Forum

[cteahan]

Hi there,

I was just wondering about what sort of return on investment can be expected for marketing affiliate links through PPC programs. What is typical/what should be aimed for?

Thanks,
Chris.

 

[sean06]

This is a pretty hard question to answer. 1 billion percent would be nice, but probably not likely :)

What ROI makes it worth it depends on where you are. For example, if you were making $5000 a day, then spending 3 hours a day to barely break even wouldn't really be worth it.

However, if you're new, then as long as you're making money, its good, because you are still learning too.

 

[cteahan]

This is a pretty hard question to answer. 1 billion percent would be nice, but probably not likely :)

What ROI makes it worth it depends on where you are. For example, if you were making $5000 a day, then spending 3 hours a day to barely break even wouldn't really be worth it.

However, if you're new, then as long as you're making money, its good, because you are still learning too.

Yeah, I mean while I am testing and getting the hang of things I'd be happy to break even, but I'd like to think I could get to a point where I could at least double my money.

 

[sean06]

Thats definitely possible. Theres a bit of a learning curve, so just don't expect to do it overnight.

 

[cteahan]

Thanks for your help so far.

Now I've got another one for you :)

I'm promoting something at the moment through adwords, its an internet marketing course, I'm marketing it using keyworks such as:
internet maketing course
online internet marketing training
etc..

At the moment I'm bidding £0.10 GBP per click (about $0.20 USD), with a daily budget of £5. I'm marketing only on the search (not content ads) and to only English speaking countries.

My ad has been up for well over 24 hours and I'm yet to even receive a single impression never mind any clicks. Am I missing something? I searched for my keywords in google search and looked through all of the sponsered listings but I can't find my ad anywhere....

Any ideas?

 

[sean06]

I can tell you your problem straight away. Your keywords are too broad. You need to find keywords that someone looking to BUY the product.

 

[adrian]

Thanks for your help so far.

Now I've got another one for you :)

I'm promoting something at the moment through adwords, its an internet marketing course, I'm marketing it using keyworks such as:
internet maketing course
online internet marketing training
etc..

At the moment I'm bidding £0.10 GBP per click (about $0.20 USD), with a daily budget of £5. I'm marketing only on the search (not content ads) and to only English speaking countries.

My ad has been up for well over 24 hours and I'm yet to even receive a single impression never mind any clicks. Am I missing something? I searched for my keywords in google search and looked through all of the sponsered listings but I can't find my ad anywhere....

Any ideas?

It probably hasn't been reviewed yet or approved.

Adrian,

 

[freekdl]

your keywords are probably too broad like sean said (9,690,000 hits for internet marketing course), but also, if you use the same display URL than another ad you will have to outbid them to get your ad shown.

google will NEVER show 2 ads with the same display url.

if you go to your adgroup and move the cursor over the little magnifier picture next to your keyword, they will tell you if somebody using the same display url has a higher ranking.. in that case you will have to outbid him

this outbidding can be expensive.. I have 1 ad running on 2nd place for 60 cents, another on 1st place costs me almost $1, and some I tried didn't even work on a monster bid of $5! in that case it's better to make a landing page

google's display url rule does come in handy for the outbidding though.
if I don't see my ad, I increase my bid a little, wait 2 minutes & check
if I see my ad on http://www.google.com/search?q=+&adtest=on
if not I repeat this untill my ad appears (unless the price is getting insane)..

 

[cteahan]

Thanks for all your help.

I changed my bid to £0.20 and tried marketing as a test just for the keyworkds 'internet marketing'. I've started to get impressions but very few, only one has resulted in a click so far. I've used the adtest feature of goolgle and the only engine that I can see my listing on is for google.co.za (south africa) which has it on the second page.

google.com, google.co.uk, google.co.au etc, its nowhere to be found, at least not in the first 10 or so pages.

So I guess my question is this, if you guys were promoting an internet marketing course, what sort of keywords would you use that you wouldnt have to pay rediculous prices for? Or is it just a case that there is so much competition for these keywords that I'd have to pay silly money to get listed on the first couple of pages for them, and if I did (pay silly money) do you think it would be worth spending it per click to get this traffic?

Any help is greatly appreciated,

many thanks,

Chris.

 

[markling]

The internet marketing / make money online market is an extremely competitive market to go into. I always say that competition is a good thing, but in this case you're typically going up against people who know what they're doing, know how to write an Adwords ad that gets clicks, know how to create landing pages that convert to sales, and can therefore afford the high prices they're paying for clicks.

Or... you're going up against newbies who are bidding ridiculous amounts because they're trying to beat the first guys.

I'm not saying you can't do it, you just need to be aware that it's a pretty volatile market. Make sure your landing page is pure gold beforehand, (not only will this help sales, but it'll help your Quality Score with Google) and be prepared to burn through quite a bit of money before you hit on something that starts turning a profit.

I'm adding a lesson to Affilorama in the next couple of days that shows you how to find the most profitable keywords for PPC. Keep an eye out for that and give it a go.

Otherwise you could look at organic SEO. If you do this well you can at least outrun the newbies :)

All the best,
Mark

 

[cteahan]

Thanks for your feedback Mark. That's pretty much what I suspected, I am working on organic SEO pages also at the moment, I'm just curious about the PPC/affiliate marketing world so I'm trying to satisfy my curiosity. I think my next step is to research less competative markets where I might have a fighting chance while I learn more about the techniques involved.

I'll keep an eye out for that lesson.

Many thanks,

Chris.