Lets learn how to run an affiliate campain with PPC shall we kids?

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chrislingle said:
you are correct but you have over simplified the process, the hook, line and sinker and it all has to come together!
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Maybe so...but when you're looking at a blank page in your editor and wondering WTF to write, you gotta have a starting point. Writing about product benefits will at least get you writing. With me, at least, once I get started, the other ideas are easier to come by....not easy, mind you, just easier.
 


WebbLasVegas said:
Maybe so...but when you're looking at a blank page in your editor and wondering WTF to write, you gotta have a starting point. Writing about product benefits will at least get you writing. With me, at least, once I get started, the other ideas are easier to come by....not easy, mind you, just easier.
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I'm actually doing that right now...I'm looking at a blank page in Dreamweaver thinking WTF do I do!...I been having the hardest time writing up a "sales letter" for anything I'm trying to promote....

but with the new Google QS, how do you write multiple pages about the product, what do you guys break it down to...."what's the product", "benefit of product"....???

I'm just probably frustrated because I haven't made one FUCKing sale!

FUCKING CUNT!
 
greenvy said:
I'm actually doing that right now...I'm looking at a blank page in Dreamweaver thinking WTF do I do!...I been having the hardest time writing up a "sales letter" for anything I'm trying to promote....

but with the new Google QS, how do you write multiple pages about the product, what do you guys break it down to...."what's the product", "benefit of product"....???

I'm just probably frustrated because I haven't made one FUCKing sale!

FUCKING CUNT!
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Do a search and check out what others are doing on their pages to get some ideas and improve on it. I don't know if this works or not, but what I did this week is I took the advertisers landing page and expanded it. It seems like they tend to just mention the benefits, I took those and expanded on them and tried to make them fit my customers.
 
I will write up some tips on sales letter here soon. What Jdog is saying is a good starting point though, but I can add that it often helps to appear objective and maybe point out a few minor nags you have about the product you are writing about. This way you appear neutral to the buyer, and making them believe that you aren't affiliated with the product merchant. But of course - make sure to say that all the good completely outweighs the "bad" and the product still is definitely worth it.

You gain a lot of trust that way. ;)
 
The logical problem I have with the concept of the pre-sell is this:

a) You spend the time and effort writing a killer pre-sell for an affiliate program that converts at 5%.

b) You send the traffic directly to the affiliate site without a pre-sell and it converts at 5%.

Does anyone else see the problem here? Ultimately, the customers are being sent to the affiliate site and it is THERE they will be converted. I've tested almost a dozen affiliate programmes now switching between pre-sell and pass-through and there was no difference in conversions. It makes sense and it stands up to a test in the real world.

For my money (and time), I'll forget the pre-sell and go straight for the pass-through. If the affiliate can't sell their own product, I won't bother promoting them in the first place.
 
BNWdumbass - the funny thing is I get about a 10 to 12% conversion doing a presell. also there are some things you have to. Alot of doing presell is about organic search. I think it is your sales letter - what is the structure of that copy? how do you go about selling? what sales techniques are you using. To say that you have tested and you get the same on both is not an accurate statement because I have read your shit on your crap blogs and you suck!
in all seriousness, without providing a clear method on your "sales letter" how does one know if you are not just a bad sales copy writer?
So provide your sales technique or stfu! you worseless Canadian piece of shit!
 
chrislingle said:
BNWdumbass - the funny thing is I get about a 10 to 12% conversion doing a presell. also there are some things you have to. Alot of doing presell is about organic search. I think it is your sales letter - what is the structure of that copy? how do you go about selling? what sales techniques are you using. To say that you have tested and you get the same on both is not an accurate statement because I have read your shit on your crap blogs and you suck!
in all seriousness, without providing a clear method on your "sales letter" how does one know if you are not just a bad sales copy writer?
So provide your sales technique or stfu! you worseless Canadian piece of shit!
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Yet again, your nonsensical, fevered, and barely literate ravings (while amusing) serve no purpose but to show your own level of self-loathing. I am not about to engage in your prepubescent game of "prove it".

My point is this: regardless of how good your presell-writing kung-fu is, in the end you have to send the customer to the affiliate landing page and let THEM do the final sell (hence "presell"). If the affiliate sucks at selling, you can be Mr. Chris-friggen-Lingle Chris-hippy-Cringle, +12 Vorpal God of Presell and it makes no difference.

IF, however, your chosen affiliate is really good at selling (ie. converting) then it makes far more sense to let them work their magic and just send them the traffic.

Now get some sleep and take your meds, Chrisfreakle and think about it for more than 5 seconds. :repuke:
 
BNWFinance said:
My point is this: regardless of how good your presell-writing kung-fu is, in the end you have to send the customer to the affiliate landing page and let THEM do the final sell (hence "presell").
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Well, the merchant is not doing any pre-sell. The merchant is only selling, and by that - the merchant is inherently going to be 100% positive about the product and in most cases have a very "salesy" attitude.

That salesy (for lack of a better word) attitude will turn some potential customers off. If they get taken straight to the merchant's page, and it does nothing but rant and rave about how fantastic and amazing the product is - the visitor will in many cases think: "hmmm...I dunno, they sure brag a lot about their product, but I wish I had heard a 2nd opinion from someone who has actually tried this"
They will have questions like: "are there any downsides at all to this product?" "can I find an unbiased opinion of its claimed quality somewhere before I make my decision?"

This is even more so the case with more expensive purchases. With trial offers, cheap trial memberships, etc. where the customer is only out like $5 bucks it probably doesn't matter. But if you are promoting something that costs a little more - something that makes them think twice about which product/service to spend their money on - then you need to PRE-SELL.

And you pre-sell by giving the buyer reasons WHY they should buy from the merchant you are about to send them to. You tell them ahead of time why you recommend this specific product at this specific merchant (or where they should go to get the best deal that you have "found" or "tested"). Be sure not to sound like you are the merchant's salesperson, but try to sound as unbiased as you can while remaining persuasive.

Pre-selling will more often than not increase conversion rate. And like Chris pointed out earlier, it also gives you the benefit of attracting natural traffic over time if you SEO your pre-sell page.
 
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.
 
BNW Dumbass - you are just mad at me cause you are Canadian and really want to be an American!
yea that was a disjointed post, sorry, but you did seem to get what I was saying by your response so it must not have been that bad.
So, your point about the seller having the final job in selling and if they suck you can't do much is pure gold! My question would be, why the FUCK would you waste your time selling a product that does not make your job as an affiliate easier? here is a novel idea, if the sellers page sucks, sell something else!

Another thing, if you make a statement but you are unwilling to provide any info beyond, "you are wrong"
or what did you say? you tested both methods - well a logical question would be how was your sales page set up? I don't give a rats ass about what you are selling but is your process sound. If you make a post like you did with no insight into your sales process your info is no good.
 
BNWFinance said:
The logical problem I have with the concept of the pre-sell is this:

a) You spend the time and effort writing a killer pre-sell for an affiliate program that converts at 5%.

b) You send the traffic directly to the affiliate site without a pre-sell and it converts at 5%.
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Sometimes that is true sometimes that is not. I have had conversion rates double on sites, where I used a simple phrase to explain what I expected the visitor to do and how to do it. With that clarification it made it much easier for them to make a purchase.

Clearly if you don't know how to pre-sell, it is not worth doing. However, there are lots of ways to make it work for you. It may not make sense in every case, but I get the impression you are claiming it is generally a waste of time.


For my money (and time), I'll forget the pre-sell and go straight for the pass-through. If the affiliate can't sell their own product, I won't bother promoting them in the first place.
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I agree in a general sense, but like I have said, I have made a huge increase in revenue in some cases with just a small amount of proper pre-selling. It is often not worth the time and energy, and a bad merchant site is almost impossible to overcome, but I doubt I would be fighting that battle in the first place, as if the offers don't convert with raw traffic, I am unlikely to get to the point where I might consider pre-selling them.
 
One question I have is how to handle zip/email offer landing pages. Are people making multi pages sites for that, or just a simple squeeze page?
 
Display URL.

Lets say you used azoogleads. They give you the url to show the world. Lets say you threw up a campaign paying for keywords in the big three.

Google
Yahoo
Msn

Can you say the Display URL is the url they end up with. Instead of that azoogleads url?

azjmp.com

Or, Can I put the www. blockbuster .offermatica. com as the display url since they go there anyways.

I suppose I want to know if its against ToS?
 
For all three search engines, the display URL is supposed to be the domain or URL of the landing page. Any intermediate redirect domains (like azjmp.com) are not allowed.

I'm not sure about MSN and Yahoo, but Google will allow only one listing per display URL. So if your display URL is www. blockbuster.offermatica.com and other people have higher bids on the same keywords with display URL www. blockbuster.offermatica.com or blockbuster.offermatica.com or even offermatica.com, then your ad will not be displayed. I would guess MSN and Yahoo behave the same way, but I've never tried it out.
 
JennyAppleseed,
Using a landing page of your own you won't have to worry about this. Set up a simple page on your own domain URL
www. mylamelandingpage.net/buttbuster/

(and use this as your display URL) and then throw the affiliate link wherever appropriate somewhere in your page. Be sure to choose a relevant domain name and subfolder name with respect to the keyword or prodcut you are promoting though ;)
 
This is a great thread and is exactly what I was looking for to get started doing affiliate stuff.

I have two questions.

Several of you say that "you need to tell the user what to do." Can you clarify this with an example (doesn't have to be real, use widgets or whatever).

I guess what I'm confused about is let's say I am making a landing page selling widgets. My sales text is talking about how great this widget is and how it will solve all the world's problems. Now do I blatantly say, "Order the widget here" and give a link or is it more subtle?

My second question is: how do you pick an affiliate program?!?!

Ok, I know that sounds totally noob, but it's like you have to do all this work upfront and you're not even sure if it's going to work. That to me is a big risk (I have more money than I do time at the moment).

Is there a way to screen programs, other than first sending traffic direct to the merchant's page just to see if anyone converts? I know there has been alot of arguing over whether you should just send traffic to the merchant's page, but to me that sounds like a good litmus test before you spend hours building a site.
 
cdc said:
This is a great thread and is exactly what I was looking for to get started doing affiliate stuff.

I have two questions.

Several of you say that "you need to tell the user what to do." Can you clarify this with an example (doesn't have to be real, use widgets or whatever).

I guess what I'm confused about is let's say I am making a landing page selling widgets. My sales text is talking about how great this widget is and how it will solve all the world's problems. Now do I blatantly say, "Order the widget here" and give a link or is it more subtle?

My second question is: how do you pick an affiliate program?!?!

Ok, I know that sounds totally noob, but it's like you have to do all this work upfront and you're not even sure if it's going to work. That to me is a big risk (I have more money than I do time at the moment).

Is there a way to screen programs, other than first sending traffic direct to the merchant's page just to see if anyone converts? I know there has been alot of arguing over whether you should just send traffic to the merchant's page, but to me that sounds like a good litmus test before you spend hours building a site.
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That's exactly what I do. I cut the programmes that can't convert 5% or better, and what's left, I develop a pre-sell for to grind out that other 10-15% (or more). This is a much more effective use of your time IMHO.
 
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