Marketing Blog Archives

Marketing Blog4December 13 to 31, 20034January 1 to 15, 2004

Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003

I decided to start a marketing blog today.

The main reason for the marketing blog is so that I can keep a journal on what I'm doing with my online business. I hope this information will be of interest to anyone who wants to make money online since they will be able to learn what is working and not working for my Internet business and apply this information to their own online business.

Subscribe to my aWebBiz Newsletter and you will receive updates from time to time on what is new on my Blog. Plus you will receive other timely marketing and sales techniques that will help you with your business both online and offline. The sign up form is located in the upper right-hand side of this web page.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: The sign up form for the aWebBiz Internet Marketing Newsletter is located at www.aWebBiz.com. Please don't give a link to my Blog to others. Give them a link to my home page where they will be able to sign up for the Newsletter and they will receive a link to the Blog in the confirmation e-mail they receive.

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Recently I have been putting a lot of my time and effort into building an affiliate marketing business. I started in the beginning of November 2003, with the Google Cash System.

My total affiliate commission for November was $1,185.30. That doesn't sound like very much money, but you have to keep in mind that November was the first month that I used the Google Cash System. And I only work a few hours a week working on my Google AdWords campaigns.

So far this month I have earned $1,239.87 in affiliate commission. I've been averaging about $100 in affiliate commission a day.
 

This week I will show some of the merchant websites that failed to make a profit marketing them with Google AdWords. This doesn't necessarily mean that they were bad affiliate products or services, it just means they might need to be marketed in a different way than I used with Google AdWords.

I'll add notes with the unprofitable merchant websites to point out why I think they failed. There is no reason why you should promote a merchant website that I have already tested and lost money with, unless you think you can promote them better than I did, which might be possible. It's your money after all and you are free to spend it any way you want to.

Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2003

Last night I was thinking of products and services to offer to others.

One service I thought was needed is building landing pages for people who don't know how to do it. These landing pages would be used to promote merchant websites that have pop ups.

Google AdWords doesn't allow pop ups on a web page that you promote with them. If a merchant website has a pop up you have to first send visitors to a landing page that you create that has no pop up.
 

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NOTE: 02-23-07: You can use what is often referred to as a hover ad, which AdWords does allow. These pop up type of ads are actually part of the Web page and they don't open in a new window. There is software that you can use to create these hover ads for you. The auto-responder service I use, aWeber.com, also has an option that allows you to create hover ads.

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The landing page can be very basic. Maybe just have the same headline and graphics as the merchant website and a link that says "Enter Site."
 

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NOTE: 02-23-07: Using landing pages as described above won't work with AdWords any more. AdWords wants to see some relevant content on the landing pages. You can create a name squeeze page where you collect the visitor's name and e-mail address, but you will also have to have some relevant content on that landing page. You should also have some links at the bottom of the landing page that AdWords robots will find, but will be hard for your visitors to see because you don't want your visitors to "escape" your landing page. These additional pages could be such things as a Contact page, About Us page, FAQ page, Privacy page, Products page and an Articles page. You have to give AdWords the impression that you have a Web site that has lots of relevant content.

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Or you could do a review or pre-sell for the affiliate product or service on the landing page with a link to the merchant's website.

Still another option is to make an offer for a free e-book or perhaps a free course on the landing page and try to capture the e-mail addresses of your visitors before they click through to the merchant's website.

This method works well when promoting a product or service that is within your niche market. That way you can build a customer database and send them more offers in the future.

I thought there might be some people who don't know how to design web pages that might want to have landing pages created for them.

Many of the best merchant websites have pop ups and the only way you can promote them with Google Adwords is with your own landing page without a pop up.

I thought the whole thing could be set up by having people who don't have a website get a BigStep.com account, which I have used for about 3 years to host my BarrysBeanies.com website. Or they could get their own website hosting.

BigStep.com's basic hosting costs $9.95 a year. It costs about the same to get your own domain name. BigStep.com offers various templates to design your web pages with and is very easy to use.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I no longer recommend BigStep.com hosting. I think a much better and reliable service is Host Gator, which I have been using for about 3 years. You can get a personal hosting account for $6.95 a month. I have a reseller account which costs $24.95 a month and allows me to host an unlimited number of sites.

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I thought I could create landing pages and then give the html for

the pages to people and all they would have to do is drop it into their BigStep.com website template. After a while people would get the hang of it and be able to create their own landing pages.

The only problem with this whole scenario is the fact that I would know which affiliate programs people were promoting and that would be a conflict of interest because I'm involved in the same business.

By the way, if you are new to promoting affiliate products and services you can send email to me with questions, but never tell me the specific name of the product or service you are trying to market. Barry@aWebBiz.com

So, I decided that this won't be a service that I could offer, but there is no reason why you cannot buy your own domain name, start a BigStep.com account, and start building your own website. You can also create landing pages for the merchant websites you promote with Google AdWords that have pop ups.

I was going to critique some of the merchant websites that I unsuccessfully marketed with Google AdWords today, but I got carried away with landing pages so I'll do it later today or tomorrow.

I received an email a few minutes ago from someone who wanted to know how I found my most profitable affiliate product and what are some of the things I look for when deciding on whether or not to market an affiliate product.

Here's my reply:

Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Dec. 15, 2003

I am going to do critiques of some of the merchant websites that I was unable to market profitably with Google AdWords.

The first merchant website is http://www.Home--Theater.com. You can click on that link and a new window will open. Close the window when you are finished viewing it.

First of all I shouldn't have promoted this affiliate product since

it only pays $7 commission. In most cases you should try to promote affiliate products that pay a commission of $15 or more commission for a sale. Most of the affiliate products I market are paying a commission in the $20 range.

Under certain circumstances there might be a way to promote an affiliate product that pays less than $15 and make it profitable.

Here's an example:

You find out that Toys R Us has a special promotion and they will pay $5 to anyone who completes a short questionnaire.

Toys R Us will pay the affiliate $2 for every click through that completes the questionnaire. So you bid on a couple of thousand keywords for five cents each. We will also say that you are able to get a 10% conversion rate on your click throughs, which means that you would make $40 in commission for every 100 click throughs. Deduct the $5 you paid for the 100 click throughs and you have a profit of $35.

Not a great example, but you get the idea. If you have read Google Cash you will remember the example Chris gave with the eBay campaign he ran.

OK, back to the merchant website...

The next thing I don't like about Home--Theater.com is that it is selling an ebook rather than providing a solution to a problem.

Look for website copy that has a headline that gets the attention of the reader and provides a benefit rather than trying to just promote an ebook. Yes, many affiliate products are ebooks, but the successful ones are providing solutions to problems or offering something that people want.

So if you had an ebook on how to win the lotto you wouldn't run a headline in an ad that says Lotto Book on How to Win. You would have a headline that provides a benefit for the reader such as Win Lotto Fast.

Bottom line is that you have to look for merchant websites that have great sales copy. What I call "you and me" sales copy that seems like it was written just for you, the reader. Sales copy that has some emotion in it.  Home--Theater.com's sales copy is flat and really doesn't get me excited.

Another thing I don't like about this website is the fact that they make it too obvious that they are recruiting affiliates at the bottom of the web page. Look for merchant websites that are more low key about trying to sign up affiliates on their website.

All they need to do is put a small link on the bottom of the web page that says "Affiliates." People who want to promote the product will find it.

If you ever find a merchant website you really like a lot, but they make it too obvious on their website that they are trying to recruit affiliates then send them an email and tell them why you won't promote their website. Many times if they hear this from enough affiliates they will make the necessary changes.

Another thing I don't like about this website is that they make no attempt to capture the visitor's email address. They do offer a free chapter download, but I think they could do better by perhaps offering a free report or a free email course which they can set up with an auto-responder.

It is very important to get the email addresses of all website visitors so that a follow up can be done and additional attempts can be made to try and make the sale. Very few visitors buy on their first visit to a website, so follow up is usually needed.

One exception might be when there is content or tools on the website that would cause a visitor to return again, but even in this type of situation it always benefits the merchant to have an ezine.

An example of someone returning to a website on their own might be a website that has an online service that designs virtual ebook covers.

There also might be free tools on the website that would let you create a logo or banner. So if this was an affiliate program you might have the situation where people might come back again and again to use the free tools and perhaps make a purchase for an ebook cover in the future.

I ended Home--Theater.com after 57 click throughs, which cost me $7.80. My Google AdWords ad was very good and received a 6.0% CTR.

Creating this marketing blog has turned out to be a great idea. What is real cool is the fact that the keyword phrase "marketing blog" doesn't have very much competition. With a little work I should be able to make my way to the first page of Google search results for that keyword phrase.

What is also cool about blogs in general is that you can make good money with them. And it doesn't have to be a Internet marketing blog to make money. In fact, you are better off staying away from the Internet marketing niche because there is too much competition and just about all the keywords on pay-per-click search engines for anything that relates to Internet marketing, web design, business, home based business, make money on the net, etc., are expensive.

However, if you have a passion for Internet marketing like I do, then by all means you should go for it.

If the idea of starting a blog appeals to you then I would recommend that the subject of your blog be something that you have a passion for. Something you really enjoy and you want to share with others.

You can have your blog on one of the websites that specializes in hosting blogs. Or you can set the whole thing up with one of those third party blog services and upload the actual blog and host it on your own website. Or you can do what I did and just create a page on your website. Anything goes with a blog.

Still don't know what to blog about?

Get a piece of paper and something to write with.

I'll show you how to find that one subject that you are most likely to become successful blogging about or perhaps building your Internet business around.

Answer these questions:

1. How do you enjoy spending your free time? (Write your answers on the piece of paper).

2. When you read the newspaper or magazines, which articles interest you the most?

3. When you daydream, what do you visualize.

4. Which areas for a blogging idea are suggested by these likes of yours?

5. Are there any human problems which your area of likes could solve?

6. Would many people be interested in the subject of your blog if the information you provided helped to solve their problems or gave them support?

7. If you can't solve a problem with your blog information, how can you, with your areas of interest, help people solve some of their needs?

8. Some topics which suggest themselves are as follows:

(Make a list)

9. Which one of #8 seems to have the best chance for success if it were to be the subject of your blog and offered to others to read?

There are numerous ways to make money with your blog. There are many affiliate products and services you could recommend that will help people with their problems or to fulfill their wants and needs.

It doesn't look like I'm going to do anymore merchant website critiques today. I will get into more critiques tomorrow. That's if I don't get side tracked again.

I received an e-mail from someone who is thinking about starting a Google Cash System and said money was tight. I've been there myself.

Here is my reply to him...

Hi,

Marketing Blog Update

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2003

The first pay period for December ended today for ClickBank. My ClickBank affiliate commissions for the first half of the month were $1,403.63.

Yesterday was my worst day of the month for affiliate product sales. I only had one sale all day. I think sales will slow down for the affiliate products I'm marketing until after January 1 because the affiliate products I'm marketing aren't something someone would likely buy for a Christmas gift.

In any event, one sale a day doesn't cut it with me because with the cost of my Google AdWords advertising I'd be losing money if that was to continue.

I will hang in there because I know my most profitable affiliate merchant's website does a good job of getting people's email addresses and following up with them in order to close the sale. So I expect many of these leads to turn into sales down the road.

I think sales will pick up after January 1 because many people make New Year's resolutions and may be buying products and services to help them make their resolutions a reality. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I'm not going to start any new Google AdWords campaigns until after January 1. In the meantime I'm going to do some brain storming and think of the affiliate products and services that will provide what people want in order to make their New Year's resolutions come true.

Now what kinds of resolutions do people make every year?

How about some of these?

• Stop smoking

• Lose weight

• Start working out

• Make more money

• Find a new career

• Find the love of their life

Now which affiliate products will solve these problems and give these people what they want?

The merchant for the affiliate product that I am having great success selling called me on the phone yesterday. He called to thank me for selling his product. Turns out I'm his top affiliate. Do I hear bonus? ;-)

Of course I am just as happy as he is because I made the commission on the sales. So far this month I have 59 sales for his product. My total commissions for his product this month is about $1,200 dollars.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I still market this affiliate product today, but I make about half the number of sales I did in 2003. This is probably due to market saturation and competition from other affiliates marketing the same product.

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It isn't that big of a deal, especially when you consider that someone like Rosalind Gardner, author of The Super Affiliate Handbook, is probably making over $30,000 dollars a month with her dating websites marketing affiliate products and services.

The good news is that this merchant is getting ready to launch his second product that will be structured after successful product number one. That was good news because I have yet to find a second "winning" affiliate program that is as profitable as my number one best seller.

I've been using the Google Cash System for about 6 weeks now. I thought I'd be ready to retire by now. LOL

Thanks to everyone who have helped me make this website a success. The Alexa rank is now 120,418 and falling.

I also just checked my Google Page Rank for aWebBiz.com and the page rank went from PR2 to PR4 in the last month.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: My Web site no longer has a Page Rank because Google has dropped my Web site from their index. I am not sure why it happened, but I think it may because of the association with affiliate marketing. I am not sure, I am just guessing.

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Please stay tuned if you have Web site pages that you want to move up in the search engine rankings. I guarantee you that you will get the information you need here on how to get your Web site a high search engine ranking.

How can I promise that? It's easy! I'll just let you know what I did to get a top ranking for many of my keywords for my website, BarrysBeanies.com, and what I'm doing to get the same results with aWebBiz.com.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: My BarrysBeanies.com Web site ranks even better today for many Beanie Baby related keyword terms. Do a search on any search engine and you find my Web site in the number two position behind Ty.com.

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I just received the "Hot List" from Overture for the month of November for gift related searches.

Top 10 Gift-Related Searches
(November 2003)

  1.  Christmas
  2.  DVD
  3.  digital camera
  4.  radio
  5.  toy
  6.  Toys R Us
  7.  camera
  8.  shopping
  9.  gift
10.  Christmas card

Total online seasonal spending is $17 billion dollars, up $3 billion dollars from last year's total of $14 billion dollars. More people than ever before are shopping online. Source: Jupiter Research.

OK, here is another merchant website that I was unable to promote profitably with Google AdWords,

HomeCraftBusiness.com. You can go ahead and click on this link. A new window will open up. Just close it when you are done viewing it.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: The HomeCraftBusiness.com Web site no longer exists.

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This affiliate product was a major disappoint for me. I thought it

would be a profitable merchant website. I didn't have one sale for this affiliate product.

First of all there is no opt-in to collect visitor's email addresses, so that the merchant can follow up with more emails and try to make the sale.

Another thing that is missing, and I forgot to mention earlier, is testimonials. Whenever you are promoting this type of merchant website there should be testimonials. Didn't anyone buy the product and tell the merchant they liked it?

They are also too obvious about the fact that they want affiliates.

So what might happen is that you send someone to this merchant website, they see the affiliate offer, they join and then buy through their own affiliate link at a discount. So you end up with nothing.

All they need is a simple link at the bottom of the page like this "Affiliates." Affiliates will find it. I just wish they would concentrate on selling their product. If the product is a good seller then affiliates will find it on their own through ClickBank or through the small affiliate link at the bottom of the Web page.

So I'm looking for merchant websites that...

• Collect e-mail addresses with a free offer of some kind so that the merchant can follow up with e-mails and try to make the sale.

• Have testimonials from happy customers.

• Have a great sales letter that is believable and doesn't have a lot of hype.

• Are professional looking with good graphics.

• Have contact information for the merchant or the company. The more contact information the better.

• Has a picture of the merchant. Not absolutely necessary, but a big plus.

• Doesn't have an obvious link to the affiliate program.

Marketing Blog Update

Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003

I bought a new domain name from GoDaddy.com yesterday. They are selling .com domain names for only $7.95. If you have been thinking about starting your own website, why not buy a domain name and get started?

I am going to use the new domain name for offline magazine and newspaper classified ads. I'll run classified ads to promote my most profitable affiliate product.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I basically broke even on this idea. I discovered that the best place for me to advertise and market affiliate products is online.

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What is really cool is that I was able to get a great domain name that is only two words long and describes the affiliate product perfectly.

I didn't want to put a long URL in classified ads since it would take up two much space and wouldn't look right. I could have used a free service like Tinyurl.com and used a redirect, but it would look something like this, tinyurl.com/sga, which still doesn't look right and doesn't relate to the affiliate product.

If you were promoting a merchant website for low priced cars, which would look better?

hoplink/122?/1223-masey.com/1433.htm

tinyurl.com/disq

or

CheapCars.com

I rest my case.

So I purchased the perfect domain name that describes the product. What I will do is host this domain with Host Gator and do what I think is called a frame forward to the affiliate website, which basically acts like a redirect, but people will only be able to see my domain URL in their browser address box and not the affiliate URL.

I use Host Gator for most of my websites. It only costs $24.95 a month to host as many websites as I want. It's a reseller account, but I don't offer hosting to others. I just use it for cheap website hosting for my own domains.

You can buy a domain name for about $8 and get your website hosted for $10 a month or less. If you don't have a website then what are you waiting for?

You'll need a html editor to create your web pages with. The Netscape browser has one built into it. I think it is called Composer and is located under "tools." If it isn't there then just try some of the other drop down menus and you'll find it. I no longer have the Netscape browser on my computer so I'm not going to be of much help in locating Composer for you.

You can also download a free html editor here: HTML-Kit Build 292. Rated by Internet Marketers as the best free HTML editor.

I purchased a copy of The National Enquirer. I great way to keep up with what interests the masses. I'm not sure how many subscribers the Enquirer has, but I know it is in the millions.

I like to check the classified ads to see what people are promoting. Plus I can get some good ideas for ad copy that I can apply to my Google AdWords campaigns.

I see a lot of one inch ads and larger in the Enquirer for things like prescription diet aids, pain relievers, drugs and more. All these ads have websites listed. I'm wondering if any of them are actually affiliates that are promoting merchant websites?

In any event, after you find that first profitable affiliate product that works with Google AdWords then you should take your campaign to all the other major pay-per-click search engines.

There are only about 8 of them that are worthwhile using.

Then the next step is to take your promotion offline to classifieds in newspapers and magazines. Then if that is profitable you can test a one inch ad.

The Enquirer is a good place to test classifieds since you can get your ad in there quickly. The problem with magazines is that it takes about three months to get an ad to appear. Personally I don't have that kind of patience.

I'm able to get a lot of free traffic for my website by creating individual web pages that target specific keywords or keyword phrases.

Do a search on Google.com for Internet marketing tip. My aWebBiz.com is ranked about number 18. It is on the second page of the results about half way down the page.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: As I already stated, Google gave my Web site the boot.

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All I did to get this position was to put the keyword phrase Internet marketing tip in the actual URL of my web page, http://www.aWebBiz.com/internet-marketing-tip.htm, in the title of the page, in the headline and a few times in the actual copy on the page. That is basically how I get high rankings for my web pages and my keywords.

You have to target keywords that get a lot of searches. Check the Overture Suggestion Tool to find out how many searches were done in the last 30 days for any keyword. You will also find many other keywords listed that may be used if they are appropriate for your website content and there are enough searches done for them every month.

Then you have to do a search for the keyword on Google and try to target the ones that have the least web pages listed in the Google search results that have a low Page Rank (PR). You want good demand (Overture) and low supply (Google).

I received an email from someone who wanted to know if the keyword you check on Google to see what the supply is should have quotes around it like this "keyword," when you check the supply for it. Also how many searches on Overture would be the minimum in order to target that keyword with a web page you create on your website.

Here's my reply:

Marketing Blog Update

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003

How to make a killing with Google AdWords?

I'm going to start paying more attention to the news and keep my eyes open for what is "hot" or try to spot new fads. Then I'll try and target the "hot" product or fad with a Google AdWords campaign.

I need to find some unusual situations that will allow me to make a lot of money with Google AdWords in a short time.

If you read Google Cash then you know how Chris Carpenter was able to make over $3,000 a month with just one Google AdWords campaign by sending people to eBay.

Or if you read Google Profits then you know how Colin Fabig  made $12,353.27 in a couple of weeks from four hours of setting up an AdWords campaign selling "Iraqi Most Wanted" playing cards.

These are exactly the type of opportunities I am going to try to find. It means reading the newspaper every day and listening to the news. I'm going to try to spot that rare opportunity to make a killing with Google AdWords.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I'm still looking for this hot selling, big moneymaking product.

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I think anyone who is doing Google AdWords should keep this in mind. You never know when that next opportunity will rear it's pretty face.

I received my ClickBank check for the last two weeks of November. The check is for $666.11. My actual commissions were about $750 dollars, but ClickBank holds a portion of the commissions in case of refunds. They will pay the balance due on my next check which will be for about $1,400 dollars.

I'm in my sixth week of running my Google Cash System. I think anyone with common sense and the ability to keep good records can be successful with Google AdWords.

Most people give up too quickly with the Google Cash System. I guess it is hard for many people to fail a few times and then try to justify in their own mind why they should continue. You have to be a risk taker and not afraid to gamble, but unlike Las Vegas the odds of winning are heavily in your favor.

Once you find an Affiliate Money Maker (AMM), it will more than make up for all your losses since an AMM can provide you with a nice steady weekly income. Nothing takes the pressure off you better than getting that first AMM.

Final word is that once you find AMM number one that you should not lose momentum, but instead go on and look for AMM number 2, 3, 4 or more.

On some of my Google AdWords campaigns I create an Ad Group just for variations of misspelled words for popular keywords that get searched for often and relate to the affiliate product I'm selling.

For example, if I was bidding on the keyword phrase "Internet marketing" I would also create a separate ad group just for the misspelled words of that keyword phrase.

If possible I only bid five cents each for these misspelled words. I try to keep my misspelled keyword bids much lower than other keyword bids.

Here is the link to the free tool I use to do this:

KeyWord Typo Generator

Select all the options shown and you will get a very long list of spelling errors for the keyword you entered. I'll keep adding other keywords that target the same group and eventually build up a list of about 3,000 or more misspelled words. Just copy and paste them into your new Google AdWords Ad  Group.

Marketing Blog Update

Friday, Dec. 19, 2003

I think someone new to the Google Cash System would be better off if they would market affiliate products that are ebooks or software. Look for information products that deal with how-to subjects.

Find affiliate products that pay at least $15 commission for a sale. That way you can run test campaigns for 50 click throughs at about 20 cents a bid or lower and the most you will lose would be about $10.

Some people test for 100 click throughs, but I have found that the profitable affiliate products or services will produce sales within 50 click throughs. That's if you are targeting the correct keywords and you have created a great Google AdWords ad.

I very seldom market Commission Junction affiliate products and services. Many of the best paying CJ affiliate products like dating, web design, loans, etc., have too much competition and most of the Google AdWords keyword bids are too expensive.

Many of the other CJ affiliate products and services don't pay very well, unless you are targeting a high priced product. It seems to me that a lot of the CJ products and services lend themselves to having a mini website with some type of a review for the products or services. Basically providing quality content for the consumer so that they can make a decision and then perhaps click on through to one of the options you have provided them with your review.

I think under the right situation CJ would work very well. As I mentioned the other day, I'm looking for "hot" items or fads and CJ would be the first place I would try to locate them.

There is nothing wrong with getting paid $3 commission on a sale if you can get the commission paid to you 100 times or more a day. This is what I'm hoping for when I locate a "hot" product or a fad item that makes the news. Something that can be listed in Google Adwords and get thousands of exposures and hopefully hundreds of sales.

Right now I'm concentrating on ebooks and software. Most of them pay 50% commission or better. Plus most of the better merchant websites have the things I'm looking for. Such as great sales copy, opt-in for email addresses, testimonials, contact information and a professional looking website.

When looking for products in ClickBank to promote I don't think it is always a good idea to go with the best sellers with Google AdWords. The reason they are best sellers is because a lot of people are selling them. Try to avoid a lot of competition. Look at the products at the bottom of the list for different categories and also look at the new products in each category. I know what makes a good merchant website and those are the ones I am looking for.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I was wrong here. You can make money with the best selling products in ClickBank and the fact that they are selling well is a testimonial in itself as to why you should be marketing them. My second AMM was the top rated survey site in ClickBank. I was making as many as 100 sales a month for this survey site. However, eventually sales kept going down and the keywords associated with surveys kept going higher as more and more affiliates marketed survey sites. Today I no longer market a survey site. It finally reached the point where the sales generated didn't cover the cost of the advertising.

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I also try to find affiliate products outside of CJ and ClickBank.

For example, if I wanted to promote bikes on Google AdWords then I would do a search in Google for bikes+affiliate program.

Some of the best affiliate programs are run by the merchant themselves without any type of relationship with companies like CJ and ClickBank.

Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Dec. 20, 2003

Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends and readers!

I posted a question on Phil Wiley's forum asking whether or not to use quotes for a "keyword phrase" when you are researching it on Google to find the supply (number of Web pages listed).

Most people think you should use quotation marks since this will show you how many websites are actually competing for that keyword phrase. Otherwise, without the quotes, you are pulling up results for each individual word in the keyword phrase.

I see no need to use quotation marks on singular keywords.

UPDATE:
 

I read a post from Sean Burns in Phil Wiley's forum with reference to the question I asked above. I wanted to know if quotes should be used when checking the supply side for keywords on Google.

Sean stated that most people search for terms without using quotes that this is how he would recommend checking the supply side for keywords on Google.

However, as far as Sean is concerned the only thing that really matters is being in the top 10 of the results for a keyword or keyword phrase and it really doesn't matter what the supply side is to him.

So I'm going to go with Sean's recommendation and not use quotes when I'm checking the supply side for keywords and keyword terms on Google.

I appreciate it when people send e-mails to me to question something I write about. I am not correct 100% of the time and if I write something that you think is wrong then I'd like to hear from you. That way I can check it out further. It is my desire to give readers of this blog correct information.

What does good sales copy look like?

Example:

I used to work hard. The 18-hour

days. The 7-day weeks.

     But I didn't start making big

money until I did less—a lot less.

     For example, this ad took about

2 hours to write. With a little luck,

it should earn me 50, maybe a

hundred thousand dollars.

     What's more, I'm going to ask

you to send me 10 dollars for

something that'll cost me no more

than 50 cents. And I'll try to make it

so irresistible that you'd be a

darned fool not to do it.

     After all, why should you care if

I make $9.50 profit if I can show you

how to make a lot more?

     What if I'm so sure that you will

make money my Lazy Man's Way

that I'll make you the world's most

unusual guarantee?

There, I gave it away. This is part of the sales copy from Joe Karbo's full page ad that ran in most of the major publications in the early 1970s for his book, The Lazy Man's Way to Riches.

Joe Karbo knew how to write great sales copy. Try to get a copy of his book. It has been updated, but early copies might be available in used book stores or on eBay. The first edition is probably a collector's item.

First thing you notice about a Joe Karbo ad is that he writes in the first person because he feels that people want communication. They are afraid of becoming lost in a large computer.

This information came from The Million Dollar Mail Order Bookseller's Portfolio, Copyright 1977 Small Business Research Council. This is another book you should try to find a copy of. Another classic that actually includes the blue print for creating a product and marketing it.

Some other copy writers worth studying their books and ads are Gary Halbert, Donald Dible, Ted Nicholas and Jerry and Beverlee Buchanan.

According to The Million Dollar Mail Order Bookseller's Portfolio your product (or the affiliate products you market) should have certain characteristics.

I'm updating those characteristics to include information that relates to the merchant website, such as a professional looking web design, opt-in for emails, contact information, testimonials, etc. All stated in an earlier post I made a couple of days ago.

Here are some of the ingredients to creating a successful product or perhaps finding successful affiliate products to market:

• The product must fill a need. It must be valuable. The reader should truly benefit from having it. It must solve a reader's problem or it must tell him how to do something. The product (ebook perhaps?) must be appealing. It has to be more valuable to the reader than the money he has to spend to buy it.

• There is a mass market. The subject matter of the ebook or product must appeal to a market which is broad enough to assure a sufficient number of sales. Successful writers go after large audiences.

• The price structure has to be correct. Joe Karbo would allot 50% of gross sales for his advertising budget.

• Sales copy is believable. The copy should have a sincere, conversational style which is often characterized by first person comments. Most of the successful display ads and websites have the signature of the writer and they often have a photograph of themselves posted.

• The guarantee has to be strong. Use the strongest language possible to assure the prospect that the book can be returned for any reason for a full, prompt refund.

I wasted a lot of time and money my first month (November 2003) using the Google Cash System. I was in a hurry to make things happen even if it meant promoting merchant websites that I should have not promoted.

I have slowed down and I am much more critical in my rating of  merchant products and websites. If any aspect of the merchant product or website doesn't meet the criteria I am looking for then I move on. I'm only interested in promoting merchant websites and products that meet my criteria.

Now that you know what to look for you should contact merchant website owners and let them know the changes they need to make in order for you to promote their product.

Perhaps if the merchant hears the same thing over and over again from many affiliates then they will start making the necessary changes. That way affiliates will have more profitable merchant websites to promote.

And of course anyone can take this information and create their own successful product and website and start having others market and sell their products for them.

Some times if you come across an affiliate product which you would like to promote in Google AdWords, but the cost of the keyword bids you want to target are too expensive.

In that type of situation you might want to test the affiliate product somewhere else where it would cost less money. Perhaps on one of the other pay-per-click search engines.

I mean if I want to do a test campaign and I have to pay 60 cents per keyword bid in order to generate enough exposures to get 50 click throughs then I might be out $30 dollars if I don't make a sale. And of course if I'm making less than $30 commission on a sale then I could lose money even if I managed to make one sale.

In this type of a situation you could run a test on the FindWhat.com pay-per-click search engine where many competitive keywords are less expensive than Google AdWords keyword bids.

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NOTE: 02-23-07: I don't recommend using FindWhat.com. I can't prove it, but I suspect a lot of click fraud going on through their program. I could never figure out how I would some times get more clicks from FindWhat.com on some keyword terms then I was getting from AdWords and Overture combined. I stopped using FindWhat and it didn't have any affect on my sales while my overall adverting expenses went down. You might test with MSN AdCenter first because many of the keyword bids are lower there than they are with AdWords.

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Then if I find a profitable affiliate product and it is generating good sales, I could run it in Google AdWords because I will have a good idea of what the conversion rate of click throughs to sales will be based on my FindWhat.com test campaign.

I thought it might be cool if I actually picked an affiliate product that has expensive keywords associated with it and go through all the steps I would take to run a test on FindWhat.com. So that is what I will do over the next few days. My first step will be to find an affiliate product I want to test on FindWhat.com.

By the way, this is actually the first time I'm actually doing it this way. I usually start on Google AdWords and then if it is successful I'll take it to all the other pay-per-click search engines.

I don't mind spending a lot of money to test an affiliate product if I think it has a chance of being an AMM (Affiliate Money Maker), but that is only because I'm making money from other affiliate products.

If you are reading this and just starting out advertising with Google AdWords then I think you need to take a more conservative approach until you get your first profitable affiliate campaign in place and it is making money for you on an ongoing basis.

Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003

Thanks to Donald Goss for passing along this great free keyword finder tool to me. Here is the link: http://www.promoteindia.com/keywordtool-beta.htm

I'll also add it to my Free Internet Marketing Tools Web page. Be sure to check this page out since there are many free tools here that will help you with all aspects of your Internet business.

As I stated yesterday, I'll be running a new test campaign for a merchant website. I'll try to pick one some time today. I don't expect it to be profitable, but you never know.

Keep in mind that last month I ran about 25-30 campaigns and only two of them were AMMs (Affiliate Money Makers). The whole point of documenting a campaign here from start to finish is to show anyone who has not yet run a Google AdWords campaign how I do it.

This might be a good time to try your first Google AdWords campaign, but please don't use the same merchant website I choose. I have listed the criteria below for picking merchant websites. You won't find one that is perfect, but find

the best one you can.

You might choose an affiliate product that won't have a lot of competition and expensive keyword bids. Most of the best merchant websites have nothing to do with Internet marketing.

The only reason I target these Internet marketing merchant websites so often is because they are in my niche market and I'll create landing pages for them in order to capture the visitor's e-mail address. So if I break even or even lose some money on these campaigns it doesn't bother to me as long as I am collecting a lot of e-mail addresses to make more offers to in the future.

I said yesterday that I would use FindWhat.com to run a test campaign, but I have changed my mind and I will use Google AdWords since this is what most people will be using.

Keep in mind that you don't have to be promoting affiliate products or services in order to benefit from using Google AdWords. You can also promote your own products and website. Many of the visitors from your Google AdWords listings are motivated to find a solution to their problem and will often buy something that they want. So if your product or website provides the solution, or provides what the visitor wants, then you may just might get a sale.

If you don't have a Google AdWords account you can sign-up here: https://adwords.google.com/select/main Click on the link and a new window will open up. Close it when you are finished viewing it.

Here is a link to the sign-up tutorial that will show you step-by-step how to sign-up for a Google AdWords account: http://services.google.com/tutorial/awsignup

/awsignup.html

When I start promoting a new affiliate product I do not start a new campaign category for it in Google AdWords. The new affiliate product is placed within an existing campaign as a new ad group.

I have one campaign within my Google AdWords management area where I test all my new affiliate products. Then if the affiliate product is profitable and a keeper, I will then start a new campaign listing for it in my Google AdWords account.

So right now I have 4 campaigns running in Google and within one of those campaigns are the new affiliate products I am testing. So each affiliate product is being tested as an Ad Group. Then when it becomes profitable I remove it from the campaign it is in and create a new campaign listing just for it. And within the new campaign I will create different Ad Groups that will target specific keyword groups for the affiliate product.

You don't have to do it this way, but it has worked for me, and I just wanted to pass it along.

OK, I found a merchant website that I will promote, The Lazy Man's Guide To Online Business by Jim and Dallas Edwards.

You can see a list of many of the products Jim has created here.

This website has many of the things I am looking for when I look for merchant websites.

• It has a clean, professional website design with great looking graphics.

• An opt-in that tries to capture e-mail addresses for follow-up.

• No distractions like additional links or links trying to sign up affiliates.

• It is focusing on just one product.

• It has a well written sales letter with testimonials.

• A good guarantee and bonuses.

• A sale pays 50% commission which will be about $15.

Jim Edwards is an excellent marketer and a great copy writer. Most of his ebooks deal with Internet marketing, so I am going to run into a lot of competition and expensive keywords. Plus Jim has many affiliates so I will have even more competition.

The only reason I would ever think of promoting a website like this is because it is in my niche market and I'll be collecting a lot of email addresses and I'll be able to make more offers to them in the future.

Some companies will some times pay a lot of money to get the name and address of people who have an interest in their products. In fact, some times they are willing to lose money just to get that first order because they know that they can make more offers to their list in the future and make a lot of profit doing so.

The merchant's website has a pop up so I will have to create my own landing page. This will only take me about 10 minutes to complete because I have already created the bonuses and descriptions for another promotion that I can just copy and paste.

I'll try to match the look of the merchant website with the landing page I create. I will also try to capture the e-mail addresses of all the visitors with two free bonuses for signing up for my newsletter.

I really prefer promoting merchant websites that have no pop ups so that I can send visitors directly to the merchant's website.

My thoughts on this is that when someone clicks on my Google AdWords ad they are in a certain frame of mind. I don't want to change their frame of mind by having them go to a landing page and being distracted from what they wanted when they clicked on my Google AdWords ad.

First of all they thought they were going to a website based upon the information I had in my Google AdWords ad. All of a sudden they are on some strange landing page and being asked to make decisions—like signing up for my newsletter and getting involved with the free bonuses I am offering them.

So all of a sudden they are in a new frame of mind that may not lend itself to making a purchase once they finally do get to the merchant's website.

The ideal situation to me is when I can send someone directly to the merchant's website. That way my referral is still in the same frame of mind and perhaps the affiliate product is what will provide the solution to their problem or give them what they want and they'll make a purchase.

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NOTE: 03-05-07: At that time I was making a lot of money and had no interest in building lists. The best method for now is to create landing pages with bulleted benefits, offer something for free and an opt-in form. Then after they opt-in I have a redirect to the merchant's Web site. That way I have their name and e-mail address and can make more offers to them.

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In any event, I need to create the landing page and an ad for Google AdWords.

The keywords I will target are:

online entrepreneur

entrepreneur online

online business

business online

make money online

online money

web business

internet business

I'll use these and many other variations of them inside the Google AdWords management area. At this point I don't care if there are more keywords I can use. I just want to get this going and see if I can make a profit or breakeven within 50 click throughs.

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NOTE: 03-05-07: I now use 100 click throughs for my test campaigns.

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If this test is successful then I will brain storm and use whatever keyword tools I have to create a list of as many related keywords and keyword phrases that I can think of.

I will also take this campaign to every other pay-per-click search engine if it proves to be profitable.

Another thing I do with all my AMM products is to start raising all my keyword bids. I want to be at or near the top of all the Google ads that show up on the Google search results page for my most relevant keywords. I'm willing reinvest up to 50% of all the commissions I make back into pay-per-clicks for advertising.

If someone said to me, "Barry, for every $1 you spend on advertising promoting your AMM product you will receive $2 back." How many dollars do you think I would spend on advertising for that AMM? I would invest as many dollars as I could knowing that for every dollar spent that I would get two dollars back.

The next step is to login to my Google AdWords account. Once inside the management area I click on my campaign #19 which is where I list all my new affiliate products.

Then I click on the "Create New Ad Group" link. I name the Ad Group "Lazy Man." Next I create my Google AdWords text ad.

Next I spend a few minutes brainstorming with the Overture Suggestion Tool and come up with this list of keywords:

entrepreneur idea

entrepreneur business

make money online

make money from online business

internet business make money online

ways to make money online

make easy money online

online business

business online

online home business

easy online business

online computer business

time management

start online business

internet marketing online

marketing online

-free

I always add "-free" to all my Google AdWords keyword lists. This lets Google know that I don't want my ad shown for any searches that contains "free" in it because I'm not interested in people who are looking for free information or free things.

It is hard to target specific keywords with the Lazy Man ebook since it deals with such a broad range of subject matter. You would be better off finding affiliate products that target a more specific subject.

The next thing I do is to add all the keywords into the "Lazy Man" Ad Group, make my bid 21 cents and click on the "Estimate Traffic" button. It shows me that I will get about 9 clicks a day which will cost me $1.21.

At this point I have the option to add more keywords by clicking on the "suggest keywords" link.

suggest keywords / delete

I'll go through the complete list of keywords I created and click on every "suggest keywords" link and choose the additional keywords I want to add.

OK, finished adding keywords and ended up with 193 total with a forecast of 106 clicks a day at a cost of $11.69, which tells me this campaign will cost me about $6 to test for 50 click throughs.

Now the only thing to do is to save my new keyword list and check back later to see what happens.

I changed my Google AdWords ad for Lazy Man to:

Online Business Success

Discover the secrets to making more

money online. Free details. aff.

Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Dec. 22, 2003

The Lazy Man campaign with Google AdWords isn't working very well so far. As of today the ad has had 486 impressions and 2 click throughs. I'm going to make some changes to the ad.

I think I need to have something more specific stated in the ad with regards to a dollar amount or perhaps some other number dealing with some type of possible results. I'll work on it today.

You are always better off giving a specific number for something rather than rounding numbers off or having no numbers at all.

Example:

Make Money - ok

Make $2,000 or more - better

Make $2,143 a month - best

Another thing I've read is to try and use the word fast somewhere in your ad. It is suppose to improve click through results. Like get fast results, or make money fast, etc.

And the word free is also suppose to improve the click through rate. Like free info, free details, free proof, free report, etc.

Here's a message to a friend who has been unsuccessful so far using the Google Cash System.

Hi,

As you know I started approximately 30 new Google Adwords campaigns in November, which was my first month using the Google Cash System.

Of those 30 new campaigns only 2 were profitable enough for me to keep them going. I failed about 28 times. So my success rate was about 1 in 15.

I know you are probably feeling frustrated about now with the failure of your Google AdWords campaigns so far, but you should be prepared to fail quite a few more times before you succeed. It's a numbers game where you can improve your odds of succeeding by learning from your failures. Also by knowing the criteria to use when judging the quality of an affiliate product or a merchant's website.

Here is what I would suggest you try in order to improve your odds of creating profitable Google AdWords campaigns.

Create theme-based landing pages and do reviews and/or pre-sells of merchant websites. You will also want to create an opt-in on the landing page in order to collect the e-mail addresses of your visitors so that you can follow-up and try to make a sale.

For example you might do one on how to shop for the lowest car insurance rates and then provide a review and/or recommendations for multiple merchant websites that offer car insurance. Also have an opt-in that will offer a free bonus or give updates on special deals on car insurance. Just be creative and find a way to collect the e-mail addresses of all your landing page visitors.

Here are your 3 choices:
1. Continue picking affiliate products and services to promote with Google AdWords. Use a list of criteria to help you rate affiliate products and merchant's websites to improve your odds of picking profitable ones. Learn from your losers what didn't work and make the necessary adjustments on future campaigns.
2. Create theme-based landing pages as described above.
3. Give up and quit. This is what most people do that read and try the Google Cash System.

Good luck,
Barry Stein

I continue to keep on the lookout for fads and hot products. One place to check for fads and hot products other than on the news is here: http://50.lycos.com/

The Lazy Man campaign has had 1,187 impressions with only 3 click throughs. I am in the process of adding many more keywords and I will also raise my keyword bids from 21 to 25 cents.

I have changed the ad copy to this:

$42,369 in 4 1/2 Months
The lazy man's guide to Online
Business for lazy achievers. aff.
awebbiz.com
Interest:

I now have 344 keywords and the campaign is projected to get 48 clicks for a total projected cost of $8.12.

I think one problem is the fact that I have some of the same keywords in another campaign that have higher keyword bids. That may be taking a lot of the impressions away from the Lazy Man campaign.

I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you can have two separate campaigns going on at the same time that use the same keyword. You can, but I think the campaign with the higher bid for the keyword will get all the impressions.

I suppose you could make your keyword bids the same for each campaign and that way have the impressions be split up between the two.

Marketing Blog Update

Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003

I changed the The Lazy Man's Guide To Online Business campaign's ad to this:

$42,369 in 4 1/2 Months
The lazy man's guide to fast online
business success. Free details. aff
awebbiz.com
Interest:

To date the campaign has had 2,949 impressions, 10 Clicks, 0.3% CTR (Click Through Rate), average CPC (Cost Per Click) is $0.23, total cost so far is $2.30 and the average position of my keywords is 10.8.

I don't like the sales page for Lazy Man. It doesn't seem to target a narrow niche market. It is kind of like one of those books you see that have titles like 101 Different Ways to Start a Business. Too vague and not specific enough.

I think a good merchant website has to focus on one narrow topic or product that specifically solves a problem or gives the visitor exactly what they want.

The $42,369 in 4 ½ came from the Lazy Man sales page. I personally think that the merchant, Jim Edwards, should have built his sales letter around these numbers and used them as part of the headline. Then he could have proceeded to show how the ebook relates to how he was able to accomplish this type of income in such a short period of time.

One good thing about the sales page is that it has a lot of pop ups and one of them might catch the visitor's attention and perhaps they'll make a purchase of one of the other products.

I still don't like pop ups and I think merchants should use pop ins instead on their websites.

This campaign doesn't have enough action for me. I'll let it get 50 click throughs and end it if I get no sales. If I was to get a sale then I would raise all my bids so that the ad would get more impressions and more click throughs.

I like campaigns where I can get somewhere in the area of 100 click throughs a day or more. A profitable campaign will give you 1 to 3 sales a day for every 100 click throughs.

It was mentioned on one of the forums that many merchant websites don't lend themselves to sending people directly to them. I agree with that.

Some times you are better off creating a landing page where you can do a review of 5, 6 or more different merchant websites

along with your recommendations and links to all the merchant websites. You could also have an opt-in to capture your visitor's e-mail addresses for future special deals, bonuses, etc.

Certain types of merchant websites might be better promoted that way. Such as dating services, loans, car buying services, web hosting, etc.

By creating web pages that target a specific keyword phrase and providing excellent content you will have a good chance of getting the web page high in Google search results and you will get a lot of free traffic.

You don't have to have a different domain name or website for every one of your campaigns and landing pages. I would suggest getting one domain name that would lend itself to all different kinds of campaigns and landing pages.

They would look something like this:

awebbiz.com/electronic-products-reviews.htm

awebbiz.com/dating-service-reviews.htm

awebbiz.com/car-loans.htm

You could also create sub-domains in your website, which would look something like this: electronics.awebbiz.com.

You get the idea. Get a good generic domain name that will work with any type of campaign. Domain names that might look like some of these: abcMarketing.com, jdrOnline.com, JohnSmithCompany.com, InternetReviews.com, etc.

Then once you get a successful and profitable landing page you could always break it away from your main website and create a theme-based mini site for it.

If you a