search network should definitely be turned on. The main reason for it is that it is much more targeted then content network. The downside however is that it costs more.

When it comes to search network, I would not recommend it unless your product is at least $30 in price as it has a very low conversion rate. The rule of thumb is to have content bids enabled at low price. I have mine at about $0.04 per click. This way you are going to get about 1% percent conversion rate, whereas search network can be between 1% and 5%.

Technorati Tags: AdWords, search network, content network, conversion rate

When it comes down to SEO, a lot of people are not sure what keywords to optimize for and what meta keywords and description to use.

Its best to use Google AdWords to test out the best keywords and ads to see what really works for your marketing campaign. Once its all tested out, you can use the same keywords and description to optimize your website for. Even though you might not reach top positions straight away, but at least what you are ranking for definitely sells.

Besides this, your description comes up in Google and works like your ad when shows up if setup correctly.

Good luck your Search Engine Optimization, I hope it converts for you, as the biggest mistake that people make is that they make assumptions about keywords that might convert, when as a matter of fact they havent tested them.

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords, keywords, description

A lot of people have asked me for an alternative to Google Adwords.

There are quite a few pay per click programs out there, however they are either too expensive or hardly work. Ive tried Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter and Facebook Social Ads only to find out that the first 2 are pretty expensive and dont convert very well. With Facebook Social Ads I was quite amazed with the fact that you can pick your audience by age, sex and interests.

Facebook Social Ads definitely were the most effective out of these three Pay Per Click program. If you have Google AdWords campaign I would recommend using the ads from there to advertise via Social Ads. Just make sure you don’t have all the words starting from capitals as Facebook Ads are pretty strict on that.

Just dont forget to apply conversion tracking codes, so that you know where the sales come from.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Pay Per Click, Google Adwords, Social Ads, Yahoo Search Marketing

Google Slap is an outcome of Google AdWords quality score evaluation algorithm. In simple terms, AdWords wants only relevant ads coming up for relevant keywords, otherwise you have to pay more for your ads to be displayed. It all seems like another reason for Google to charge more, however there is logic in it. Basically, there are too many advertisers advertising for the same thing, not all of them are that relevant, so this is why Google Slap was created.

Google Slap seems to happen once or twice a year around July-August time. So around that period you might find that your Google AdWords campaign has slowed down or stopped all together.

If you log into each one of your Ad Groups, you can add an extra column field which tells you each keyword’s quality score. You should be aiming for Great or OK. Right next to the quality score you will see a question mark, which will tell you why your quality score the way it is for each keyword.

Basically the key to avoiding Google Slap is to have:

Long tail type of keywords in your ad groups (real specific)

A content rich website for the keywords that you are trying to advertise for.

About us, Contact us, Terms and Conditions, Copyright and Privacy pages.

In Google Adwords ads the campaigns need to be sorted into groups and contain keywords in different ads.

I hope this helps you and saves you some money.

Submit to Social Websites

Technorati Tags: avoiding Google Slap, Google AdWords, AdWords, quality score, Google Slap, Google

I got a question today:
I did however set up the adwords account in Australian dollars instead of USD. Is this a problem?

Since I get this asked often, I decided to post the answer on my blog.

Answer:

Yes it is a problem as the Google AdWords tracking code dollar value allows you to see the cost per conversion, so it would be logical to have the dollar value same as the currency on your website for the exact cost per conversion figure.

With the cost per conversion being recorded, over time you can make a decision which keywords perform best and which don’t convert at all. This is why it is crucial to have conversion tracking on your Google AdWords campaigns.

Technorati Tags: currency, cost per conversion, Google AdWords, Google AdWords campaigns

Many people tend to reply on Google AdWords, when advertising their eBook Websites. I see a real big problem in that, as Google AdWords have been pretty harsh with these types of websites, as they do not fully suite their guidelines.

There are many other ways to advertise an ebook website. Some of those ways are Facebook Social Ads Pay Per Click, Craigslist, Banners, Email Advertising and there are plenty other ways. I guess the reason why people stick to AdWords is because its quick and easy, however no longer cheap.

If you are interested to learn about alternative Traffic Driving Strategies, please check out my website, that teaches traffic driving here.

Technorati Tags: Pay Per Click, Google AdWords, Craigslist, eBook Websites, AdWords, Facebook Social Ads, Google