The Super Affiliate’s Guide to PPC Marketing
There are many ebooks out there that promise you riches for the low price of $97 (but only if you act within the first 24 hours!)… but in the end they are usually nothing more than broken promises, outdated strategies, or just an overall waste of time. I took the time to create this guide because I want others to learn how to make money online, without having to weed their way through expensive ebooks and other programs which pass them further along the path of shelling out more money. In this walkthrough I will show you how and where to find offers to promote, how to setup a new Google Adwords campaign, and at the end I give you my GOLDEN TIPS to help make your ppc Marketing Succeed. Though this is a long post, this is only my first chapter of many, which will be included in the master “The Super Affiliate’s Guide to PPC Marketing” when I feel it is complete. Feel free to post any questions or comments and I will get to them in the next chapter. (UPDATE: Promote your ppc campaigns through MSN AdCenter & Receive $75 in Free Clicks. Click here for my latest chapter in the Super Affiliate’s Guide to PPC Marketing.)
1.) Where to Find an Offers
One of the most important factors in making money with PPC Marketing is utilizing a high quality offer which will effectively bring in sales. I recommend using NeverBlueAds to search through a large amount of high paying offers that you can promote through PPC. In this guide (demonstration), I will use their network and one of their offers to walk you through the process. (If you are not already a NeverBlueAds affiliate, you can click here to signup and your account should be approved quickly.)
- Apply to NeverBlueAds
- I also recommend running PPC campaigns through RocketProfit, AzoogleAds and AffiliateFuel.
2.) Setup a Google Adwords account
If you don’t already have a Google Adwords account, you will need to signup for one now. Through Google Adwords, you will setup and track all of your pay per click campaigns. In addition to Google, I also recommend using MSN and Yahoo. However, this guide is based on the Google Adwords method.
3.) Selecting Your Offer to Promote
Once you are a member of NeverBlueAds, you can log into their system. On the main login page you will see a “search box” and you will also see a field for “Top Ten Search Campaigns”. If you want to try running an offer that others are already doing well with, you can simply grab one of the top ten offers listed, or you can search and find a campaign on your own. One benefit to finding an offer other than one listed in the “top ten” is that you will have less competition and saturation. Lately I have preferred working with higher end CPA offers, this way I can spend more on lower click amounts to test the campaign (example: 1000 clicks @ .05 = $50. If a campaign is paying $50 per lead, that allows me to test with a “1000 clicks to 1 lead ratio”, before losing any money. 1000 clicks at .05 will not be easy to obtain on most high paying offers and volume may be slow, but it’s still profit. Set this same method up for 10 campaigns and you are earning at a faster rate.)
For this PPC Guide, I will use the “Amazon Weight Loss” offer on NeverBlueAds. The offer currently pays a $32 commission and is ranked 5/5 for Network Earnings. I have not personally tested or run this offer, this is just for the walkthrough.
4.) Setting up your PPC Campaign
Once logged into your Google Adwords account.
A:) Go to Create a New Campaign, and click “keyword Targeted”
B:) On the next page you will setup your “Campaign Name” and “AdGroup“. The “Campaign Name” of course should be the same as the offer name you are promoting. You can setup multiple “AdGroups” for a campaign. AdGroups are basically the different sets of keywords that you want to promote. To start out I would stay with ONE AdGroup. (On this same page you can also target by “Language” and “Country“. We won’t change these fields)
C:) The next page goes into more detail on “Country” tracking. We will stick with United States targeting.
D:) On the “Create Ad” page, you will write up your ad copy that people will see when they use Google Search or see your ad on a site using Google Adsense. The mock write up I did for the “Amazon Weight Loss” campaign is shown below.
E:) After writing up your ad copy, you will be sent to the “Choose Keywords” page. From here you will decide on all the traffic keywords that will target your ad to appear. Your keywords will greatly effect your traffic, conversions and pay per click bid rates. One way you can get more keywords is to use Google’s “Want More?” keyword feature. Simply enter any keyword or phrase, such as “weight loss“, and Google will provide you with a bunch of relevant terms. You can then click “Add” next to each term, and this will add it to your campaign keywords. Another tool you can use to gain relevant keywords is Google’s Keyword Tool.
F:) I went through and selected the first ten results from the Google “Want More?” keyword tool for “weight loss“. On the next page you will decide how much you are willing to pay per click, and set your daily budget. I setup bid pricing at a max of .05 per click and my daily budget is at $100 per day. Setting the daily budget is very important, as this will limit your ad costs and any loss you may incur while trying to make your campaign profitable. You will also need to be more creative with your keywords (for a particular weight loss campaign like this), as bid pricing on these targeted terms is much higher than .05 per click.
G:) We are now at the last step of setting up your ppc campaign, and this is to simply review everything you have setup.
H:) You have now completed setting up your campaign, and it should now be live. If there were any problems with your campaign, Google will send you an email letting you know if your campaign was denied and why. Depending on your keywords and bid prices, traffic should start flowing through your new campaign. If at anytime you want to pause or stop the campaign, you can do so at the main page of your Google Adwords account.
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GOLDEN TIPS TO MAKE YOURS PPC CAMPAIGN SUCCEED!
1.) SubID Tracking: When first grabbing your offer from NeverBlueAds to promote, make sure you go to the offer creative page, click “Paid Search Creatives”. Once on this tab you should see an area that says “Use Subid”. You can put a simple tag in here like “googlediet“. A new url will be given to you in the above url section. You can grab this url and promote it on your Google Adwords campaign. By doing this you can pull separate tracking reports based on your campaigns. If you were two run this same offer on Google, Yahoo and MSN, create three separate subid urls and you can easily track your campaign performance for each.
2.) Pixel Tracking: In addition to SubID tracking, you can pull a pixel code from Google Adwords. With a pixel in place on the offer confirmation page, Google can then provide you with some really great stats on your campaign. Instead of just seeing what your click, impression and cost amounts are, Google can now show you your conversion rates and average price to obtain a lead. (To setup pixel tracking, go to any of your existing campaigns on Google Adwords, then you can click “Conversion Tracking” on the top menu”.) To place a tracking pixel on a CPA offer run through a network like NeverBlueAds, you will need to contact your affiliate manager about having them place the pixel for you.
3.) Content Network vs Google Search: To get listed on Google’s main search, you will need to create your own landing page and have your own hosted site and worry about quality score rankings, which will effect your bid pricing. If you are advertising on the “content network”, you don’t need to create your own site. Through the content network you can send traffic directly to the campaign you are advertising. (To advertise on the Google Content Network, go to your campaign main page on Google Adwords, click “Edit Campaign Settings“, then only check off “Content Network“.)
4.) Link Url: When setting up your Google Adwords campaign, you were asked to give a “Display URL” and a “Destination URL“. If you are going to advertise on the “content network”, here’s a tip that can really improve your CTR. Instead of listing your “Display URL” as http://nbjmp.com/click/?s=444&c=33790&subid=googlediet, you can purchase a domain through GoDaddy and redirect the url to your offer landing page. You can only imagine how many more people would show interest and click a link that said something like http://www.MyBestWeightLossNow.com (fake url), rather than a long string of letters and numbers that aren’t relevant to the ad. Once you have done some testing with your campaign, throw a few bucks into a referral domain name and see how much it may improve your overall campaign numbers.
5.) Ad Variations: Having more than one advertisement for everyone to see, can greatly improve your ppc campaign. Setup a new ad creative and add it to your rotation by going to your main campaign page, clicking on an “Ad Group“, then click the “Ad Variations” tab near the top right. Click “Text Ad” (next to Create New Ad) and repeat the process above for writing your new ad copy. Once you have a few ads in rotation, you can further optimize your ppc campaigns by seeing which are pulling the best click through rates as well as conversion costs.
6.) The Big 3: Google, Yahoo and MSN are the big three search engines and between the three of them, they will produce enough volume for you to successfully make money enough with PPC. There are a ton of second tier search engines out there, and plenty of them offer clicks as low as .01 each. I highly recommend staying away from these search engines for marketing, at least until you have some experience with PPC. The majority of the second tier search engines will send low quality and/or foreign traffic. Stick with the BIG 3… test with each and see where your ad dollars are converting best.
DISCLAIMER: As much as I would like for everyone who reads this to make money, I’m sure it isn’t possible. This is a disclaimer to state that I have no affiliation with Google, Yahoo, MSN, NeverBlueAds, AffiliateFuel or AzoogleAds, beyond the aspect of being an affiliate and or advertiser. Zac Johnson and ZacJohnson.com are in no way responsible for your actions, gains or losses from ppc marketing after reading this guide. Please feel free to ask or comment with any questions or comments you may have.
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Nick-
Just so I am sure on where you are sending these leads, you are sending them directly to the programs website and not to a site of your own first?
Thanks,
Dave
Hey Dave,
Correct. These are basically one time cpa deals. You promote the offer and work on acquiring leads for a lower price than you are paid, profit is your difference. Though if you run your own site or store, this same ppc process still applies. Soon I will have a new shopping site up and I will post on how to market the site and increase sales through PPC.
It does not matter if you send the leads directly to the programs’ website. The bottom line is to make the sales and the sales are made at the program site.
If you are directing them straight to the ad. How are you tracking conversions?
Thanks,
-Geiger
If you are promoting a CPA offer on NeverBlueAds or another network, if you ask they will usually place the pixel on the confirmation page for you.
Now THAT is a pearl of wisdom!
- Geiger
btw… I signed up using your AffiliateFuel Link. I brought in over $20k in revenue for Azoogle Last month ($1,000 for NeverBlue) so I “should” get in but we shall see.
i didn’t know this either. that in itself could’ve been its own article “tip”
[…] Zac Johnson wrote a fantastic post today on “The Super Affiliate’s Guide to ppc Marketing”Here’s ONLY a quick extractFor this PPC Guide, I will use the “Amazon Weight Loss” offer on NeverBlueAds. The offer currently pays a $32 commission and is ranked 5/5 for Network Earnings. I have not personally tested or run this offer, this is just for the … […]
I do have a question .. about a landing page. using my own domain URL, should I paste the HTML code that NeverBlueAds provides on to my Destination URL ?
or should I forward my Destination URL to the Programs/Lead Website ?
This is what I mean, I have created Two Landing pages
using HTML and Redirect which one should I be using.
Thanks Zac Your help is really appreciated.
Edgar
When I started out promoting offers on ppc, I also made landing pages and sat them on my servers. Then I realized I could send traffic right to the offer.
You can do the separate landing page if you want, then have the user click the link or creative, but it will drastically cut your conversions and increase your ad costs.
This will work on the content network, for Google Search you need a decent site/landing page to promote.
You don’t touch on quality score in here, and anyone who uses search to send an offer straight to a merchant’s landing page is almost certainly gonna get slapped on QS.
Soooo…are you saying (in #3) not to bother with search and run only on the content network? It’s always been my impression that conversions on the content network suck so bad (and drag down your CTR) that they’re not worth trying for.
Great post, by the way. It’s good to see the masters trying to help the newbies.
I’ve made all my profit through the content network. I would only focus on regular search, once I found a successful offer on the content network. To run on the Search Network, I would then have to create my own site and compete with higher minimums and quality score.
Kudos to you. Probably the most valuable post I have read all year - really. I’m sick of reading posts that are just opportunities for people to show off and market themselves to potential clients. Meaty post
Zac,
This is really great post. Great job on putting some quality valuable information out there! Keep up the good work.
Wow. Thanks for this rundown! I’m signing up right now and researching keywords this very second.
Thanks! I have been on NeverBlue for a few months but never thought of using it in this way. I have set up a campaign and I’ll post the results on my blog in the next week.
How long would you wait (using your $100/day example) before giving up on a poorly converting campaign? How much would you suggest tweaking the adwords units?
How long you test and run the campaign really depends on your click amounts and bid pricing. If you are running a high end offer and have to pay .50 ppc, your $100 test will go pretty fast. I like to run test campaigns with around 1,000 clicks. This should give you a good idea on your conversions. If your first test shows a 30% loss, you are doing alright, just keep tweaking the campaign and you can get it profitable.
Did you get 3 Leads with it or is it an example? and Dam I never knew content network didnt have QS. Cant wait to start on adwords next week.
Thanks for the tips
Keep up the good work
The pixel tracking stats was an example from another campaign. I have not tried or tested the Amazon Weight Loss offer.
Hey Zac,
Great article, thanks for the detailed info. Just a couple of questions:
1. With AdWords do you tend to use only broad match, or do you use phrase and exact match as well? Does it make much difference, in your experience, on the content network?
2. Is it, generally, quite easy getting approved for the offer? Obviously with your track record, it’s much easier… but if a newbie comes along and has a site about kitchen sinks will they have problems getting approved for a weight loss programme?
1.) Broad Match, I don’t think it makes much of a difference on content network.
2.) NeverBlueAds pretty much approves everyone sent through this blog. Once an affiliate, you can promote any of their offers.
Great. Thanks Zac.
With 2) Do you have any experience/recommendations for other networks where you need to get approved for each offer?
Once you are accepted as an affiliate, most networks let you run whatever offers are on the network. Usually the only offers you need to apply for are special high paying and exclusive offers, or sometimes offers that manage their ppc marketing closely.
Zac,
Thanks so much for the post. I am the true definition of a newbie. All these terms are familiar to me from 2002, but they were over my head then (still are). Should I just give this a shot or do you think I should start out with something more basic?
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Zac! No joke, you totally just posted my niche I was about to use … not cool man.
Nah, just messing with you. Just don’t use the Amazon Diet Zac posted everyone. It sucks.
zack, what would you say about making a write up for an affiliate offer then doing some ppc and directing it to that post page?
Interesting post. It’s great for a start, in the end you will put all these chapter together, and make a new ebook about ppc?
Great article Zac … will put it to the test shortly
Zac,
Suppose if i do it the following way:
1) Select a random product product
2) Blog about that product on my blog & install the affiliate code within that particular post.
4) Put adsense (if I’m not already using it)
3) Buy traffic with Adwords
I think it will benefit me in three ways -
1.First of all I’ll get traffic from my regular readers
2.Secondly if the product is good, it will be purchased, making me some affiliate money
3.Lastly, even if the product is not purchased, the visitor might happen to click on adsense ads, which will in turn atleast make me a few dollars even if the product is not sold.
What do u think?
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Thanks for the guide
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Zac, I know I wasn’t the first or only to ask you to make a tutorial on this but am definitely glad my post helped get you in the mood to do it. And as you can see already, a ton more people are also happy about it heheh. So thanks so much for taking the time to do this! I really look forward to giving it a shot and documenting my progress (giving you full credit of course!) and can’t wait to see the next installment!
Awesome that Chow even posted about it and that you inspired him to do something like it as well. Nice job ;).
Thanks again, really!
It is all good, but it is very hard to get $0.05 clicks from content networks too. I even running weight loss keyword with $.10 bid on content networks, I have no impression. Maybe my keywords are just too generic.
Is your above Adwords stats for Amazon Diet campaign?
I can’t imagine you will be able to get .05 clicks from content. You are probably gonna have to go with some long tail keywords vs. such a popular term as weight loss.
ex. weight loss diet, quick weight loss, fast weight loss, etc..
There’s usually too much competition in keywords/keyword phrases that are just 1 or 2 words unless you’ve got some great niche that is untapped.
my $.02
Zach,
When I first read this I didn’t realize you were just using the content network in the example. Then I read a comment from above where you said this is how you’ve made most of your profit. In a real life scenario do you just post the top 10 keyword results or do you spend more time doing keyword research?
A lot of time is spent on keyword research. I would never expect to get much traffic at .05 a click for “weight loss” keywords, and this was mentioned in the walk through. You need to focus on long tail keywords and with a weight loss offer, you should be able to spend around .10-.25 per click if you work on your description, ad copy and selecting a converting offer.
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Great tips, Thanks Zac!
Hey Zac, thank you for this great post. I have been planning for months to start doing some ppc, but have been putting it off. This post inspire me to get my first campaign going this weekend.
Thanks!
Chris
Old methods already
Why don’t you respond to emails ? atleast when someone is reasonably pointing to some mistake in your blog ??
Zac is very busy, but he’ll most likely get back to your email. Patience.
I’ll make an update on the WidgetBucks earnings post later. I receive over 200+ “real” emails daily that want me to respond to them. As much as I try, I simply don’t have a chance to get back to each and everyone.
Okay Zac. Thanks for replying here. I can understand, you would be getting lots of emails. Just go thru them is alright. Replying is not necessary
Great post for newbies to affiliate marketing and ppc like myself. I can’t wait for my site to start bringing in scores of people and getting clicks. I’m going to start getting more into PPC as time goes on, but for now, I’m trying to get organic traffic.
We’ll see what happens. Thank you for this pearl of wisdom
Excellent article John, your best yet I think. I never made a affiliate campagin, and been meaning to start with affiliate marketing for a while now, but never had the motivation till now. Will try to follow your tips in my first affiliate marketing campagin, that i hope to launch next week. Will keep you update