Need some direction with a PPC campaign

efeezy

efeezy

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Oct 5, 2007
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A lot of you know that most of my projects and earnings are through SEO methods and I've had no problem saying that I'm a complete rookie to PPC. I've done some small zip submit stuff, but was never able to really make anything profitable. That being said, I could use some tips to help massage this campaign I'm working on into profitability. You all know I'm not looking for a handout here...but more some insight to your methods of tweaking a campaign after your initial run.

I have a site that's based around a $35.00 CPA for a health related product (no not Acai or ResV and not a rebill). In the long run, I'll get some good organic results but in the meantime I want to see if I can l PPC it for some $$. I'm running it on Adwords by the way, and actually managed a decent QS for most of the keywords..which is a shock.

I've been running it for 3 days and have spent around $130 and have made $70 off two conversions. I'm trying to spend a couple hundred a day for testing, but can't seem to spend that much. Sounds strange, but I'm not getting enough clicks, even at $1.00 per click to spend that much.

I have 6 ad groups targeting very specific keyword sets, about 82 total keywords. I'm seeing about a 5% CTR on my best ad copies. I've set up a couple different landing pages which I think are pretty good, but I'm not sure about the best way to track what keywords the sales are coming from and that type of thing. Should I be spending more per click to get better positions, for an offer that pays $35.00?

I guess my questions are that now I'm getting some data, what should I be looking for in order to tweak this thing further. I'd be happy to share some more specific details if anyone wants to shoot me a PM. I'd appreciate the help. I know this thing can make money, I'm just unsure of the direction I need to go with it.
 


Is your daily budget set super low? Like $100/day? Set it to $5000+

One of the keys to PPC is bidding on lateral keywords. Good post here: Keyword Research : Go Deep or Going Wide First? | Super Affiliate Mindset

Hit up the content network. I fucking hate search and there is 1000x the volume on content (squeeze pages work well here).

Prosper202 for tracking. Keywords should be completely relevant to the ads you write for them... so if that means 1 or 2 per adgroup... then roll with that.
 
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Garrett said:
Is your daily budget set super low? Like $100/day? Set it to $5000+

One of the keys to PPC is bidding on lateral keywords. Good post here: Keyword Research : Go Deep or Going Wide First? | Super Affiliate Mindset

Hit up the content network. I fucking hate search and there is 1000x the volume on content (squeeze pages work well here).

Prosper202 for tracking. Keywords should be completely relevant to the ads you write for them... so if that means 1 or 2 per adgroup... then roll with that.
Click to expand...

^ This is good advice.

The first thing that came to mind after reading your post is that you need to test a lot more keywords than that. Some of the most profitable keywords you will stumble upon sometimes seem like keywords that wouldn't work - if that makes sense.
 
That article has really good info. I've been doing exactly what he says NOT to do.

Keyword question..Do you dump keywords that only have a few impressions and no clicks after several days? Or do you just leave them for the hell of it?

Landing Page Question - Should I have a landing page for each group in the campaign, with the keywords for the adgroup appearing on the LP itself? Will this help with QS?

Adwords Question: I've tried the content network before and couldn't get many impressions. I was probably doing something wrong, but do you think dumping search is the right move?
 
Garrett said:
Keyword Research : Go Deep or Going Wide First? | Super Affiliate Mindset
Click to expand...

Good article, thanks!

efeezy said:
Keyword question..Do you dump keywords that only have a few impressions and no clicks after several days? Or do you just leave them for the hell of it?
Click to expand...

I haven't noticed this to be a factor, so I leave em.

efeezy said:
Landing Page Question - Should I have a landing page for each group in the campaign, with the keywords for the adgroup appearing on the LP itself? Will this help with QS?
Click to expand...

If the ad creatives are consistent with the landing page and you have good QS, then the same landing page is fine.

efeezy said:
Adwords Question: I've tried the content network before and couldn't get many impressions. I was probably doing something wrong, but do you think dumping search is the right move?
Click to expand...

I'd create a totally separate campaign for content network.
Conquering The Content Network (Google) : PROFITAPOLIS
 
At $1 CPC you'll need a 3% conversion rate just to breakeven. Without knowing the product or service it's hard to know if this is reasonable. If it's hot at the moment and the other competitors landing pages suck, then it's certainly doable.

You haven't mentioned anything about the strength of competition for the keywords you are bidding on. If all 10 spots are filled with good adcopy, LP's, capturing leads with autoresponder, etc., you'll have a tough time. Also remember that a lot of affiliate networks do in-house marketing and have much higher profit margins than you so you'll never be able to compete.

The best way to make $$ with PPC/media buying, etc is to find other traffic sources where other affiliates are not.
 
After doing some more research, I'm definitely going to run this on the content network instead. I've installed and setup prosper202, which looks awesome by the way, so hopefully it will help me narrow down what's working and not.

For content network, are you guys doing automatic placement or managed?
 
efeezy said:
After doing some more research, I'm definitely going to run this on the content network instead. I've installed and setup prosper202, which looks awesome by the way, so hopefully it will help me narrow down what's working and not.

For content network, are you guys doing automatic placement or managed?
Click to expand...

you dont need Prosper for content network (i know i know... confusing). Just install conversion tracking and youre good. Run a performance report everyday and sort by clicks/conversions to decide what to keep/cut.
 
efeezy said:
After doing some more research, I'm definitely going to run this on the content network instead. I've installed and setup prosper202, which looks awesome by the way, so hopefully it will help me narrow down what's working and not.

For content network, are you guys doing automatic placement or managed?
Click to expand...

I usually have 3 different campaigns for content.

One for text ads and 5-10 keywords in adgroup, very closely related. Have sometimes tried 1 keyword in adgroup, which lets you see CTR per keyword on content and you can't get that data otherwise. I presume you are split testing 2 adcopies per adgroup from the start.

Usually, after I see some data and identify converting sites, I'll create another campaign for placements. Of course, if you know any good sites you want to target, run your placement campaing without waiting for data.

And the image ads in their own campaign.

If you have ad groups without impressions or very low CTR, get rid of them or move them in another campaign as they will hurt the overall campaign CTR.

Hope that helps.
 
If you are doing search, test fewer keywords at once, set our profitable base and go from there.

As far as 1 landing page per adgroup, it is only worth it if that adgroup has enough volume.

5% CTR is too low, try to aim for at least 10% if you are doing search, position 3 is your best friend.

There is a post in my sig about milking your search campaign, use that to your advantage. MILK IT!!!

Content and search are two different games, search is expensive, but a hell lot easier in my opinion.
 
yeah 10% CTR isn't out of reach, 15% is possible as well. it seems so high especially compared to abysmal facebook CTRs, but it's definitely doable.
 
I have managed to get 20%+ CTR on search only on keywords with mid-low volume.

I think anything over 0.5% CTR on content is great, and over 1% Google often gives me 0.01 clicks which are hard not to make money on.
 
You're doing it wrong. You're only gonna get bottled up blog advice posting questions...

You need to get your head out of your ass and start experimenting more with other traffic sources and stop depending on organic shit...
 
Webwonder said:
You're doing it wrong. You're only gonna get bottled up blog advice posting questions...

You need to get your head out of your ass and start experimenting more with other traffic sources and stop depending on organic shit...
Click to expand...

Way to come off as a knob.
 
Webwonder said:
You need to get your head out of your ass and start experimenting more with other traffic sources and stop depending on organic shit...
Click to expand...

You should heed your own advice about pulling your head out of your ass when ripping somebody for not branching out when they specifically started the thread due to questions about branching out.
 
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