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(but only if you act within the first 24 hours!)… but in the end they are usually nothing more than broken promises, outdated strategies, or just an overall waste of time.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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  • Posted in Featured, Super Affiliate Guide
213 pieces of wisdom given by ye faithful
  1. Dave said on October 12th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    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

    Reply
  2. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

    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.

    Reply
  3. Geiger said on October 12th, 2007 at 4:12 pm

    If you are directing them straight to the ad. How are you tracking conversions?

    Thanks,
    -Geiger

    Reply
  4. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    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.

    Reply
  5. Edgar said on October 12th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    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

    Reply
  6. Tim Spangler said on October 12th, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    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.

    Reply
  7. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

    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.

    Reply
  8. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    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.

    Reply
  9. CRA said on October 12th, 2007 at 6:11 pm

    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 :-)

    Reply
  10. ClarkeW said on October 12th, 2007 at 6:47 pm

    Zac,

    This is really great post. Great job on putting some quality valuable information out there! Keep up the good work.

    Reply
  11. Liberty and New Creation said on October 12th, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    Wow. Thanks for this rundown! I’m signing up right now and researching keywords this very second.

    Reply
  12. Ryan said on October 12th, 2007 at 8:54 pm

    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?

    Reply
  13. Rajuthan said on October 12th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

    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

    Reply
  14. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    The pixel tracking stats was an example from another campaign. I have not tried or tested the Amazon Weight Loss offer.

    Reply
  15. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    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.

    Reply
  16. Steve said on October 12th, 2007 at 11:16 pm

    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?

    Reply
  17. Zac Johnson said on October 12th, 2007 at 11:21 pm

    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.

    Reply
  18. Joey Magz said on October 13th, 2007 at 12:42 am

    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?

    Reply
  19. Steve said on October 13th, 2007 at 12:49 am

    Great. Thanks Zac.

    With 2) Do you have any experience/recommendations for other networks where you need to get approved for each offer?

    Reply
  20. Geiger said on October 13th, 2007 at 2:19 am

    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.

    Reply
  21. DrewAMP said on October 13th, 2007 at 2:34 am

    Zac! No joke, you totally just posted my niche I was about to use … not cool man. :P

    Nah, just messing with you. Just don’t use the Amazon Diet Zac posted everyone. It sucks.

    Reply
  22. Zac Johnson said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:03 am

    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.

    Reply
  23. Israel said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:12 am

    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?

    Reply
  24. BlogsTheme.com said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:42 am

    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?

    Reply
  25. Neil Duckett said on October 13th, 2007 at 4:20 am

    Great article Zac … will put it to the test shortly

    Reply
  26. Amit said on October 13th, 2007 at 4:40 am

    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?

    Reply
  27. Teejay said on October 13th, 2007 at 7:24 am

    Thanks for the guide

    Reply
  28. DotDriven said on October 13th, 2007 at 10:05 am

    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!

    Reply
  29. iBT said on October 13th, 2007 at 10:12 am

    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?

    Reply
  30. MyBlogContest said on October 13th, 2007 at 11:50 am

    Great tips, Thanks Zac!

    Reply
  31. Trai said on October 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm

    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

    Reply
  32. Trai said on October 13th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    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?

    Reply
  33. Chris said on October 13th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    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

    Reply
  34. Aditya Kumar Singh said on October 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    Old methods already :)

    Why don’t you respond to emails ? atleast when someone is reasonably pointing to some mistake in your blog ??

    Reply
  35. Roberta Ferguson said on October 13th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    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 :)

    Reply
  36. Tibi Puiu said on October 13th, 2007 at 2:02 pm

    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 :D

    Reply
  37. DrewAMP said on October 13th, 2007 at 2:21 pm

    Zac is very busy, but he’ll most likely get back to your email. Patience.

    Reply
  38. Zac Johnson said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:28 pm

    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.

    Reply
  39. Zac Johnson said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    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.

    Reply
  40. Mike C said on October 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    Wow there is so much information here. Am I curious to know if there is a minimum amount of click throughs that you can pretty much count on. Would you say you can convert at least 1% of the click throughs?

    Reply
  41. Zac Johnson said on October 13th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    On the content network, if you can pull 1% CTR… you are super lucky and good! Setup multiple offers, don’t just focus on one too long.

    Reply
  42. thewild1 said on October 13th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    great article.. really nice job

    Reply
  43. Abdalla Ahmed said on October 14th, 2007 at 5:46 am

    Great article Zac cleared up a lot of things for me.

    Just wondering, what would be an acceptable amount of signups from 500-1000 clicks (in terms of percentage)?

    Reply
  44. Milan Dinić said on October 14th, 2007 at 7:07 am

    Zac, I have some questions about advertising on PPC content networks. When you choose keyword or phrase, for example “weight loss”, do you choose other phrases where this keyword/phrase is already contained (i.e. “weight loss programs”) just because it has lower bid or you need this? Also this question is for advertising on Google SERPs.

    When you insert display URL and destination URL, can you put your affiliate URL in destination, but affiliate site’s URL in display URL, i.e. site.com/diet? I saw many times on AdSense ads that it is displayed normal URL of site, but when i click on it, I see that it is affiliate URL.

    Do you work with other networks, except NeverBlueAds, like Commision Junction, Linkshare, etc, and what are your results with them?

    Also, cookies for affiliates are valid for days, weeks, months, what about that?

    Reply
  45. Abdalla Ahmed said on October 14th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    I think cookies are valid for 1 month usually.

    Reply
  46. Aditya Kumar Singh said on October 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am

    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 :)

    Reply
  47. Vijay Teach Me $$ said on October 14th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    Hi Zac,
    Your article is worth many ebooks out there.
    I appreciate you taking time and showing the path for the newbie in the field of PPC.

    Vijay

    Reply
  48. Onias said on October 14th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

    Wonderful guide! I definitely had to write about it on my blog. ;)

    http://www.dailywebbers.com/stepping-into-ppc-marketing/

    Reply
  49. brian said on October 15th, 2007 at 12:15 am

    Zac,
    Once again - great post. Last week I went through and read your entire blog - so many pearls of wisdom.

    One question - have you done any PPC for products on Amazon? I’m doing some now - but not using the content network - wondering what your experience has been.

    I signed up with NBA last week and have a couple of links earning money on one of my niche sites - again, thanks for bring them to my attention!

    Brian

    Reply
  50. Zac Johnson said on October 15th, 2007 at 1:46 am

    Hey Brian,

    Thanks, glad to hear you read through the whole blog.

    I think it would be tough to promote Amazon products, since they offer such lousy commissions. I would maybe try for something like Buy.com or see what other programs might have the same products. Unless you are pulling some really low targeted clicks, this seems like a tough one for margins.

    Good luck with NeverblueAds!

    Zac

    Reply
  51. Zac Johnson said on October 15th, 2007 at 1:47 am

    Really depends on the offer. Simply toolbar or zip code offers may convert around 40%, while a CC required offer might convert around 1-4%.

    Reply
  52. DotDriven said on October 15th, 2007 at 5:06 am

    After reading through a couple times I had a couple question ;).

    keywords, do you suggest a handful of keywords or tens of thousands like some people say? If it is thousands, do you use specific tools to generate good list of keywords? Also, if it is thousands, is it just something you are hoping you throw a ton at the wall and only keep the ones that are accepted at your target price (like 5 cents, for example) and then ignore all the others that are too expensive?

    If you are doing the content network and sending them directly to the offer does the landing page context matter too much? I assume it would already be targeted as it is selling the actual product but do you need to focus on making sure your keywords real targeted. And does getting a domain to redirect help at all with the click cost if it contains the keywords?

    I think one of the biggest problems I have had in the past is getting keywords for a decent price. But then again, I was always running search and content on the same campaigns so obviously that messed it up some lol.

    Again, AWESOME write up and can’t wait to see the next installment! Thanks!

    Reply
  53. EasyRider said on October 15th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    Hi Zac,

    Thank you for your post. Basically, I followed your guide and launched a campaign to see how it will do and here is what I got. My stats on Google Adwords are (less than 24 hours):

    Ad Group 1: Clicks 3 Impr. 397 CTR 0.75% Avg. CPC $0.05 Cost $0.15 Avg. Pos 4.9

    Ad Group 2: Clicks 1 Impr. 538 CTR 0.18% Avg. CPC $0.04 Cost $0.04 Avg. Pos 10.4

    On the Neverblue stats it’s actually showing around 50 clicks (no impressions, I’m not sure why) and no conversions.

    I’m not sure if this is good or not or if it shows anything at all. But what I need to know is why Google Adwords stats are so much different from NeverBlue stats? Also why aren’t impressions reflected on Neverblue stats?

    Thank you!

    Reply
  54. James Seligman said on October 15th, 2007 at 6:28 pm

    Nice job Zac!

    It’s a great tutorial for those getting started and best of all it’s free!

    Reply
  55. Brad said on October 15th, 2007 at 10:48 pm

    @ EasyRider:

    Your stats are showing no impressions (most likely) because you’re direct linking (i.e. have no landing page which would show a hosted impression on the ad); the impression metric you want to focus on here is that provided by Google. With regards to clicks are you sending traffic to these links from anywhere else, might your visitors be checking the page multiple times and/or have you tested the landing page yourself - these will all count as “clicks” on the NB interface; luckily these don’t cost you anything.

    Cheers,
    Brad

    Reply
  56. Lisa said on October 16th, 2007 at 6:33 am

    Thank you so very much! It’s about darn time that someone recognizes not every potential marketer has bucks to shell out. I appreciate your time. Blessings.

    Lisa

    Reply
  57. izle said on October 16th, 2007 at 8:12 am

    If you are directing them straight to the ad. How are you tracking conversions?

    Thanks,

    Reply
  58. Brad said on October 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am

    @ izle:

    As Zac stated, you can either use SubID tracking, or, even better, have the network place your own pixel on the merchant’s thank you confirmation page.

    Reply
  59. Joey said on October 16th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Between your post and the comments above with your replies all of my questions were answered. Now its just down to research and development.

    Keep these type of posts coming and thanks also to the commenters.

    Reply
  60. EasyRider said on October 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    Thanks Brad. Yes I am direct linking, I am using paid search links and sending clicks directly to the offer. On some offers I’ve been getting good stats so far, but then the bid per click went up so high, it just throws everything off. When the bid changes, do I have to raise my max CPC or just keep it as it is? I’ve been noticing although some keywords are marked inactive they still bring in lots of impressions and clicks. So I am still trying to figure out how this works. I would appreciate any advice!

    Reply
  61. andrew said on October 17th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    I tried this with about 10 different campaigns in different niches. I get 0 impressions with a 5 cent bid. How is it possible for you to get 5 cent bids on highly competitive keywords when I can’t even get impressions on less competitive niches.

    Reply
  62. Brad said on October 17th, 2007 at 10:13 am

    @ andrew

    There are a couple points to keep in mind. Firstly, you won’t get impressions on competitive keywords with a 5 cent bid: impressions = f(bid,qual.score,CTR). You have to have a competitive bid, high quality score and a good historical CTR - you can build this up with a high bid, then lower that if you want but, you probably want to try targeted long tail keywords rather than highly competitive generic terms.

    Reply
  63. Alex said on October 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am

    Excellently packed tips. Will print it out to research in detail.

    Reply
  64. TestDriver said on October 17th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    This is more a guide how to use Adwords for complete newbies.
    5 cents clicks, no way.
    You showed us only how to spend money on AdWords not how to make money with AdWords.
    Pick a real offer and make a real case study.
    Sorry two thumbs down for this guide.

    Reply
  65. jlingk said on October 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    Sorry to rain on people’s parade here but this post is so completely general and really doesn’t give much insight into how you actually execute an affiliate marketing campaign. Noobs here that are going to launch a campaign from these instructions had better supplement it with some solid info on keyword research, bid tweaking, tracking at the keyword level and Quality Score.

    my $.02

    Reply
  66. Zac Johnson said on October 22nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    All of that was covered here. Quality Score is not needed when advertising on Content Network. Tweaking and Tracking, I wrote all about pixel tracking too. keyword research… I can’t do everything for you.

    Reply
  67. Dave said on October 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    How many keywords on average per campaign do you usually have?

    Reply
  68. Patrick said on October 24th, 2007 at 12:35 am

    I would like to know how many keywords you put in a content network ad group and do you use exact, phrase and broad matching?

    Reply
  69. JoeSpeed said on October 25th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

    I don’t know why Zac thinks this is super guide, really this is simple PPC-SE guide, no some new tips for low cost traffic and what to promote and make money… Don’t get me wrong Zac but i know for this back in 2003-2003 when somebody show how to make money with Ebay registrations promoting them on Google, making good money…

    Reply
  70. Christine said on October 25th, 2007 at 5:41 pm

    That’s nice, but can you really make a profit with 5 cents a click max and those highly competitive keywords you chose? I don’t think you can. Prove me wrong though. Can you post screenshots of the profit and ctr,cpc?

    Reply
  71. Geiger said on October 25th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    Zac, ever think about posting everything one time? keywords, Ads, etc…? I’ll donate the AdWords money if you give me a producer credit (link) :)

    Reply
  72. Mike said on October 25th, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    You mention not using Landing Pages and directing the ads to the offer itself. So how do you apply for NeverblueAds if you don’t have a site? It seems that they require one for registration.

    Reply
  73. Publishers Weblog said on October 27th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

    I agree with most people up there. More like a adwords for dummies there!

    Reply
  74. Nate said on October 27th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Zac:
    Excellent article. How do you feel about Commission Junction or Clickbank? PM via eamil is OK.

    Reply
  75. Pete said on October 29th, 2007 at 7:37 am

    Hi Zac,

    Great article, I was so impressed I gave it an attempt over the weekend and it worked great, I set a small budget just to test the waters and I made $18 in commission from about $3.40 in adwords.

    Then today I received this email from google.

    Hello,

    Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. After reviewing your
    account, we’ve found that one or more of your ads or keywords does not
    meet our guidelines. You can see your disapproved ad(s), the reason for
    disapproval, and editorial suggestions, from the Disapproved Ads page
    within your account.

    …

    Action taken: Suspended - Pending Revision
    Issue(s): Inaccurate Display URL

    …

    Action taken: Suspended - Pending Revision
    Issue(s): Inaccurate Display URL
    ~~~~~~~~~

    ———————
    POLICY DEFINITIONS:

    Inaccurate Display URL: Your Display URL must accurately reflect the
    URL of your website and it must be a viable web address that is part of
    your ad’s destination domain and include the domain extension.

    I did a little further investigation and found this in the Google AdWords Advertising Policies

    Google do not allow

    Redirect URLs: Ads that contain URLs that automatically redirect to the parent company.
    Bridge Pages: Ads for web pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company.
    Framing: Ads for web pages that replicate the look and feel of a parent site. Your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company’s or any other advertiser’s site.

    Correct me if I’ve misinterpereted your article, but what you describe here is in breach of the adwords guidelines.

    Is there any way around this without breaching any rules?

    Thanks,
    Pete

    Reply
  76. Geiger said on October 29th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    The problem is that your “Display URL” must contain the same URL that you end up with. You’ll find that once you correct your Display URL that your ad will either show less or be more expensive to show. That is because you will be competing with everybody else that has the same Display URL.

    Reply
  77. Andrea said on October 29th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

    I would like to make the same question made by Mike:
    ” You mention not using Landing Pages and directing the ads to the offer itself. So how do you apply for NeverBlueAds if you don’t have a site? It seems that they require one for registration.”

    Reply
  78. Cindy said on October 31st, 2007 at 12:20 am

    Super guide, Zac! It has kick started me into trying out some
    PPC campaigns. So far, I’ve gotten a couple of pay per lead conversions, however I’m operating at a loss. I’m trying to tweak the keywords to do better. Thanks again!

    Reply
  79. ms danielle said on November 15th, 2007 at 1:24 am

    i didn’t know this either. that in itself could’ve been its own article “tip”

    Reply
  80. Eric P. Martin said on November 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    Zac,

    I’m new to this affilaite markeitng but I’m wide open to learning. First, I would like to thank you for sharing this information as I’m a strong believer in sharing information rather than charging to be able to succeed.

    When I started to sign up as an affilaite for NeverblueAds, it asked for a website. I’m not sure why I would need one if I’m promoting an affilate program. Can you explain? Are they talking about a landing page?

    Reply
  81. Herman said on November 19th, 2007 at 7:14 am

    Hey Zac,

    How did you do the keyword grouping for content network in google?

    do you put them in small, relevan & tightly keywords in 1 adgroup? (around 5-25 keywords in each adgroups) or you just put 1000 keywords into 1 adgroup?

    Thanks
    herman

    Reply
  82. Herman said on November 21st, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    Hi Zac,

    Do you use any tracking program to track which keywords convert and which not?

    I know there are many tracking program out there, but they only track for search network, not the content network.

    Thanks,
    Herman

    Reply
  83. The Scholarships said on November 22nd, 2007 at 5:29 am

    “Quality Score is not needed when advertising on Content Network.”

    I think what you said is different with what Google said.

    See on:
    https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=21375
    Bullet #2 paragraph #2.

    Reply
  84. Zac Johnson said on November 22nd, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    I like to use pixel tracking, offered through Google Adwords. Have the network you are running the ad from, place a pixel on the confirmation page. NeverBlueAds is a good network to work with that will place pixels almost immediately.

    Reply
  85. Zac Johnson said on November 22nd, 2007 at 9:16 pm

    When you sign up to a network, they expect you to run their offers through your web site. If there is an issue with signing up and you don’t have your own URL, usually you can tell them you promote through PPC in the additional comments field. If not, you can always email them.

    Reply
  86. Kim said on December 2nd, 2007 at 10:58 pm

    Love your site Zac, I am not that impressed easily, you get right to the point, no fluff,filler etc.. Also when are you going to release your ebook, and if I have missed where to get it, let me know where, thanks!

    Reply
  87. REC said on December 12th, 2007 at 1:50 am

    Zac,

    In your opinion, how soon should you start a campaign that is seasonal? Such as Tax season.

    Reply
  88. Zac Johnson said on December 12th, 2007 at 2:07 am

    I would start as soon as possible. This way you can be ready for whenever the heavy traffic starts to hit. You will get leads year round, but when it’s crunch time, you want to make sure you are marketing right and have some good figures to run off of.

    Reply
  89. Lytech said on December 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am

    Zac, You the man! Just signed up with NeverBlueAds under you. Great post.

    lytech

    Reply
  90. Tevin Anderson - B2M said on December 14th, 2007 at 3:38 pm

    Ok Zac,

    So I just first turn at PPC marketing! I was “disallowed” within five days. But I