7 PPC Tips You Can Learn from a Monkey : PPC Fool

Affiliate marketing can sometimes be a tough nut to crack. I know there are times when I get frustrated and a little down. So where do I look to for a little guidance? Yep, monkeys. Monkeys apparently have high IQ’s, so here are a few ppc tips that us humans can learn (This post is part of a group writing project put on by problogger.)

Monkey 1. Start Small
If you are just starting out, don’t expect to become the 800 pound gorilla in your niche the first week. I’d suggest picking a smaller niche and getting a profitable campaign under your belt first. Then you can tackle the ringtones, dating, and financial offers. Also, build your campaigns out over time, add a few hundred keywords a day, to get the feel of how to manage the offer. Dumping 20,000 keywords into a campaign will just get you frustrated, not to mention a huge CC bill.

Monkey 2. Do Your Research
I think one of the most overlooked keys to being a successful affiliate is the research. The niche, competition, offers, keywords, landing pages, etc… This can really make or break you. Spend some time going over each component of the offer. As you get more experience this step gets easier and quicker.

Monkey

3. Split Test
You’d be amazed at how just the smallest changes can bring a losing campaign into a profitable one. Be sure to split test, if you’re not you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. I’ve literally seen conversions double from just 1 tweak. Test the ad copy, headlines, images, landing page copy, call to action etc… This is just part of the optimizing.

Monkey

4. Use the Technology Given
Their are a handful of extremely useful tools that are available to the affiliate, lots of them free. Use them. Things like adwords editor, prosper202, keyword discovery, wordze, aweber, typo tool, etc. Take full advantage of these tools. They will not only make your life much simpler but can speed up the process of cranking out campaigns and better optimizing them.

Monkey

5. Speak Their Language
It’s important on your landing page to speak the visitor’s language. Is your target customer young, old, mothers, dog owners, webmasters, etc … The more your landing page copy sounds like them the more they will listen. Also, pulling your keywords into your lander can really give conversions a nice boost.

Monkey

6. Outsource
Being a one-man business can get overwhelming very quick. Easy to burnout. Two basic things you can outsource are web design and content. Most of my content and some design work as well as some keyword research I outsource. Plan out a campaign from start to finish and break it up into smaller tasks. This may give you some ideas at other areas you can possibly outsource. It’s helpful to focus on your strengths and hire someone else do the work in areas your weakest in. Use sites like elance, getafreelancer, and odesk.

Monkey
7. Take the Plunge
You will never get anywhere if you don’t take any action. There will never be a perfect time when all the stars line up for you to start. You have to be willing to risk in order to succeed in this business. Don’t wait until tomorrow start TODAY!

10 Comments Already

Gagan Said,

August 28th, 2008 @11:03 am

OMG! This must be the most creative post on PPC I’ve ever read. Amusing! Nice one Dave.

August 28th, 2008 @11:06 am

Question for you Dave!

How do you tackle a new niche. Do you collect a huge list of keywords (in 1000s), split them up in adgroups (100s) and run them all together? OR do you run them batch by batch. Say you run 10 adgroups first, work at them until they are profitable and them move the next 10?

Dave Said,

August 28th, 2008 @11:52 am

Gagan: Well if I know a niche is in demand and profitable, I like to build a huge keyword list. Then organize them into adgroups/themes etc … After that I just upload them in batches not all at once. I find that easier to manage at least for me

August 28th, 2008 @12:59 pm

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

How long do you give a keywords before you pause or delete it. Say you have high impression keyword that is bringing good ad CTR but conversion wise its a failure. You don’t know why this keyword not convert even after tweaking the landing pages few times for it. Do you normally delete the keyword at this point and move on?

signul9 Said,

August 28th, 2008 @1:10 pm

Your forgot #8 - Throw Feces. (Flaming, Forums, MMO Blogs, other AM’s etc.)

GREAT post!!

Ad Hustler Said,

August 29th, 2008 @6:00 am

This post is hilarious. Who would think to compare PPC jobs to monkeys? YOU WOULD. An entertaining read and good work.

David at AffiliateDragon.com Said,

August 30th, 2008 @10:12 am

Hi, found your website via ProBlogger, very impressive! The graphics really make this article and are a great way for illustrating an often repeated subject in a fresh manner!

Jeff Said,

September 8th, 2008 @5:43 am

I am working on my ability to project manage and write outsourcing specs. I am wondering how you go about writing a spec so that you can out source keyword research. Do you specify how they do it, the type of keywords you are looking for? What information do you have to pass over to them

September 8th, 2008 @2:54 pm

Jeff: Actually I usually gather the keywords myself and outsource organizing the keywords together and scrubbing. When you have 1000’s of keywords it takes time to organize them nice and neat for upload … I’ve considered outsourcing gathering the keywords but that’s a skill I prefer to do myself

Wes (MasterlessSamurai.com) Said,

October 8th, 2008 @5:00 am

Ha…nice post (and use of images) Dave. So simple in theory, but so often overlooked or ignored. Now if we only had a mandatory affiliate school 101 before even giving people the keys to the car…we’d see a lot more people reaching their intended destinations.