It looks like this. (Note: it is not always this obvious… a simple rule is that your clicks curve should match your sales curve… — there are always exceptions to this rule)
Obviously I should not be buying their traffic during the evenings…
Hint (it is mostly Yahoo Traffic)…
Somebody contacted me using that little chat widget on the right with this opening line:
Greetings I have been trying to get into the PPC arena for about a year without much succes constantly getting google slapped and tried a few other PPC source with no real measure of performance can you help
I was kinda busy at the time, so I simply said
Do you have a specific question?
You know what. here is the whole thing, I am in a rush to take all my girls to see High School Musical 3 tonight.
Guest: Greetings I have been trying to get into the PPC arena for about a year without much succes constantly getting google slapped and tried a few other PPC source with no real measure of performance can you help
Me: Do you have a specific question?
Guest: what am i doing wrong or not doing (I know you have no info about me or my site at this time) but would you be willing to look at my site and give you opinion\
My Thoughts: No specific question really.
Me: usually i na case like yours it is not just one thing
Me: *in a
Me: google slaps = stop making crappy sites
Me: biggest thing you need
Me: is tracking
Guest: I’m sure but i have doing this for a year with little return I have bought books and endless searches on the net right now i workwith click bank and already have a site and ads but not sure what else to try
Guest: what “googles” defination of a crappy site
My Thoughts: How can I tell him to “google it” nicely….
Me: that is something you should be able to find out foryourself
Me: by just looking through Adwords Help and FAQ
Me: if you can’t do that then PPC is not something you should be doing
Me: There is no “shortcut” or trick
Me: it is just a matter of hard work
Me: trying and failing a lot
Me: if you are going to ASW I’ll gladly spend a few min glancing @ your stuff to tell you if anything comes to mind
Guest: unfortunitly i’m not but i would be happy to forward my site and maybe an ad for your opinion
My Thoughts: Hmm.. do I really want to mess with this? Ah ha. I can use it as a sorta blog post/site review, that would be worth my time.
Me: can I useit in a blog post
Me: make it public, etc?
Guest: can i send it in an email
Me: I’ll post my reply as a new blog post
Me: that cool?
Guest: yeah that would be great
My Thoughts: Gotta make sure they know what they are getting into.
Me: and your ok with others seing the site and the ad
Me: *seing
My Thoughts: CURSES! I can’t spell crap.
Me: *sEeing
Guest: depends you how bad you rip my site /ad apart
Me: lol
Me: I’ll tell you what I tell everyone
Me: Don’t fall in love with your site or your keywords or youe campaigns
Guest: no really i don’t want to look like an ass even if i am one
Guest: ok i should be chating anyway i will email later today
Me: k
Me: tlak l8r
Guest what… no email from them.
I am glad to answer questions, etc. but something like “why am I not making any money” is way to general for a simple answer. And don’t ask me stuff that you can find out if you just read AdWords FAQs. However, in person at a conference when I am in a good mood, I’ll happily answer stuff like that. 
I’ve got a campaign that has been running for a decent while with a couple thousand keywords and a few hundred adgroups that have been slowly built over time.
Yesterday I wanted to try out google’s “opportunities for improvement” feature on this campaign. But google wouldn’t run on it because the campaign had more then 64 adgoups and more then 2000 keywords. grrrr
So I took a quick look and found that only about 10 of the adgroups had any conversions in the past 3 months. I put on my wizard hat and took the s….. Actually I was just ruthless and deleted all the adgroups that had no conversions in the past 90 days. Would google let me run their “opportunities for improvement” feature now that I shrunk it down? No! But now it just says “sorry, can’t do it” w/o a reason.
Fine I think.. I’ll leave it alone and let the campaign do its thing.
Here is where the awesomesauce comes in: After wiping out the “dead weight” my CTR shot up by 67.6% my avg position went up by only 2% (nothing significant) cost per click down by 1.2% (nothing significant). My clicks went up by 56.7%. This of course resulted in lots more conversions.
So… if you have a really big campaign that has profit in it. Trim the adgroups and keywords that are not converting, google and you will both be happier.
Well I spent this weekend and part of this morning wrapping this up. Remember way back when I talked about making some free ppc software that would work for Win, Mac and Linux?
Well I finally did it.
Basic Screenshot showing usage
It is essentially a keyword expander. With a cool rotation feature thrown in there.
Let me know if there are bugs, etc. If you like it or hate it.
Hi John,
Quick question, I was using Marchex and Miva to drive traffic to my adsense sites, my traffic soared and I was disabled by adsense for invalid clicks, does Marchex or Miva use tricks to boost their own revenue? My account was about 3 years old and never had a problem until I started using PPC to drive traffic to my sites
In your opinion, what is the best alternative to Adsense for making money with websites.
Thanks,
[Edited]
First of all, don’t feel too bad. You are not the first who is in this situation and you won’t be the last. Google has gotten pretty strict on driving paid traffic to MFA sites. Driving PPC traffic to MFA sites is how I got started in affiliate marketing. Heck, I even got banned from Adsense around the time Iron Man came out. But by then I had moved almost everything from adsense to real affiliate revenue (leads, people actually buying something, etc) and not just clicks. I do still have one or two sites that generate revenue from clicks, but I do not focus on them at all.
Personally I am not a fan of Marchex or Miva. (Miva’s precision network is kinda ok, but it is really spotty) Using these guys is fine if you are doing leads or purchases, just plan on your conversion rate being at least 1/3 to 1/4 of what you are used too (maybe even less).
If you work at it you can beat any adsense revenue by running product or lead gen campaigns (who do you think was paying for the adsense ads in the first place?) Now you get to move up a level in the internet marketing foodchain.
Look at who was advertising on your adsense slots. Can’t do that? Then look who is advertising on google, yahoo, msn for your targeted keywords. See what they are selling. Try selling that…
Most of the time Adwords support chat is kinda spotty. Today they were spot on. (I apologize for the horible pun.)
Anuradha S: Hello John. Thanks for contacting Google AdWords. I’m happy to help you.
John: Thanks, I am happy that you’re happy to help
Anuradha S: That was a good one! I see that you have a question regarding the approval of image ads.
Anuradha S: Let me explain that ad reviews do depend on the incoming volumes.
Anuradha S: I will need to check your account.
Anuradha S: Would you mind waiting a moment while I pull up your account?
John: I’ll happily wait
Anuradha S: Thanks for waiting!
Anuradha S: I checked and see that the ads are under review.
John: I managed to stay happy the whole time.
Anuradha S: I will be happy to help you with the review of the ads and will run this past team.
Anuradha S: Thought I could use one ‘happy’ at least!
John: lol, if we were any more happy it would be illegal
Anuradha S: That is true!
Anuradha S: I hope that helped!
John: So, the ads are in review and I just need to sit tight till they are approved?
Anuradha S: I will get them reviewed with the team.
John: Thanks
Anuradha S: Is there anything else that you will need help with?
John: Not right now, I think that is it.
Anuradha S: Great!
Anuradha S: It was a pleasure chatting with you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to visit our Help Center. You can also print this chat transcript for your records. Have a great day.
I think being in a ridiculously good mood on my end helped. I bet most of the time they just get crap like “you are too expensive” or “why u ban my sight, I not spamming” etc. So if you have had a bad experience in the past, try again and be happy when you do it. They will be happy too
Woooo, fancy title claiming to make gobs of cash in no time at all. Well the reality is you have to work up to this point. Here is an example. Say you are bringing in 90 leads a day with a payout of $2.50. Not bad, not bad you say to yourself. If you have a good relationship with your affiliate manager (and who doesn’t?) then ask for a payout bump.
My conversation went something like this.
8:55:46 AM Me: on another note, there are a few campaigns I am getting some traction on. wondering if I can get a payout bump on them?
8:55:52 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: of course
8:56:00 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:08 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: you name the campaign and i’ll name the payout
8:56:15 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: <private cool stuff>
8:56:28 AM Me: this one
8:56:29 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:31 AM Me: and
8:56:36 AM Me: <private cool stuff>
8:56:38 AM Me: that one
8:56:40 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: ok
8:59:21 AM Awesome Affiliate Manager: ok, on the <private cool stuff> i can go to <private cool stuff>
8:59:30 AM Me: cool
8:59:48 AM Super Affiliate Manager: and the <private cool stuff> 2.70
So now instead of 2.50 it is 2.70. If the campaign sustains (if anything I should be able to get higher volume) that is ~90 * .2 * 365 = over 6500. In less them 5 minutes.
I usually don’t ask for a payout bump unless I am providing a decent amount of volume and I know I can keep it up. Nothing lamer then getting a payout bump and then dropping the campaign.
Here is what I mean by this.
Say you are promoting a product. You need to stop thinking like the person trying to sell it. “dog training” is a nice general keyword, but really your keyword should solve a problem. “stop dog peeing on carpet” is a person looking for a solution. The people looking for solutions are going to be much more interested in your dog training guide. This concept can apply to just about any niche.
Here is another one
auto insurance quotes vs i need insurance vs i hate geico
look, “i hate geico” has zero ads right now. Bet you get some killer CTR and conversions with links to someone who isn’t geico
But how do you know which will work and which don’t? Easy. Do all of them. Yes *all* of them. (caveman speak:Turn off bad. Leave on good)
Ok, I have a question for you all. I have had products I have created in the past cracked and stolen via piracy (Encrypted Messenger) which is one of the biggest reasons I stopped updating the software and just gave it away for free. Since I moved into affiliate marketing I have had entire websites copied and ripped off. I figured that was just the way it went. Am I wrong?
So I did some digging and research and found keywordspy and spyfu and even shoemoney tools as well as some clickbank products and others which all copy keywords and ads more or less. Some people use this information for inspiration, some just copy the ads directly and test which ads work. I have done both.
I got an email from a super affiliate (who apparently makes a ton more money than I do) getting mad at me for copying one of his ads. Is he right? Did I copy him? Not him personally.. no. I really don’t know who he is. I would guess his ad came from one of those places I linked to above.
Is it bad/evil to use the tools above to test different existing ads out there? Feel free to comment, I am really curious what people think about this one.
I like looking @ data. If you read this then this may interest you. All over the internet, you will see the reports of Click Through Rates per ad position: #1 is twice as much as #2 and so on. I figured I’d to a quick SQL query of my data and see where I stood. Here you see the CTR for Yahoo and MSN #1’s are 4% and 3.5% (I guess I fail at google ). The numbers speak for themselves. I included the impressions so you would get an idea of the statistical accuracy (more impressions = more accurate)
WTF is up with Google you may ask? The past few months I have pretty much ignored google and have been focusing on everyone but them. (Yahoo, MSN, and bunches of other 2nd tier networks — I would like to say that this was mostly so I would be better prepared for my speaking topic (PPC engines that work) at Affiliate Summit East — and that is partially true, but really I just haven’t been working Google over much. Apparently I need to get on the ball. Don’t worry though, Amit will be giving a great presentation on working Google so that topic is going to be covered.
Some interesting things about this data. Some of the really low ranks have a higher CTR then you would think. (See position 25 and 30 on yahoo) Yahoo seems to give you a higher CTR them MSN in general. But to be fair I don’t have the exact same ads in all three ad networks.
CTR Data For A Few Months
