PPC Rockstar - Cards And Gardens

Mark, you gave up on the vistaprint offer WAY too early and you did not bid even nearly enough to get started.

The offer I assume was paying out ~$30 right? Turn the content network off and bid about $1-$2 per click to get at least 100-200 visitors to your landing page. At least then you'll know if your landing page is working or not. Remember, you're up against other products and affiliates and if they are making money from it...

Despite what the ebooks say, you DO have to spend money to make money in affiliate marketing.

Remember, with your aerogrow thing, you are going to be be up against other affiliates too. Being stingy on your initial bids is not a good start.

Good luck with the rest of your videos. I think it's a fantastic case study.

@dave - thanks for checking out the case study.

the garden offer pays $36 per sale

the vistaprint offer only pays 16% per sale. with an average sale of $40 that is only like $6.40 per sale. I really don't want to pay $1 per click for $6.40 per sale.

However I do appreciate the advice and will take it with the garden campaign this week.

I've never bid as high as $1 so i will start there and also turn off the content network.

Thanks. Check back next saturday for the results.

@all - check this link out

http://www.ianfernando.com/2008/banging-heads-to-become-a-ppc-rockstar/

Hi Mark, you cracked me up with that comment about, if I get a flip, I have to start video blogging. I've only been brave enough to use my real name for a few months now. Maybe I'll get there eventually.

At one point I was thinking about promoting the aero garden. Because it has a good payout, and it doesn't seem shady or anything. The problem is the landing page, says they are out of stock.

I'm loving your PPC series. But this probably won't give you very good results. Although I'm very new to affiliate marketing. So you may know something I don't know.

I actually promote the Aerogarden on my food blog and have received about $200 in commissions. Hopefully you do good on it too....good luck!

Mark,

Always love reading this blog. Find the information to be super helpful and has inspired me into affiliate marketing as well.

But I have a question for you. Wouldn't it be best if you focused on one niche and then dominated that niche by offering some useful information which then lead into your affiliate programs.

Also how are you going about building lists for these niche sites? Do you have a target market? What market research are you doing? Do you understand how people are motivated to buy any product online?

Just curious because I just do not see a clear direction here as to where you are going. You are experimenting just great but you keep trying different products each time which seems like an unfocused way to handle things.

Perhaps I am not really understanding what you are doing.

I see the idea of case studies here but I have zero clue where this is going. With as many obstacles as there are when starting out in PPC you decide to go ahead and tell what your going to promote before you do it.

I'm curious that you just went ahead and picked out this offer and from what I see you did so based on the payout. Any idea the lingo and interests of your target market>?

Here's a tip on how to do that. Go look for communities/forums/blogs of where people are talking about the topic. Put together your market research and then turn around and create a placement targeted campaign at a low CPM (if you can) (on the sites that have Adsense) and smack that ad right in their faces.

@ruck - I picked the topic last week, business cards, based on my knowledge of lingo like targetting "conferences" and specific events but it was no help.

I picked this week cause the thing looked interesting to me and had a good payout.

@Richard Callaby - I'm not sure it would help targetting one niche. I thought that last week but it didn't help.

Also, theoretically this stuff should be universal with pay per click. It's just a numbers game. I just can't get the numbers green, yet.

@all -

Why am I doing this? What's the point?

Why not? Fun. Learn something. Experiment. Etc.

The only clear direction I have is to make money with ppc.

I could be like the other 99% of blogs that just give generic vanilla flavored advice "pick topics like this" or "do sorta like this" or "you might bid like this" but that's boring and I have my share of those posts.

I thought with the ppc I'd keep it real.

I'll give people the exact thing I do and show it works in the wild (or fails). No bs or half truths.

Of course I'll probably fail every week. I don't have any expectation of succeeding anytime soon. And 99% of the thinking on PPC is garbage.

(for instance point me to one morsel of info that if I test it live in video will work with ppc)

However it's easy to show things with seo, kinda like the business card post ranks top 5 for "vistaprint review" already.

But I doubt anyone can point to one piece of info that works for PPC that i could test live.

If it was easy everyone would do it.

I find it fun 2.

Buying traffic from google is kind of expensive unless you bid for huge list of keywords. I feel stumbleupon is much cheaper, .05 per click. With stumbleupon, few people might stumble the page which is always better.

Cool video.

I'm looking forward to seeing how you do with Aero Garden.

Thanks for testing out Pepperjam Network!

Best of luck.

Kris

waste of time and money :)

what makes you think you can make money at Aerogarden?

If I want the plants or accessories NOW, I go to Home depot.

There are some products that are best suited selling on internet and some like this(garden supplies, beer supplies) are not money earners.

just from my experience having good nurseries domains!!

Mark..what does 45n5 stand for?

thanks for the tips and comments everyone

45n5=50. 50$/day was my goal when I started this blog.

Howdy Mark - I realize I'm not making any money either, which, God knows is why I luv ya man! But, I can't help but think that you are giving up on these things way too early and with no real results to measure against.

Most of the "gurus" that I have spoken with always say to turn off the content network... then you have to think about how the numbers will convert, are you expecting a 1% conversion from actual clicks, but you are moving on after only 2 clicks... not even close to enough traffic to see if the offer will work. I understand the hesitation to bid too much, but that should be part of the research, right? The offer has to pay out enough to be worth bidding on the clicks...

Also, have you started to build something more traditional so that you have a marketing list besides the blog here at 45n5? The thing about PPC is that when you turn it off, it goes away.

Man - I really dig this blog, but I think you may be putting so much effort into this that you neglect the work you could be doing to make money via the affiliate stuff... what do you think?

@mark - no I didn't quit too early, I just wasn't prepared to pay more than .40 per click for a business card offer that only pays 15%

also, I am making money ;) December was my best month ever. I have over 100 sites.

I just lose money any time I try ppc, that's why I thought i'd have some fun with it.

I do 45n5 cause I enjoy it, I enjoy experimenting, and I enjoy meeting like minded people like yourself and the other commenters.

I appreciate the effort and I don't mean to be "negin'" ya... It might be nice to hear a success story from you once in a while *grins*

I really hope you are making a documentary about your efforts, when you get your successful ending, it will make a great movie!

I've been reading your posts and have faced the same struggles with PPC. However, I am now making about $75 profit. The secret? Read my blog post ;-)

http://www.seanology.com/make-money-online/the-only-ppc-resource-you-will-ever-need/

Hi Mark, Sorry I'm replying so late, but I was away for the weekend...

I use PPC to promote my own ebook, Blog Traffic Jump Start. In December, I paid $7.79 for AdWords and made $74.16 in sales of my book. In January, so far I have paid $19.14 and made $89.94. My book sells for $45 but I have to subtract the Clickbank fees. (In December I was selling it for less.)

Anyway, my point is, you can make money. I could make more if I could get more clicks, but there are not many searches for "blog traffic" and similar terms. I think if I had an ebook on a more popular topic, I could make more.

Try creating your own product and use PPC to promote it. :)

thanks all for the feedback

@pat - i'm sure money can be made with ppc and appreciate your examples.

My problem is that if I make $50 I'm spending $80 to make it.

Thats great that you are making money with the technique.

I'm not sure about selling my own product at the moment but maybe I'll try driving some traffic to showyouradhere.com with ppc.

Thanks for the comment.

Mark,

You said that you only got 2 clicks, why not trying to change your headline? Don't give up too early you need to test each week new things: the ad, headline, landing page, keywords... There are many things you should test before deleting your campaigns. May be that is the campaign of your life but without testing you will not know.

Good luck!