Making The Best Of Your Testing Money
One good thing that every affiliate marketer does is test. We test landing pages, keywords, ad copy, offers, everything that can possibly make us more money. I always talk about how dropping a lot of money testing is the real way to hit it big in a niche. But just because I suggest to start with a decent budget, doesn’t mean you have to utilize it poorly. Here are a few different tips when starting to test a campaign to help manage your cash flow and cut losses down.
Start WIth Yahoo/MSN, Move To Google
You’re most likely going to get cheaper clicks with Yahoo than you will with Google. So use Yahoo as your building block to find the profitable keywords. Add a ton of keywords into Yahoo and make sure you’re tracking everything. Let it run for a few days and then pause the campaign. Find all the keywords that are profiting (or breaking even), and put them in a new, more targeted campaign in Yahoo. From there, work on optimizing the landing page, ad copy, and offer for the highest possible profit.
Now simply just take this campaign and import it into Google. You’ll get a ton more volume but eliminate the high deficits that come with it.
Budget Yourself Accordingly
Just because you have a $5,000 budget doesn’t mean you have to spend $5,000/day and blow through it all in a day or two. Set $250 daily budgets and tweak a little each day, and really draw out the time-frame in which you have to test.
Get That Higher Payout NOW
Don’t wait until you’re doing 100 leads/day on the offer to ask for a payout increase. You can ALWAYS get a bump before you even start running the offer, usually a pretty good bump. I just recently got a $4.50 bump on an offer before I even send a dimes worth of traffic. That really helps cut my losses down when I’m initially testing out the offer. So don’t wait for it, tell your affiliate manager you need a higher payout to start testing or you have to look elsewhere.
Track, Track, Track
The best possible way you can make the best out of your testing money is by tracking everything. If you get a ton of data out of your tests, it is well worth the investment you make. You don’t have to pay thousands for the “latest ppc software” out there either, there’s plenty of free affiliate tracking tools out there like P202.
This is basically a no-brainer. Test out keywords and weed out the ones that aren’t profiting. Test different landing pages and send the most possible clicks to the offer. Test similar offers and see which ones have the highest conversion rate. Just don’t stop testing.
Use PPC Coupons
There’s always a YSM coupon floating around there somewhere, sometimes they can be great (highest I’ve gotten was $200 in free clicks). These things are great for testing because you don’t really care what happens with the money as you didn’t actually buy the clicks in the first place and everything is profit. People tend to be a lot more conservative when it’s their own money, and naturally so. Having a $200 free budget one day can make you just go all-out, and then you’ll realize how valuable doing that was; as long as you tracked properly.
Alright just a couple random tips that came to mind, hope you enjoyed.
Hey Paul! Awesome post! I just have a quick question for ya. two actually.
1st, when you say “I just recently got a $4.50 bump on an offer before I even send a dimes worth of traffic.” what affiliate network was that with? What I’m driving at is does it have to be a certain affiliate network or no?
2nd, what is a YSM coupon?
Thanks!
Any reputable affiliate network should be able to give you a slight bump in payout right off the bat. If your chosen network does not, then find a new network.
YSM coupon refers to Yahoo Search Marketing coupon. You can find these coupons around the web and use them to get free credits with Yahoo.
Great advice. I always forget that it’s better to start with MSN or Yahoo.
Awsome post?? WTH, it is just rewriting…same kind posts in all make money online blog..if you claim you are $5000 per month, you better come up with better posting..
just my 2cent.
Some good pointers in there, I believe in talking to your affiliate manager more and getting a good relationship. The same happened to me, he gave me a quick bump just because I said I am going to try that offer.
It definately helps when it comes to testing and removing the keywords that are costing you money with no conversions.
Nice post paul… quality content to building your campaigns… ha keep those nice content coming! ha
regards,
Ivan Ong
http://ivan-ong.com
Paul – any suggestions on how to quickly and easily export / import campaigns between adwords, ysm and msn?
No. But they won’t always jump to say “yes” and it won’t always be a drastic increase.
Great post Paul! I think a lot of new affiliate marketers are intimidated to try PPC because of the potential for losing money. Unfortunately it is one of the best ways to learn… by getting out and testing different keywords, search engines, campaigns etc.. You may lose money in the beginning but chalk it as an education or business expense.
YSM: Yahoo Search Marketing…
Good advices Paul. See U
I think the 2 biggest reason anyone fails is because they give up and lack focus. Seriously people, if you wanna be successful at AM you gotta dive into it and learn from your mistakes.
I liked the one on getting payout now, and don’t wait. That goes a long way. and can make the difference between pos and negative early on.
Can any one point me where I can find a free Yahoo coupon? Doesn’t to be much. A $30 coupons will do good.
Those are all solid basic PPC tips that should give you a bit more $ in the bank.
Hey uber , you are cool enough
I think you gave all the information tip,s tricks to be a Super Duper affilaiet REALLY alllll so the only question left is
Will you marry your girl friend ;)
I disagree. Constantly Asking for pay bumps on every campaign you test is not the best way to get a good relationship going with you AM.. I’d much prefer to test the offer and make sure I can give them volume before asking for a pay bump.
Any tips for someone that is breaking even for the past 2 weeks with a daily budget of $150 on google? Some days ill make $100 and the next lose $50. Just stuck in the break even column, any advice guys?
Great post.
Cheers!
-Dave King
Great Post. thank you for those words of wisdom!
Thanks for the post, Pauld. It is interesting to read indeed!!!!
Gotta Make The Best Of Your Money