Forum

[RCormack]

Hi Everyone,
I have got my first site up and have followed Mark's instructions to make an SEO site first. I had the funds to start PPC so I followed the guide and have started with product name and urgency keyword groups. Trouble is, I feel like it will take ages to get to 300 clicks. I only get about 10 per day so far so I'm at about 50 now and still made zero sales. Is this normal? I know the niche is profitable and I think my landing pages are pretty good but I am worried about no sales and also the time it is taking to get to 300. Should I start trying other keywords?

Best regards,
Ross

 

[PetraW]

I think you are still doing pretty good. If you have around 1 sale per 100 clicks that's pretty average, as far as I know, so you are still ok! But I also would like what others have to say.

 

[MarkKokas]

Your still in the early stages of PPC data, with 10 per day and total of 50 that puts you at a campaign thats been live for 5 days. I would give it another week at least before questioning your results.

 

[RCormack]

Good news, I think. I seem to have made a sale. It has not shown up in Google tracking but it is there in Clickbank. It is for $20. It has taken 75 clicks of my urgent keywords to get it. However, $20/75 is only 27 cents and I'm paying a lot more than that. Does anybody have any thoughts on how I will make this profitable? Will my cost per click go down over the length of the campaign? Of course, I will need to get the Google tracking to work so I can take out keywords that are not converting.

 

[johncrosbie]

Congratulations on your first sale! That's a big step.

Your conversion rate (1.3%) is good, and you'll increase that as you split-test your landing-page copy by playing beat the control with Google website optimizer. Make sure you always have 2 versions of your landing page running in your split test, then -- after at least 30 clicks and 7 days -- declare the winner, and add another challenger.

You also need to lower your cost per conversion. And the best way to do that is to split-test (notice a recurring theme here?) your ads, and focus on profitable keywords. As your ads get better and you delete loser keywords, your CTR will improve, and your CPC will come down. After a few weeks of testing, you may double your current CTR and halve your CPC. If you're still not profitable, lower your bid until you're in Position 6 or 7. And keep spit-testing and tweaking EVERY DAY until you reach your goal.

There's a name for somebody who never stops spit-testing. Rich! Hang in there.

all the best

John

 

[RCormack]

Sounds good but the Google conversion tracking will have to work to do any of that. Right now, I don't think the vendor has put my tracking code on there.

 

[RCormack]

Now the vendor has finally got back to me after I asked Clickbank to contact them and they have told me they do not put tracking code on their site. So much for split testing. I think I need to start over with different products and make sure the vendors are willing to put on the tracking code.

 

[johncrosbie]

Check out http://tracking202.com. It's a free service that handles tracking for affiliates.

all the best

John

 

[RCormack]

OK, that looks good and it might work but this thread has really gone off on a tangent. Someone has even changed the title for some reason. My original problem is still a big concern to me. The title of the post was "How Long to Wait to get 300 Clicks?". I have adjusted my campaign to get my ads appearing at position 4 in the search and now I get even less clicks per day, sometimes none and sometimes one or two. I'm split-testing various ads but I'll be waiting a year until I get to 300!

 

[JasonDodd]

I know you've probably heard this a thousand times but it sounds like you might have to revisit your keyword research - and make sure that you're not only targeting buying keywords e.g. focusing on searchers with a problem that needs solving but also you need keywords with sufficient traffic (1500 a month or more).

And for help on writing your ads, review this interview with one of the top ad copywriters in the world - you should get some pointer on ways to catch some of that traffic.

Also use the PPC analysis tools in Traffic Travis to follow your PPC competitors to see what they're doing particularly the advertisers who are not changing, obviously on to a winning thing

 

[RCormack]

Thanks for the advice. I see you've answered the question in my first post, "Should I start trying other keywords?" I've started with an added keyword, very relevant but no "fast" or "quick" in there, has about 2000 per month. I optimised the landing page for this keyword as much as possible and used the keyword checker on here to test it. Right now, it has only a quality score of 7/10 but maybe I can get it up to 10 in time as I have got some of my others at 10/10. I have it constantly appearing at postion 4 and getting 5-10 clicks per day (just that one keyword). The cost per click is 30p, which is about 50 cents. That seems a bit much, would you say I should abandon this keyword if it doesn't get me a sale every 40 clicks or so? That would have to be the conversion to break even.

P.S. The video interview is really good. I advise anyone to watch it. I took his advice and added a personal statement with photo and some testimonials. Even though this was not mentioned in the Blueprint course, I do think it makes the landing page look more credible and will increase my chances of making a sale.

 

[elogic0007]

Hey Rcormack,I have a tip for you... go to google keyword tool and put in the top 3 sites for your niche, google will tell you which keywords they rank for .. compare these to the keywords in your campaign to get some more keyword ideas then go from there...hope this helps ... I used this to my advantage ... google is a great resource

 

[RCormack]

Thanks. As it happens, the campaign was slapped and all scores went to 1/10. I opened a new google account and re-wrote all the pages with tons more content. Started the campaign from scratch and it was immediately slapped again. Since then, I thought there might be more info from Mark about the slap but he doesn't seem to have been affected. That was the dead end for me in Google PPC for this site because it has to have affiliate links on landing page to make money, as it is not a topic that would get subscribers. Affiliate links on landing page equals SLAP, at least in this niche. The page I was using was something much like this one: http://www.curemyyeastinfectionfast.com ... ection.php