Make a Profit from Direct Linking with Google AdWords
One controversial question that always seems to come up, especially for newbies who are new to Google AdWords is, should I direct link to the sales page or create a landing page? Around 9 out of 10 so called Pay Per Click experts are going to tell you to create your own landing page. I sometimes like going against the grain so I’ve done a lot of experimenting with direct linking to a sales page.
I also use landing pages, but direct link whenever I see a good opportunity to save time and make a good ROI from it. Many of my most profitable direct linking campaigns on Google Adwords comes from placing my adds on keywords with the actual name of the website in it. I’m sure you can figure out why that is.
First off, I find a good affiliate offer that has a good sales page, usually the more popular it already is, the better. But placing adds on a new product with low searches and low competition will allow you to be in a good spot on Google Adwords when it does get popular. It could be a good CPA offer, clickbank product, or a cost per lead (CPL), doesn’t really matter what kind of affiliate offer you use.
I use a keyword tool and look up keywords for the volume of searches to see what keywords I’m going to use and their competition. Obviously the more searches for the keyword the better, at least for the experienced.
Remember, Google Adwords only displays one add per domain to be shown for each keyword at a time. Most “buying words” or exact names of popular websites will have several people direct linking to the sales page with the same domain name for those keywords, but only one will be shown. Google Adwords says it uses the quality score of the campaign, CTR and the amount of your bid to decide which add to show when 2 or more people are trying to display/use the same url. There are other options of direct linking like buying a domain name, redirects and etc…. but I usually don’t use those methods.
How do you get Google Adwords to start showing your add?
You need to start out with a high bid and continually change your add to be as relevant to your keywords and landing page. Hopefully you’ll be able to create a add more relevant than your competitor and then Google Adwords will start showing your add instead of theirs. It’s not really that difficult most of the time. I like looking at the sales page and sometimes even choosing a phrase or keywords they use quite often and adding that to my campaign. Once your add is showing, remember there are people who are trying to knock you out of that spot, so you have to get a very good CTR or your add may stop showing. You have to find the perfect balance of relevant keywords for your landing page, but also you need to create a add that get’s MEGA ATTENTION for a good CTR. With certain keywords it’s best to be the #1 add spot and this usually will also lead to a excellent click through rate.
I usually try to get a insane CTR, sometimes near 40% or higher with really low CPC. The picture above shows my 3 keywords for one of my campaigns, these keywords have a good search volume daily and I started off paying more than a dollar per click, but quickly got it down to near single digits per click after changing up the adds and keyword options.
Having the #1 spot can also end up costing a lot per click (CPC), which is why you need to continue to change your add around and strive to get a perfect 10 quality score for your keywords. Like the picture to the left is for the same campaign above.
I had to write a post about making a profit by direct linking using Google Adwords since so many people frown upon it and say there’s no way of making actual profit from it, cause I’ve done it and still do it. This post isn’t really meant for a newbie trying out PPC or Google Adwords for the first time. It’s quite easy to lose a lot of money quickly without a little experience.
I wasn’t able to start making profit in general from Google Adwords or especially from direct linking until I had gotten the right knowledge and experimented on my own. What’s great, once you’re confident using Google Adwords is that you can create a profitable campaign just about whenever you want to. You’ll be able to see things differently, like spot opportunities at just a glance. It also will be much easier to bump people out of a spot and have your ads show up.
I highly recommend grabbing the FREE 5 Days to Success with Google Adwords mini course from a renowned Adwords Guru. His products are some of the first things that helped me make a profit when I first started experimenting with PPC and clickbank. Remember, Pay per click programs and Google Adwords may all have different rules. Make sure you read each individual policy and tos cause some methods or websites may not be allowed. Please feel free to leave a comment of your thoughts or suggestions.
The Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance – It’s Coming!
It’s about time a Real Google Adwords alternative is finally in the works. The Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance has been given the thumbs up to be carried out in the United States and European Union.
Basically means, the Yahoo Search Marketing and the Microsoft advertising (Adcenter) advertising networks will now be joined together into one powerhouse for those of us who use Pay per click (PPC) or cost per click (CPC) advertising. Once implemented, both of them will be powered by Bing, and we will be able to control our advertising campaigns by using just one platform, Microsoft Adcenter.
Create your add campaign in Adcenter, and launch it, then your adds will show up on Yahoo and all of the Microsoft sites, and networks. It equals to a combined number of searchers of over 150 million in the U.S. and well over 500 million worldwide, which is roughly a 50% increase in search volume, rather than just using one of these networks by itself.
This alliance won’t be ready until end of 2010 or beginning of 2011. Until then, they say just continue using both networks, Yahoo and Microsoft regularly and they are going to make the transition smooth for everybody.
The Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance will be more convenient, efficient, and hopefully give a better return on investment (ROI). I know many SEM and Pay Per Click advertisers will be happy.
I have used all three paid search advertising networks before, Google Adwords, Yahoo search and Microsoft Search Marketing, but Google Adwords is what I mostly use. The other two, at least for me don’t deliver enough traffic and some of their functions for setting up campaigns are kind of lame compared to Adwords. Hopefully, both of these things will be improved with their new partnership for search marketing.
This is HUGE for Affiliate Marketers and business owners who use pay per click advertising regularly to drive instant targeted traffic. The Yahoo and Microsoft Alliance will be more cost effective and save time from having two separate accounts. This is great for anyone who has had their adwords account closed or wanted a alternative to Google Adwords and still get a High Volume of targeted searchers to their ads.
If you want to know anymore about this go here.
I am already anxious to try the new Yahoo and Microsoft Search out to see how it’s changed and how it will be different or alike Google Adwords. What do any of you think about this new alliance and are you going to try it out when it is available?
Ad Position for PPC Marketing
What’s the best ad position for ppc marketing? That is a good question and one that I’m still trying to figure out. But I will give you my two cents and tell you what is working for me currently.
Ad position makes a big difference because it will make your clicks cost more or less and how many people will click on it…right. Finding the right ad position for your ppc campaign is crucial to make good roi.
When I am bidding on actual product namebrand, the actual name of website you’re affiliating with I like to be #1. Yes it costs more per clicks at first but that is the money making keyword. People who don’t know about IM and put are looking for the specific keyword or website they are likely to click on the first ad they see on top of page.
They don’t know it isn’t the actual original owners site or not and they probably don’t care. Pretty much if they know the actual name of website and use that as the keyword then they already know about what the site is about and probably want to buy.
When I’m not bidding on product names or actual website names then I like to be either on the bottom of the list or between position 3 – 5. That way I’m not paying the high keyword price 1 or 2 but visitors will see my add on the right probably on top or middle. It’s a good spot to still catch the potential customers eye with a good ad.
I noticed being on the bottom of the page for your ad you’ll get really low click thru and that leads to lower quality score which leads to higher costing clicks. The only time to be on the bottom would be you have a Killer ad so you still get good amount of clicks.
