Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Feb. 1, 2004

 

My second pay period commission in January was $3,290.76, which beat my first pay period commission total by $19.95.
 

My total commission for the month of January was $6,561.57. This was my third month using the Google Cash System.

 

I sold 319 affiliate products in January for an average paid commission of $20.57. I am averaging 10 sales a day with a $212.00 daily average commission total.

 

There were $210.30 in refunds debited to my account in January.

 

My advertising expense for January was about $2,744.00, which is about 42% of what I made in commission. In addition to paying for profitable campaigns, this advertising expense total also includes the cost for testing new campaigns.

 

My net profit was about $3,607 dollars in January.

 

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If you are starting a new business you are more than likely going to have to get either a business license, permit or maybe both.

 

Here is an article from Score that will show you what is required: Score Article

 

Thinking of starting an eBay business? Here is a free 6 Step Plan from Entrepreneur Magazine to get you started.

 

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Someone asked the following question on Phil Wiley's forum:

 

What is it I need in order to succeed in affiliate business?

 

Here is my reply:

Hi,

The most profitable and easiest way to make money online is with the Google Cash System, which is selling affiliate products and services using Google AdWords.

Needless to say, you will have to read Google Cash to have a good understanding of how to do this.

Some people may say it isn't easy, but I can tell you after having an eBay business and a successful website, that the Google Cash System has been by far the easiest online business for me.

You will also need to know how to run Google AdWord
campaigns so I recommend that you read The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords.

You will need to know how to write effective Google Adwords ads including creating great headlines. I would recommend that you read Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples and Making Money with Classified Ads by Melvin Powers.

Other than these resources you will have to run many test campaigns in order to find profitable affiliate products. This is a numbers game. The more campaigns you run the better your odds of finding profitable affiliate products.

To date I have run about 60 campaigns and I now have 5 profitable affiliate products. January was my third month using the Google Cash System. My January commissions were $6,561.57. After advertising expenses and refunds my net profit was $3,607 dollars.

I have created an amazing free 2 page book (LOL) and a free blog where I show and tell you how I run my affiliate marketing business.

Affiliate marketing is "the best online business" because you have no inventory, no shipping and no customer service. Once you have a profitable campaign it runs on autopilot and basically becomes a 24-hour-a-day money making machine for you.

Best of luck to you,
Barry Stein

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I have been reading a lot of marketing forum posts over the last couple of weeks where many people stated that there was something wrong with ClickBank since their daily sales were off by quite a bit.

I didn't pay too much attention to these posts since I was doing my daily sale average of about 10 a day.

It is now 6:15 PM PT and I have only two sales for the day. I cannot remember having a day like this in a very long time. Now I know what those other affiliates were referring to.

I haven't changed anything with my campaigns. All keywords and bids are the same as they have been over the last few weeks. Something just doesn't seem right. Or I may be just having a "funky sales day."

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I created a pop-in for an opt-in on my Adword Profits book home page. I haven't published it yet since I have to load the auto-responder with messages. It was very easy to create. Here is a link to the free script that I used: DynamicDrive.com

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Feb. 2, 2004

 

I ended up with only 5 affiliate sales yesterday for a total of $105.04 in commission. That's about what the advertising cost me yesterday.

 

The last time I had a day with sales worst than today was January 1, when I had 4 sales and $84.91 in commission.

 

I am targeting content sites once again in the Google's network of participating websites. I had stopped my ads from showing up in the network about a week ago and I'm testing to see if having my ads active again affects my sales results.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: I no longer use the content option with AdWords or any other pay-per-click. I think the content network is where the majority of click fraud is going on. You can test the content option yourself, but I'd keep the keyword bids very low for the content bids.

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I also changed all my keyword bids to the same amount within each Ad Group. However, I have set up some of the broad keyword bids individually at a much lower price if they are getting too many clicks and the overall profit isn't where I'd like it to be.

 

When I stopped my ads from showing up in the network of websites showing content ads I also had raised all my most relevant keyword bids higher and my broad keyword bids lower. So I basically had lots of different keyword bids within one Ad Group.

 

I thought these changes would make the campaigns more profitable because I was targeting relevant keywords with higher bids and they were getting higher positions, but maybe I was wrong about this.

 

Maybe it isn't such a good idea going after expensive keywords when you can get many other keyword bids that may not be as relevant, but can be responsible for some sales.

 

You probably have heard the expression, "If it isn't broke then don't fix it." I think I have been tweaking my way out of making sales.

 

The lesson is if you are making a high number of sales with one of your affiliate products then don't change anything.

 

As I also stated about a week ago I added more countries to the list where my ads are seen.

 

These are the countries I added:

Norway

Denmark

Virgin Islands

South Africa

Ireland

New Zealand

Sweden

Singapore

Bermuda

Barbados

Bahamas

 

Prior to adding these countries I had been targeting these countries:

United States

Australia

UK

 

I have gotten sales from these countries so far:

Australia

United States

UK

New Zealand

 

I'll give this one more week and then I plan to remove any country that isn't responsible for a sale.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004

 

Looks like my affiliate sales got back to normal yesterday. I ended up with 11 sales and $190.60 in commissions. Today I have 4 sales already and it is only 8:06 AM PT.

 

Based upon my experience with taking part in Google's network of websites showing content, I'd have to say that I will use the content option on all my campaigns from now on. All my best sales days have been with my ads being displayed in Google's network of websites showing content.

 

I will also no longer place higher bids on the most relevant keywords. From now on I will do what I did when I first started the Google Cash System in November and that is to put all my keywords in just one Ad Group when I run my test campaigns. Then if the test campaign is profitable I will break up the keywords into other Ad Groups.

 

Each Ad Group will have the same bid for all the keywords within it. The only keywords that will receive a different bid within an Ad Group will be broad keywords that might be generating too many clicks at too high a cost.

 

These broad keywords will receive lower bids than the other keywords in the Ad Group, but they will still be able to have a decent position on Google even with the adjusted lower bids.

 

I have an ad budget of 40% of my average daily sales for a campaign. I then adjust the keyword bids of all Ad Groups within the campaign so that I stay within my daily budget.

 

Getting the keyword budget to last 24 hours is something that will be accomplished by monitoring the campaigns a lot in the beginning. I don't want to run through my daily budget too quickly and at the same time I want to be able to reach it every day. So this will require manipulating my Ad Group's keyword bids until I get it to work correctly for me.

 

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I received an Affiliates Alert email this morning. New products have been added to the ClickBank database. If you have the Pro version you will be able to see these new products right away. If you are using the free version then it will be about a week before you will be able to see them.

 

In case you have not noticed, you can now get your affiliate ClickBank link within the Affiliates Alert software. That means it will save you time and you no longer have to go into the ClickBank Market Place.

 

I mentioned this before, but it is worthwhile mentioning again, if anyone has a website that would tie in to giving the free Affiliates Alert software away as a free download then they should become an affiliate for the program. That way their affiliate links will be in all the copies that are downloaded from their website.

 

This way they can make a commission three ways.

1. From anyone who buys a ClickBank affiliate product through the downloaded software. You make about 50% of the sales price of the product.

2. From anyone who buys the software. You make about $30 a sale.

3. From anyone who subscribes to the Pro version. You make 50% commission on the subscriptions for as long as the person subscribes. This is residual income that gets paid for as long as your referral subscribes. That's only about $5 dollars a month, but if you had about 100 people signed up you would make $500 a month.

I have had over 300 people download the software through my affiliate link. Many of these people may have made copies and/or passed the software on to others.

 

Now if any of these people don't become affiliates themselves... this means that all these copies are still carrying my affiliate links. I continue to make commissions from anyone who buys products within the software, becomes an affiliate for the software or subscribes to the Pro version.

 

Three ways to make money and yet another income stream.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2004

 

An affiliate product I started marketing last month has been profitable for me and I have been getting about two sales a day. The only problem is that I only make about $10 a sale. I have been paying about $5 a day for Google AdWords advertising on this campaign.

 

The merchant for this product happened to send me an email and wanted to know if I had any suggestions for his program. I told him that he probably wasn't getting the top affiliates to market his product since they would only make about $10 commission on a sale. Next thing I know he raises the commission where it now pays about $20 for a sale.

 

Moral of the story is that if you find an affiliate product that you like, but maybe there are ways to improve the product and/or the merchant website, then you should communicate this to the merchant.

 

Maybe the product needs to pay a higher commission, or maybe the website needs testimonials, or perhaps a pop-in rather than a pop-up on the website, or anything else that improves your chance of making money marketing the product.

 

It is a win-win situation. You make more sales, the merchant makes more sales and everyone makes more money. So be sure to communicate with merchants.

 

Someone on Phil Wiley's forum wanted to know why they should consider the Affiliates Alert Pro version over the free version.

 

Here is my reply:

Hi,

The main advantage of using the Affiliates Alert Pro version is that it gives you the ability to see the ranking
history of all the affiliate products.

This will not help you in itself to pick profitable affiliate
products, although it is nice to see which ones are having
increased sales and are moving up the Rank charts, it
is however a big help to you in avoiding the losers that
have Rank numbers that are going down quickly.

When an affiliate product is dropping down in the ranks
and has large negative Rank number then you know
there is some kind of problem with the affiliate product or
why else would it be dropping so quickly?

The problem might be that the product is no good or the sales page for the product might overstate what the product can do for the reader and because of that the product might be experiencing a lot of returns and refunds. Which will be
made worst by the affiliates who stop marketting the product because of the chargebacks.

The Momentum number is less reliable since it can change very quickly. Some times overnight it can go from a high positive number to a negative number.

These quick changes may happen because someone does a large  promotion for the product in their ezine or perhaps with an ad in someone else's ezine or perhaps some other way. In any event there might be a short period of time when sales shoot up and then after the promotion the sales go back down. This plays havoc with the Momentum numbers.

The Rank numbers are much more reliable.

Let me ask a question, which of the following two affiliate products would you want to promote if you had the Pro version of the software and you were able to see this information?

Product A with a current rank change of +11:
RANK HISTORY
Date              Rank
01-01-04         86
01-08-04         56
01-15-04         35
01-22-04         21
01-29-04         23
02-04-04         12

Product B with a current rank change of -15:
RANK HISTORY
Date            Rank
01-01-04       12
01-08-04       25
01-15-04       31
01-22-04       25
01-29-04      46
02-04-04      61

I don't know about you, but I would stay away from product B, which has decreasing sales and is moving down in the ranks.

I'd go with product A since it has sales that are improving and it is moving up the Rank charts.

Best regards,
Barry Stein

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I go into detail on my blog about how I manage my Google AdWords campaigns. It is possible to learn a lot from me and others, but be warned that what works for me or someone else might not work for you.

You need to test things on your own. Everyone brings their own management style to running Google AdWords campaigns. There is no blueprint or set of directions that will guarantee you success using the Google Cash System.

If you read and study Google Cash and The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords you will have a good foundation of information on which to build upon. Most people who try to do this business without reading those two ebooks are working with a handicap and probably will end up losing money or at the very least have a much steeper learning curve.

There are so many aspects to running a profit Google Cash System that it is impossible for me to give anyone the exact steps to take in any given situation since there might be various solutions. And finding that right solution may involve trying or changing any number of different things and doing lots of testing.

So the bottom line is that you can test different suggestions or techniques, but the final solution will probably be something you ultimately find on your own through your own testing.

You have to learn all you can about running Google Adwords campaigns and then you have to be prepared to run many test campaigns. I have run over 60 test campaigns and most of the other people I know who are successful have also run 60 test campaigns or more.

An analogy would be comparing playing the guitar with running a profitable Google Cash System. You and I can both take guitar lessons and we can both practice, but in the end the one who practices the most will usually be better at playing the guitar. So it is with Google AdWords. We both can read and study but the one who runs the most campaigns will probably do better.

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004

 

Yesterday was another slow day for affiliate sales. I ended up with only five sales and $104.77 in commission. Very close to a breakeven day when you factor in the cost of advertising.

 

I did 13 sales on Tuesday with $255.52 in commission so I thought things were getting back to normal. Last month I averaged 10 sales and $212.00 commission a day.

 

So far this month I am averaging 8½ sales and $164.09 commission a day, which would be $4,758.61 commission for the month at this pace.

 

My second best AMM has really been a disappointment this month. I am only averaging about one sale a day. Last month I averaged three sales a day for this product.

 

My number one AMM averaged about six sales a day last month and is averaging 4½ sales a day this month.

 

The one thing that has helped me is the fact that I added two more mini AMM last month that are helping my overall sales and commission.

 

Even though you have success with the Google Cash System it pays to keep building your business because you never know when one or more of your AMMs will stop producing sales the way they used to.

 

I started two new campaigns yesterday and I have had no sales yet for either one of them.

 

I am going to try something new today. I'm going to create a landing page which will have five or six links on it to related affiliate products.

 

I'll have screen shots of all the merchant websites on this landing page along with a description for each. I will be able to create about five different test campaigns and use just this one landing page for all the campaigns.

 

I am hoping that people will be motivated to check out a few or all of the affiliate product links on this one landing page and make a decision to go ahead and purchase one of the options they see.

 

This concept might not work out since maybe all I will manage to do will be to confuse people with too many choices and they may decide to do nothing. In any event I am going to give it a test.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: This didn't work very well. I think you are much better off just focusing on one product on the landing page. I would also offer an additional bonus to anyone who makes a purchase through your affiliate link. Just tell them to send you an email that has a copy of their ClickBank receipt for the product they purchased. Then you send them the URL for the Web page where they can download their additional bonus from you.

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Marketing Blog Update

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004

 

I basically did nothing today other than play. Went to the health club late in the morning before the lunch crowd got there. Went to an early movie before the evening crowd got there. Got home before five o'clock and missed all the heavy traffic that mostly consists of people driving home from work.

 

If you are looking for motivation to establish your own online business then I just gave it to you.

 

There is nothing like making your living on the Internet. You get up when you want to and schedule your own day. Basically every day is like a holiday. So go for it!

 

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Someone on Phil Wiley's forum stated that he was having trouble finding appealing affiliate programs to market in ClickBank.

 

Here is my reply:

Hi,

Just about every category has money makers in them. Only problem is that you have to run lots of test campaigns to find out which ones they are. Just stay away from any subject you think that most of the searches are being done by people who are looking for free information.

You might get away from ClickBank and approach it a different way. First find what people are looking for and what they want to buy, learn, etc.

Then use the Affiliates Alert software to find those products that match what people are looking for.

I like to fool around with the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool and type in words to see what people want or what they are looking for.

Just type in some of these words into the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool:
buy
learn
find
how to
start a

I'm sure you will think of other words to use. Maybe it might just give you some ideas.

You can also look outside ClickBank by doing searches on Google for affiliate products by typing in "product name"+affiliate program.

Not all affiliate products are in ClickBank and Commission Junction.

Best regards,
Barry Stein

If you are involved with affiliate programs then you really should visit Phil Wiley's forum where you will pick up lots of great information from people who are making money with AdWords.

 

Here's the link: Phil's Forum

 

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Interesting article I just read on keyword searches:

More users are conducting Internet searches with multiple words, according to OneStat.com, a Web analytics firm in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. OneStat.com found that two- and three-word searches are the norm for Web searchers.

Nearly 33 percent of a sample of 2 million Web searchers monitored in the past two months used two-word queries and 26 percent used three-word queries. Nineteen percent searched using a single word, and searches using four to seven words made up 21 percent.

Read more...

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Feb. 7, 2004

 

On December 16, 2003 the Alexa rank was 120,418 for this website. On December 31, 2003 the rank was 90,141. In about the last 30 days the rank has gone to 45,067. I'd like to thank everyone for visiting my website and helping me to get the website ranked so well.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: To this day the aWebBiz.com Web site is still not in the Google search results.

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Someone had made a statement on Phil Wiley's forum that one of their profitable affiliate products went through a large number of click throughs with no sales today. He wrote that if he had just started the campaign and was testing it for 50-100 click throughs that he would have missed identifying this affiliate product as an Affiliate Money Maker (AMM).

 

Well, it is possible that you will miss some AMMs by limiting your test click throughs, but that's how it goes. You have to set limits to how much money you will spend to test a product with a campaign. Otherwise you will be chasing after far too many unprofitable affiliate products with your advertising dollars. So you have to accept the fact that you might miss some AMMs.

 

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Running Google AdWords campaigns is a bit like gambling since there is risk involved.

 

I have done some gambling and the one thing I found out is that I usually did better when I wasn't desperate to win and I established a budget as to how much I could afford to lose. If I lost my stake I didn't feel bad since it was affordable for me and I stuck to my budget.

 

AdWords is very similar. If you are desperate to make money with AdWords and you really cannot afford to lose money then you are better off trying something else where there is less risk involved. Like maybe selling on eBay or an offline job.

 

Then when you have some extra, disposable money you will  have less stress and anxiety about losing it on campaigns and chances are you will be in a better position to make money with the Google Cash System.

 

If you still want to go ahead and try the Google Cash System, even though money is tight, then I suggest you do it very conservatively. This approach is safer, but it will probably take you longer to make a high monthly income with AdWords.

 

Only do campaigns where you can get cheap keyword bids. Don't use hundreds of keywords. Just use the most relevant keywords. It may take you longer to run your tests, but you will have a better chance to find a profitable product this way.

 

Then when you start making profits you can add more general or broad keywords to the campaign. Then you will be playing with someone else's money.

 

If this approach is too slow for you or too boring then just set up many campaigns at one time using this approach.

 

Bottom line is you have to find profitable products as soon as possible without losing a lot of money doing it. Make a little profit here and there, which will do wonders for your confidence. Plus the longer you run the Google Cash System the more you will learn and the better you will get at it.

 

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Here is a good example of a landing page for an affiliate service. Actually it is a one page website.

 

The service is Yahoo! web hosting. Go ahead and click on the link and a new window will open. Just close the new window when you are finished viewing it and you will be back on this page again.

 

If you can create web pages that can pre-sell and review like this web page does then I think you can have success with landing pages. I, myself, have not had much luck with creating landing pages as good as this example, but I'm willing to try.

 

This is a professional looking website that does a preview for hosting services that leads you to one choice. I think it is very well done and I'm going to use it as a model to create a landing page for an affiliate product or service. I can say for sure that it won't be for web hosting. Besides, web hosting keywords are too expensive.

 

The landing page would probably be even better if it had an opt-in that was set up with about 12 different follow-up messages.

 

Landing pages and websites don't always have to look as slick and professional as this example landing page. The best looking web sites are not necessarily the best websites. The best web sites are the ones that accomplish what the owner wants them to.

 

By the way, I think this website owner does OK with their website since I found it in Overture and it had a high keyword bid.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Feb. 8, 2004

 

It would be great if someone developed some cloaking software that works with ClickBank links. Better yet it would be great if ClickBank provided affiliates a cloaked link to use instead of just the affiliate link which everyone can see.

 

Actually I think only affiliates and Internet marketers pay attention to the URL address that is displayed in their browser's address box when they visit a merchant's website. I think most of the general public do not pay attention to this and really don't care or know anything about affiliate links.

 

I get the impression that whoever owns ClickBank is a fat cat making big bucks. Someone who is happy with things the way they are now with the ClickBank system. How else can explain their lack of making improvements to the system. Either that or ClickBank suffers from poor management. Or maybe both?

 

How else can you explain that there are no cloaked links provided. No way to track affiliate links. No search engine for their Market Place. And the lack of getting good stats on what you have sold for more than a day at a time.

 

Speaking of search engines, ClickBank missed a opportunity to create a new source of income for themselves by not creating something similar to the Affiliates Alert software. Like I said, "They are probably fat cats so why should they care?"

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Feb. 9, 2004

 

I received an email from Andre Chaperon, author of Automatic Digital Delivery on eBay with reference to my ranting about ClickBank yesterday. Andre presents some solutions for ClickBank and also for his affiliates.

 

Hey Barry,

Here's my take on your latest BLOG update.

> It would be great if someone developed some cloaking software that works
> with ClickBank links. Better yet it would be great if ClickBank provided
> affiliates a cloaked link to use instead of just the affiliate link which
> everyone can see.

I don't have a hoplink on the address bar:
http://hop.clickbank.net/?123333/vinotinto

But then I have invested in a 3rd party script...which no doubt CB could have easily implemented into their system.

BUT...as an affiliate, you can use this to promote a product, if the owner hasn't made an investment to protect their affiliates: http://www.affiliate-defender.com

...which WILL cloak your link. Again, it's a 3rd party app the CB could have easily implemented into their system.

> And the lack of getting good stats on what you have sold for more than
> a day at a time.

There is another 3rd party app that addresses your mentioned issue: http://www.clicksalez.com

I think CB's mentality was merely to create a framework enabling 3rd parties to create plug-ins for their system. Personally, I believe CB would be a better place if they had implemented all of the above mentioned 3rd party solutions.

Microsoft, amongst others, does this regularly. For example SQL server--which is 'only' a database, but requires 3rd party front end for it to work. Now you get 100's of companies specializing in creating their own front end systems for the Microsoft SQL backend.

ClickBank seems to just be a basted version of this methodology.

Warm regards,
Andre

 

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Dave Brown has some good information about AdWords on his website. Here's a link: Dave's website

 

I don't agree with him on doing 300 click through test campaigns for affiliate products. I prefer to do 50-100 click through tests.

 

Lets say you do a test campaign for an affiliate product and your average keyword cost is about 30 cents. If you do a 300 click through test then it would cost you $90 dollars. I can do about six test campaigns for 50 click throughs each with that same $90 dollars.

 

Based on the test results of my two most profitable affiliate products I think you will know within 50 click throughs if you have a keeper.

 

Dave's way isn't wrong, nor is mine. You have to come up with your own system for testing which allows you to find profitable affiliate products while limiting the amount of money you are risking.

 

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I'm reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I have lost track of how many times I have read it. Quite a few times over the years. I'm sure everyone over the age of 20 that has an interest in business has probably read it. If not then they should. Basically gives you a blueprint for getting what you want.

 

The first step is desire. Not just any kind of desire, but a burning desire.

 

The first step is to write down what you want. Read it in the morning and at night. Thing about it throughout the day. Develop a deep, burning desire for what you want and the Universe will present you with the information and people to help you along the way.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2004

 

I received an email from someone with reference to the email I posted here yesterday from Andre Chaperon. Specifically relating to cloaking affiliate links.

 

I quote from the email:
 

 

Now if I can only figure out how to create server side redirects then I will be all set. :-)

 

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I hope you had a chance to read the article on Dave's website. Especially the part about adding negative keywords to your Google AdWords campaigns. You can do the same thing with any Overture campaigns you may have.

 

This is very important and will save you a lot of money. Just use Ad Word Analyzer if you have it or the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool.

 

Do a search on any of your most relevant keywords and then go through the resulting list and add any negative words to your campaign's keyword list.

 

In Google AdWords your negative keywords are listed like this:

-free

-etc.

 

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Two of the most important questions you have to ask yourself when choosing affiliate products to market are these:

1. If I was in the market for this product or service would I buy this particular affiliate product and would I buy it from this merchant's website?
   If you cannot answer with a strong YES then you should probably not market it. If you don't thing it is a good product and if you have doubts about it or about the merchant's website, then so will everyone else that you send there.

2. Can I find this information or service for free some where on the Internet?
   You will be better off not trying to market affiliate products or services that target niche market keywords that might have many people looking for free things. It helps to market products that offer something unique that is not readily available somewhere on the Internet for free.

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These are the countries where I have recently made affiliate sales to: New Zealand, Canada, UK and Ireland.

 

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Faith is the second step toward riches. You can have what you desire, but you need to have faith and believe that you can reach your goals.

 

Perhaps you have heard the expression, "Be careful of what you want because you might get it." Well you need to direct and focus your thoughts on what you want and stay away from negative, self defeating thoughts.

 

Some times our thoughts can become our own worst enemy. If you don't think you can succeed then you probably won't and vice versa.

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004

 

Yesterday was my best day so far this month. I had 16 sales for a total commission of $358.34. My advertising cost was about $100 for the day.

 

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday going through all my Google AdWords keywords and getting rid of any of them that had 200 or more impressions and no clicks.

 

I also used Ad Word Analyzer to do searches on my most important keywords in order to locate all the negative words

(-keyword) I didn't want to target and added them to my campaigns.

 

I'm going to try and see if I can set up server side redirects for all my affiliate links today. I'm not quite sure if I understand how to do it, but I have some directions and hopefully when I go into my control panel management area for my domain it will all make sense.

 

Other things I want to complete this week is setting up tracking for all my affiliate programs, add some AdWords tips to the auto-responder I'm going to use for the opt-in I created for my Adword Profits online book and one new demo for the book that will cover how to manage a campaign and how I adjust keyword bids.

 

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Here is the correct link to the thread on How To Forum that deals with affiliate link cloaking.

 

Wow, that was a long thread. In case you don't have time to read it, I'll give you a summary.

 

Seems that the best cloaking software available right now that will hide the ClickBank hop-links is the AffiliateCloner. However, it could be a problem if someone has their Active-x turned off since it is needed to run the software. Most people don't turn their Active-x off, nor do most of them have any idea what it is.

 

The other group of people you have to be concerned about are computer techies who might disable the Active-x on their computers. This would be a concern if you were using Affiliate Cloner and you were marketing to these techies.

 

Other than that it looks like Affiliate Cloner is the way to go for right now.

 

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It's days like today that make me wonder if there are problems with ClickBank. It's 6:19pm PT and I only have two affiliate sales for the day. Thank goodness for Beanies. LOL

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004

 

Received an Affiliates Alert email. New products have been added to the ClickBank database.

 

Here's the email:

 

Hi Barry,

ClickBank Marketplace was just updated with new products and ranking.

Enter your Affiliates Alert software, find new killer products and make money!

Please Note:

'Professional Edition' Users
============================
The new products are available right away.
Select in the 'newer than' box the values 1 & Weeks
and click 'Report'. This will show you only the newest products.

'Standard Edition' Users
========================
You'll be able to see the new products only 7 days from today (from Feb. 19, 2004 and on). The updated ranking are available right now.

When you upgrade to the 'Professional Edition' you can see the new products immediately. Most of the profits from new killer products are made on the first two weeks because the product is brand new and nobody bought it yet.

In order to see the new products at the 'Standard Edition' (older than 7 days ago), select the values 2 & Weeks in the 'newer than' box and click 'Report'.

All the best,
- Maayan

 

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Being human beings we control our thoughts. Why not program our minds for success?

 

Auto-suggestion is how you program your mind for success. You write down what you want and you read it out loud to yourself in the morning and at night.

 

Close your eyes and visualize exactly how things will be once you get what you want. You have to make it seem real in your mind's eye.

 

You can program your mind for both positive and negative things. That is why it is important that you only think positive things about yourself. Keep telling yourself that you will never succeed and chances are you never will.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004

 

Be sure to check out this message about Mad Cow disease on the Friends in Business Forum: http://friendsinbusiness.com/board1/index.cgi?read=76634

 

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I added more Ad Groups to my profitable campaigns. I also started a new campaign for an affiliate product which I am anxious to see the results for. I was able to target hundreds of keywords which will give my ad thousands of impressions for five cents each.

 

I monitor my new campaigns very closely since I don't want any of them to be disabled by Google. I stated on a forum that I have never had a campaign disabled, but I was wrong. I did have a campaign stopped one time that targeted the "lotto" niche market.

 

I am due for an AMM and I like the look of this new product. I will post the name of the affiliate product here if it fails. Only thing that concerns me is that it is hard to target relevant keywords for this product. All the keywords I am using are broad or general.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004

 

I just made my first two sales for the new affiliate product I started a campaign for yesterday. The sales occurred within 15 minutes of each other.

 

The affiliate product pays about $23 commission for a sale. I hope this keeps up since I am getting many impressions and click throughs so far. Best part is that the clicks are costing me only five cents each.

 

I think this product is going to be an AMM. It has an awesome sales letter that makes an offer that is hard to say no to and one of the bonuses allows you to get something for free that is worth about twice as much as the actual product.

 

The only problem I can see is that maybe the product and bonuses might seem too good to be true to the average prospect. There are quite a few testimonials and a great money back guarantee, so maybe that will be enough to overcome any doubts someone might have. I made two sales so it evidently is working.

 

Here are the stats so far:

Impressions: 12,471

Clicks: 29

Ad CTR: 0.2%

Average CPC: $0.05

Cost: $1.45

Sales: 2

Profit: About $44.00.

 

This is why I only run test campaigns for 50-100 click throughs. Real AMMs will show themselves to you very quickly.

 

Keep in mind that there are really no specific keywords that I can target with this affiliate product. All the keywords are broad and general in nature.

 

I stated this before and I'll state it again, "If you can add any general or broad keywords to your campaign that are vaguely related to the affiliate product you are marketing and you can get these general or broad keyword bids for at a low cost then you should add them to your campaign."

 

I don't care where my ads are displayed. If someone is interested enough to click on my ad and go to the merchant's website then it will be up to the merchant's sales copy to convince the prospect to buy, which will happen quite often if you have a real AMM.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Feb. 15, 2004

 

It looks like the new affiliate product campaign I wrote about yesterday is an AMM for sure.

 

Here are the current stats as of Sunday morning:

Impressions: 25,595

Clicks: 84

Ad CTR: 0.3%

Average CPC: $0.05

Cost: $4.23

Sales: 3

Profit: About $62.00.

 

That's a lot of impressions, but what is really impressive is the fact that my ads aren't even being shown as content on websites that are part of the Google AdSense program yet.

 

I am not sure how long it takes for ads to show up on the content network, but that will make quite an impact on the number of impressions my ads will receive.

 

I don't understand why they are not showing up on the content network yet. Some times I have had new campaigns start showing up right away and some times it takes days for them to show up on the content network of Google.

 

I added a second test ad to the campaign and it has a 0.5% CTR, which is better than the first ad that was getting a 0.3% CTR.

 

(NOTE: You should always have at least two ads for every Ad Group. Always be trying to improve the CTR for your ads.)

 

I now have 1,394 keywords for this campaign. They are all general or broad in nature and they are all in just one Ad Group. I will continue to use the the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool to probably add hundreds of more keywords to this campaign.

 

I received a couple of emails from individuals who wanted me to clarify my use of the terms "general" and "broad" keywords.

 

First of all I am not using unrelated keywords. I'm not trying to sell an ebook on gardening and running ads targeting keyword groups like lawn care, make money at home, shopping, etc.

 

Here is an example of what I am doing...

 

Lets say I am marketing an affiliate product which shows someone how to start a fishing rod and reel repair business.

 

Some of the "general" and "broad" keyword groups I would target would be everything and anything that has to do with fishing.

 

I'd enter fishing into the campaign and click on the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool and start clicking away on just about every suggestion. Then I would do the same thing again with all these new secondary keyword terms that were created from the "fishing" keyword.

 

Next I would start a new Ad Group for each of these keyword terms:

home based business

make money

work at home

business opportunity

 

Now in this case some of the keyword terms listed here might be expensive, but once I use the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool I'll be able to create quite a few new keywords that I may be able to get for a low enough bid to use them in my campaign.

 

I have to monitor these new campaigns very closely since I don't want to get them disabled by Google.

 

I login into my Google AdWords control center. Once I am there I click on the column titled "impressions" which will put all my keywords listed in order with the ones with the highest number of impressions listed first.

 

I go through the list and delete all keywords that have 200 or more impressions and have no clicks.

 

I will also delete any keyword that has over 200 impressions and doesn't have a 0.5% CTR. If it is 0.4% it is gone. Has to be at least 0.5% in order to stick around.

 

Finally I delete any keyword that has 100 or more impressions with no clicks and has an average position of 50, 60 or more.

 

My goal is to get rid of all non-producing keywords and get my overall CTR higher.

 

My new AMM started out at 0.2% CTR and is now at 0.3%. Within the next couple of days, through the process I just explained, I will get the overall CTR to 0.5% or higher.

 

 

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