It’s simple to use, just enter your core keywords into digg and hit search. The most popular headlines that match your phrase come up. This is definitely not an exact science and is not a piece of software that will spit out perfect ads for you every time, but it will definitely get your juices flowing and make you more creative. Feel free to play around with the advanced search features as well.

For example take ‘weight loss’, below are 7 of the top 10 results given:

Notice anything special? 6 of these seven all have numbers in their headlines … Hmmm that must be important. Anyways, just wanted to throw this out there. I’m sure some of you can use this. You may also want to check out my post Ad copy: rational vs. emotional.

I know there are a handful of other tools on the web that are similar to help you out with ad copy, feel free to share if you have any.

It is human tendency to see an action as more appropriate or acceptable when they see others doing it

The idea of this herd behavior or social proof is very powerful and is often used in business and marketing. ‘Social proofing’ your campaigns can give the end user that little extra push to take action, hit the buy button, or fill out a form. It is very simple to incorporate this into your affiliate campaigns, and there are 2 primary ways of doing this: testimonials and taglines or sub headings.

Testimonials

Most people would agree, sprinkling your landing page with testimonials can only help your conversions. The idea of social proof is when someone is in a situation not knowing what to do, they look to others for guidance. Seeing and reading other people using the product and taking action makes them more comfortable.

Taglines and Sub Headings

Taglines are a great way to social proof your landing page. There have been many studies done that people really do read taglines and sub headings. The best places to put them are directly under your main heading or just under your call to action button or hero shot/main image. People will read them.
Here are some samples that I’m sure you have seen before on other people’s landers:

• Join 5,267 other members …
• Over 100,000 sold …
• Amaze your friends …
• Over 1 million downloads
• etc …

Don’t think this works? Take a look at the tagline below:

Well, I woke up this morning to find out I was over $700 in the hole! In my rush to finish I forgot to disable the search network as this was suppose to be a content only campaign. That little check box cost me a pretty penny. I hate to lose money, so any amount is not fun.

Yeah I could have had a lower budget, but content is usually slower to be approved so I figured by the time I wake up it would have just got going. Unlike search where it is usually pretty fast for me.

Moral of the story is don’t get sloppy when launching campaigns. I think I’m going to write up a pre-launch checklist just because of this as there are a handful of things that should be checked.

Ever wonder how some affiliate are able to dynamically insert the searched keywords on their landing pages? I remember for the longest time, I was always baffled by it, since I’m not much of a programmer or developer. Once I learned I felt kind of dumb since it is extremely simple with just a few lines of code added on your page. I’m sure there are a handful of ways to do this, but here’s how I do it:

Step 1

There is just 1 simple change on your destination URL’s in adwords. Just add
?kw={Keyword} to the end of your destination URL and you are done. For example if your destination URL is http://www.lander.com then the new URL would be http://www.lander.com/?kw={Keyword}

Step 2

Next at the top of your landing page insert this snippet of code

<?php
if(isset($_GET['kw']))
$key=$_GET['kw'];
else
$key=’Everything Else’;
?>

This picks up the value of the keyword being searched with an alternative text of “Everything Else”.

Step 3

Now every where you want your keyword to appear in your landing page just insert this piece of code
<?php echo $key;?> and your done! It is as simple as that.

Here are 3 examples:
http://www.ppcfool.com/keyword-insertion.php?kw=Whats up?
http://www.ppcfool.com/keyword-insertion.php?kw=Anyone Can Do This
http://www.ppcfool.com/keyword-insertion.php?kw=Sign-up for my RSS Now!

Why this is important?

Adding the searched keyword can help your conversions. Anything on your landing page that the searcher is familiar with boosts your credibility and relevancy. How many times have you searched for something, landed on a page and thought ‘this has nothing to do with want I’m looking for?’

Dynamic keyword insertion will give your page more relevancy which will help conversions

Want more landing page tips? Check out my 10 day series on landing pages!

Changing the Learn More Link —> Help Me Choose Link made a huge impact on the bottom line. The reasoning was since the customer was already in buy mode, people are not looking to learn anything. But helping them choose is what was needed.

Here are 5 simple things you can immediately start to test:

• Headlines
• Images
• Call to Action
• Landing Page Layout
• Copy

Ok just another rant on the importance of split testing, mainly for me
So are you doing it?

Assuming your ad copy and lander are optimized, three things come to my mind when thinking about dropping keywords:

The Revenue Rule

A good rule of thumb that I follow is to wait until that keyword has accumulated about 2-3 times in cost what the payout would be. Example, if the payout is $30, then if a keyword racks up over $90 in clicks with no conversions. Time to cut it loose. Now if the keyword is in the top 3 positions or you really think the keyword has potential, you may want to lower the bid and wait it out. Dropping just a few positions can drastically cut the cost per click.

The Click Rule

I’ve read in other places waiting until you reach a certain number of clicks. Same concept as above. Waiting about 100-200 clicks will definitely get you some significant data. This is no exact science, but after 200 clicks most likely it’s not worth your time. This may also depend on what your target conversion is. If you’re assuming a 2% conversion, then 200 clicks is enough. But if you’re only counting on .5% conversions, then maybe not.

The Worthless Keyword Rule

Apart from above, you should be trimming your keyword lists every so often, especially in the beginning. 1-2 weeks after launching a campaign, go back over those keywords with 0 impressions and get rid of them. The same with getting lots of impressions with 0 clicks. Now that could be because your ad position is in 8,9,or 10 or maybe your ad copy is off. Raise your bids a little and double check your ad copy, but if still after 1 more week and no clicks my suggestion is to drop it.

I’m sure there are other ways of doing this, would love to hear your thoughts. To be honest, I always kind of do this on the fly and just eyeball it. It’s always good though to have some general rules

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Shock Advertising

Believe it or not, there is a practice in the marketing world known as shock advertising.

Shock advertising is a type of advertising generally regarded as one that “deliberately, rather than inadvertently, startles and offends its audience by violating norms for social values and personal ideals.

Moving this to paid search, you just need to include some unusual or shocking words in your ad title or text to draw attention. How many times have you searched for something, only to see over half of the ads basically state the same thing? Boring. Having your ad stand out from the rest of the crowd can get you those extra clicks. Using uncommon words can sometimes do the trick.

Common Examples

Below are just some of the words that I’ve seen used. There is really an endless list to choose from, they don’t necessarily have to shock, it just has to be unusual and different.

• Exposed
• Scam
• Naughty
• Sneaky
• Secrets
• Wicked
• Yucky
• Disgusting
• Gruesome
• Fatal
• Jealous
• Traitor …

The trick is incorporating them into your ad text. I’ve really seen some off the wall ones, and don’t even want to put them up here. This is just to get your mind going, how you use them is up to you.

Caveats

Again, like I’ve said in the past if your pay per click CTR goes from 2% to 5% but your sales or leads don’t increase along with it, those are wasted clicks, assuming your adwords quality score stays the same.

Also, if you put words like scam or exposed in your ad title, your landing page better do a good job explaining this. If the visitor clicks and sees nothing related to a scam or exposed, they might get frustrated and leave your site. Something to keep in mind, before you start injecting shock words into your ads.

All in all, it couldn’t hurt to test this out. Setup a unique lander for some of the words you have in mind and turn them on. You could be in for quite a shock

When I first started out, I always thought I needed to be #1 or else I was wasting my time. This is a mistake. The key is you don’t know which ad place you should be in, you have to go out and find it.

Consider the following three scenarios:

• Position 1 – Spend $120, Gross $180 – Profit $60
• Position 3 – Spend $60, Gross $140 – Profit $80
• Position 5 – Spend $30, Gross $60 – Profit $30

While position 1 makes the most in revenues, bidding for position 3 gives you the most returns for your money. The deal here is that you have to test around to find this out. In some niches it may pay to have your ad #1, while in others, everyone is bid happy and bidding for place #1 would just kill your margins.

There are also other strategies involved with this on bidding, which deserves its own post. For example, you may want to bid #1 just to push volume and get a pay increase, which would then make it reasonable to keep it there. More on bid strategies later.

For now go and find that money zone

So then I was thinking, hmmm, if a sports event stirs up this many people, I’m assuming a lot of people will be searching for info on the masters tournament and golf info in general. Take a look below at Google Trends and notice the spikes in search volume…

This one is for “masters tournament”

This one is for “Buick invitational”

This one is for “bob hope classic” another golf tournament …

I hope you see how you can use this. This can be done with any event, some annually, others unplanned. Just stay current!