About a year ago I tried sending Adword traffic directly to merchants and was pulling off break even. Spent about $700 promoting everything from porn to ringtones. Never seemed to pull a profit, so I quit that and pretty much quit everything up until about a week ago.
After reading this thread, I pulled up my old campaigns to see what I was doing wrong. First of all, I was sending traffic directly to merchants! Mistake one. Mistake two, would be I never ever used a single buy keyword! Fuck! Everyone clicking my ads were lookers and browsers. Damn.
The only things I was doing right were ad copy, keyword selection, split testing and the other elements that go into the advertising side. Learned alot about all that from Perry Marshall and must have been doing half-way decent. My best campaign reached 9.93% CTR after 483 impressions with my next best campaign with a 6.51% CTR after 1413 impressions. These are decent ratios aren't they?
OK, so the first go-around I was breaking even doing it half wrong. In addition... breaking even with a few products from clickbank's lineup...
This time around I plan on getting the other half right. Start out by actually creating websites, websites with actual content. As long as I do this I don't have to worry about Google tea bagging me in my sleep. Right? I mean all Google wants is actual websites, so... make an actual website and no taste of ball sweat in the morning.
Current problem is this. I know no programming... Seems to me that XSitePro is pretty on the money for what I need.
XSitePro - Web Site Design Software for Internet Marketers - Home Real quick opinion?
Alright, sorry, I'm new, I had to let some of that out, now to get back on topic.
I think ImagesAndWords is right on, IMHO. Imagine going to a store and having a salesmen come up to you and he starts rambling about whatever it is your looking at. You know this salesmen probably won't be quick to say anything negative about the product. This is built into your subconscious or preconception or whatever you want to call it as soon as he approaches you. You are listening to him with "caution" for lack of a better word. This salesmen is the equivalent in the online world to our merchant's sell page. Now, imagine that you have a friend with you, your friend happens to already own this product the salesmen is rambling about, he's standing at your side listening. Your friend is your trusted source and your friend is agreeing with the salesmen, but isn't afraid to tell you that that the battery life is fucking terrible. (Or isn't afraid to tell you some of the negatives about the product) With your friend agreeing with the salesmen but at the same time not being biased you are more likely to buy. I guess our job as affiliates is to be the unbiased friend of the customer and not to be a salesmen, one which directs them to another salesmen... I think BNWfinance wasn't seeing any improvements because he was just another salesmen adding to the bombardment towards the customer when really you just need to be the friend.
My two cents.