You want to be an affiliate marketer without building a list... hmmm you had better get to reading some of the many articles here on the WF because you have some learning to do.

From what I see, you gave up to easy, and are in the wrong niche. You need to seperate buyer keywords from generic keywords. You need to find products in problems niches, like people having problems with small penis, relationship problems, acne, yellow teeth, you know problems that people would pay to fix

I definitely gave up easily.

I don't want to do a list at the moment because I wan't to dive into PPC. I know how I can do the list building but it's a project I know will take a few months to tweak out and get it right. It's something I want to take my time with.

PPC in my opinion is the quicker way. Obviously I'm not expecting to become a millionaire overnight. I'm looking to get atleast 1 conversion a day with PPC

Are there any good mentors for PPC and affiliate marketing? I've tried PPC Coach but didn't really find it useful for product selection. Learned a lot about keyword research with it though.

Hey! You are doing everything correctly. You just chose a wrong search term. Keep searching until you find one. Piece of cake!

Always be building your LIST !!!
Think about it for a while...
you're going to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars into PPC..
get some sales.. & have nothing else to show for it ???
Man.. get an AR.. put up a Squeeze.. then drive traffic to it..
but for god sakes.. capture the leads !!!

-Theo-

I see you are looking to master Bing Ads. Before I give you information let me tell you, you can't do PPC with adwords as you might have realized. You need your own website and it has to have this Google Quality Score and everything. If you had a website and an email marketing campaign then you can use Google Adwords to capture leads and then you can promote affiliate marketing stuff to your list. I am not sure but you might be able to use Google Adwords to promote affiliate products as long as their sales page satisfies their Quality Score. You wouldn't need email marketing or a website in that case. I am not sure though.

Anyway this might be of help to you:

Any Ad campaign has three components
The Ad > The Landing Page > The Offer. You need to set thresholds and split test to succeed. If you don't kill your campaigns or if you fail to optimize your campaign after you crossed the threshold, then you will lose money. There are two thresholds:

CTR Threshold
Aim for a CTR of 1% to 3%. Make sure you wait till you have 10,000 impressions before you make any changes. So after 10,000 impressions you should have 100 to 300 clicks. This gives your ad a fair chance.

CR Threshold
Aim for a CR of 16%-50%. So for every 100 to 300 clicks you send to your landing page you need at least 50+ conversions. Since you are not making people opt-in, your conversion will be measured in the form of a sale.

If you do not get these figures, then your campaign needs to be optimized.

Low CTR is always because of the ad and the ad placement. Increase CPC or redesign the banner to solve this.

Low CR can be because of poor traffic quality (bad keywords, un-targeted traffic or bad network), misleading banners, poor landing page and in most cases poor offer. If you do not have a landing page and if it is not your own offer then you have no control over the last two.

When designing banners, it helps to have images similar to that found in the landing page so that the person who clicked it will see what made him click the ad in the first place. For example if you have an image of a girl showing her cleavage in your banner, you need to have a similar or the same image in the landing page. This gives the web surfer a feeling of familiarity.

When designing banners, go for text based banners first and determine which is the winning text. Then test various pictures to go with the text and pick the winning banner.

Go for keywords which has buyer intent. Free self improvement dvds, will not convert anywhere close to Buy Self improvement dvds. Keywords Conversion rates depend on the buyer intent and I have listed the keywords from the highest to the lowest buyer intent below:
1) Author & Product Type Keywords - David Blaine Magic Book (Highest Buyer Intent)
2) Product Type Keywords - Buy Magic Book (Still have to convince David Blaine's Magic Book is the Best)
3) Crisis Keywords - Stop Dog Biting (Might not always be looking to spend money)
4) How to learn and Lesson type keywords - How to learn Magic (Might not be looking to buy)

If you are really sure that your ad and targeting is great and people are clicking through but not converting, then it might be the landing page or the offer itself which is the problem. I will not go into landing page optimization since I am guessing you do not have a landing page. So if you do all this and the offer does not convert, then just change the offer.

Not having a landing page and not being able to track conversions makes it difficult to use software like prosper202 and tracking202. They play a very important role, especially when you can track conversions.

Competition Analysis
Now I don't create ads and split test them. I steal ads and landing pages that work from my competition. Frankly it saves me a lot of time and money. A website called AdBeat crawls the web for ads from not only Google but other ad networks. If you sign up to AdBeat, you will see what ads your competition is using, what keywords they are targeting, what banners and landing page they are using apart from a host of other data. You can see how long a particular ad has been running to determine which has been profitable to your competition. You can use this to determine which offers are profitable and simply promote that. You can also steal their winning creative and landing page or make something similar to the one they are using. However the service does not come cheap and you might not be able to afford it when you are starting out.

No guru can tell you that this is the creative that you have to use, this is the offer that you have promote or this is the landing page that will convert. The ones who do tell you something like that will be lying to you.The ones who make big bucks will not let out their winning formula because they will make more money keeping it to themselves. What they will tell you is to test and keep testing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here.

So ... let me see if I have this right: you want to be an affiliate marketer, and you want to buy your traffic, but you don't want to retain any of the traffic that doesn't immediately buy something through your affiliate link?!

As the saying goes, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

The only way I can offer to try to help you is by showing you information that explains why you need a Big Strategic Rethink, here, because in my opinion you've misunderstood the nature of affiliate marketing and where the money comes from and how it's earned. But information can only help you if you're willing to read it, and not if you've already made up your mind.

I'm a full-time affiliate marketer, myself. It's how I make my living. To me, the benefits of list-building come more or less under the heading of "Things that you can't do without list-building". And those are the things that earn me (and countless others) our livings. That's a big part of the reason why there are a few hundred threads in this forum with titles similar to "What's The One Thing You'd Do Differently If You Were Starting Again Tomorrow?". Take a look through a small sample of them, and you'll find that one of the things they all have in common is that they're full of replies from long-established, successful Warriors almost all of whom give the same answer: the thing they'd do differently, with what they know now but didn't know when they started, is "start to build a list on day 1". There are reasons for that, and they're very good and very valid reasons.

It seems to me that most of the money in affiliate marketing comes from (a) selling repeated items to the same audience (by never disappointing them, and by building trust), and (b) by keeping your traffic returning to the sales pages (because few people buy anything much at their first visit to a sales page). Without list-building, I can't do either of those two essential things, myself, and without those I can't make a living.

It really is about as simple as that.

(Granted, there are one or two people who claim that they can make a living as affiliate marketers without listbuilding, but when I look closely at what they're doing, it usually looks to me like they're actually making a living by selling their "information" to newbies, not really from affiliate marketing at all. )

This post explains (especially for "ClickBank-type products", but it applies to many other things, too): What are the best ways to promote click bank products?

And here are three other recent threads worth reading, on the subject ...

Is it a good idea to spend some time on building a mailing list ?

Without Building a List, How Consistent is Your Income from Affiliate Marketing

Does anyone even make money online without an email list?

That's what concerns me, for you, because what you already "know" is something that isn't going to work for you: you won't make money from it, in my opinion. There are reasons for that, too, but you're not yet aware of them. I wish you well.

Hi,

is like trying to drive a car with a flat battery? It ain't going to go and neither will your business because without a list you don't have a business. Even if you do make a few sales, those buyers are gone forever! If they were on your list you can upsell them again and again?

We always bang on about doing things in the right order especially when replying to newbies and beginners but you should know better by now! Start building a list after having discovered a profitable niche that has enough other people searching for solutions to a problem or answers to a question. Do yourkeyword research and check out the competition.

Some will say follow your passion which is great advice only if that passion has a viable marketing future? Are there a range of products you can either promote or create yourself to address their needs and concerns? Do you have enough knowledge or experience within that niche or can you quickly gather enough information to put onto your blog/website or your follow up emails?

If your passion has very little interest, then it would only be good for a hobby but not a business. The reasons why building a list is so important are:

1) You can give people what they want by way of a free report,ebook, audio or video or even a mini-course to get them to opt in on your squeeze page.
2) Then you can build a relationship with your list before selling anything yet with more follow up free help and information.
3) Only when you have established trust and credibility with them can you add a link to a related product to speed up their desire to learn more by way of yet another well written follow up email sequence so you are not selling but advising? Also you have a list to sell to again and again!

Nobody likes to be sold to but everybody likes to buy! It helps if what you recommend is something you used yourself so that your email or blog could write a review about the good, bad and ugly of it? Just saying how great it is sounds like selling because nothing is perfect?:rolleyes:

Wishing you success in your list building.

Stephen & Jennifer.

Thank You all for your very helpful answers!

I have given list building a second thought.

So what i am thinking of doing is creating a mini site with content. Creating a landing page for a product related to the niche. Using PPC to get traffic to the landing page. On the landing page i'm also going to have my OPT IN box so visitors can subscribe for content pertaining to the niche.

Will i be doing it right if i follow those steps?

I didn't even bother to read through the rest of the comments, But I will tell you this!

There is no point in doing paid advertising to drive traffic directly to an offer.... WITHOUT driving them to your squeeze page first!

The way you want to run your business is a lot like a brick and mortar business runs theirs! See a customer one time and don't see them every again! Make one sale and hope they come back!

Let me tell you. 99% will never come back to your offer and you just threw money out the window on your paid ads!

However if you send them to a squeeze page you get a lead that can be sold to over and over WITHOUT having to do paid advertising! GET it?

Email me or PM me if you need any help!

Alexa your advice is gold! I like your explanation of websites being for niches not for products. Makes sense to me.

So what I should do is build a landing page on a topic within the niche? I'm a bit unclear as to where to direct my PPC traffic. Should i just gather lots of subscribers with targeted traffic and THEN focus on selling?

Read the forum man, you'll find your answers easily!

I am not sure if this would be helpful but I suggest you make a list while doing everything you are currently doing right now. Building a list very crucial. If you do not have the time, you can hire a n outsourcing company with a good reputation. Anyway, I know you do not want to build a list right now, but you would be losing a lot of opportunities if you won't start building your list as soon as possible.

Ok lol, I get a feeling that you are taking a turn in the wrong direction. In my opinion driving PPC traffic to a niche website will burn your money. Everything I told you in my previous reply holds true. Here are some additions I would like to make to my previous thread and it will give you the biggest bang for the buck.

Maximizing EPC
Your end goal with PPC is to maximize your EPC (Earnings Per Click). If you decide to do affiliate marketing with PPC traffic purely by building your list, your EPC will usually remain low.

Cold Traffic Vs Warm Traffic
Remember this is cold traffic you are targeting. This means unlike warm traffic which is referal & affiliate traffic you are not dealing with people who already know about your product or website. If you want to sell with warm traffic, you want to build a relationship with them first. That approach wont work with cold traffic and many people advising you to do that because of their inexperience with PPC are giving you horrible advice. Yes you need to build a relationship with your list but that is not the first thing you should do. It comes much later. See, your EPC from warm traffic will be much much higher than cold traffic. Organic traffic from SEO and Social media will have lesser EPC compared to Warm Traffic but a higher EPC than Cold Traffic. You shouldn't compare the three. They are all different. Cold Traffic is still of interest in spite of the low EPC, because it can be scaled easily which cannot be done with Warm or Organic traffic. If you become the master of Cold Traffic, you can become an instant hit with organic or warm traffic because of their higher EPC compared to Cold traffic. But the reverse is never true. Think about it, one is selling to an interested audience and another is selling to an audience who don't give a f*ck. Strategies for Warm and Orangic traffic will bring minimal success if applied to cold traffic. But cold traffic strategies can be easily applied or adapted for warm and organic traffic.

Maximizing EPC Continued
As mentioned before, the goal with PPC is to maximize your EPC. For you to maximize EPC, you have to try to sell to web surfer as soon as they land on your page. For this you usually need your own product. Notice how people who use Google Adwords are product owners? Your EPC will double as soon you do this. So building a niche website (in my humble opinion) will be a very bad idea. Your EPC will be poor to justify depending on PPC as a traffic source.

Sales Funnel
Having a product will improve EPC but it is not enough. To maximize EPC, you need a converting sales funnel. A sale funnel will involve you having upsells if the web surfer buys so that you maximize EPC and downsells if the web surfer does not buy so you that you again maximize EPC. So when your visitor lands on your sales page, they are directed to offer 1 if they decide to buy. If they are not interested you make a trial offer, exit pop offer and try to get them interested in offer 2 which is different but a similar offer. If they are still not interested, you direct them to a free gift and simply get them to sign up. If they decide to buy offer 1 directly from the sales page or from the first down sell for offer 2, you put in additional upsells (offer 3) and downsells (offer 4) for both offer 1 and offer 2. You can do this in several times. When you get someone in the buying mode, you want to keep selling them stuff. The goal is to maximize your EPC. A good sales funnel is vital to PPC campaign.

Where Email Marketing Comes In
No matter where the web surfer makes a purchase, you will capture his email. If he is not interested in making a purchase at all, you still present him with an opportunity to sign up. If he is not interested at all or if he is turned off because of you trying to sell him stuff, you shouldn't even bother. They are not worth it and chances are they will never buy ever. They knew they were going to be sold stuff when they clicked on your ad. You should give them what they expect. Anyway I want you to see that the email marketing is the the backend and it is not something you solely depend on to generate returns. In fact it comes in the every end. You get people to buy additional stuff later but only after you try to get them to buy stuff from you first. You need to build a relationship with your list and all normal rules of IM apply when your are trying to sell through email. But with cold traffic, you do cold selling first. A majority of your leads will be buyer leads and you will have the richest list on the planet if you do this long enough.

You could do what you propose. Build a niche website and collect leads and stuff. But PPC will not be the best of options for you in that case. Anything which brings such websites cold traffic "might" yield money but it will not be stable enough to pursue in the long term. Alexa might be able to advice you how on how to use Article Marketing to get traffic to such websites. As far as paid advertising is concerned for lead generation and traffic to such websites, consider Facebook advertising instead. Create an opt-in page inside facebook, super target your ads to specific audiences and you can get clicks for as low as $0.01. That is a completely different form of PPC.

P.S - I mentioned adbeat as a way to study competition. A free alternative will be Traffic Travis. It is limited compared to adbeat and you have to run it from your own computer to crawl the ads which are run at present. You wont be able to see past ads and you must wait for sometime before you have enough data with Traffic Travis. Adbeat stores all historical ads for almost all keywords which is why it is the best out there. Traffic Travis is just something you can use when you are starting out.

Here is what I have understood after reading the comments.

1. Build a Sales Funnel wit the Squeeze page (the page with Optin & some contents about a particular product of a niche ) as the landing page.

2. Send traffic to Squeeze page using PPC..

3. Use a particular product like ( bla bla to lose weight) but lose weight is the niche... Also the domain name should be loseweight.com or something like that related to niche and not to product. In this way you can delete or place multiple products in same website if one product says Bye bye

4. Inside sales page you give 1 product as FREE for opting in and a paid product to buy.

Thats in nutshell.
Am I correct... Thats what I understood

You can build a facebook fan page and promote the product in your fan page. Of course, your fan page must have a huge of fans. But, it can done with facebook ads. Just build a fun page, have a huge fans with fb ads, and promote your affiliate link.

So should I send traffic to a landing page preselling an affiliate product? or Send traffic to a landing page simply promoting my niche site and offering the incentive to join my list?

After getting subscribers to the list I will sell to them, is there any way to do both at the same time? sell and keep people coming to my site for more content in regards to the niche?

thank you all so much

I would say rather than focusing on driving ppc traffic to a blog, you should send it to a squeeze page and build your list. That way your testing $'s are not lost because you will be building your list at the same time, and can extract future value from your subscribers

Seems like you could do with a mentor, nobody will take you by the hand but there are lots of people out there to help guide you, try speedylikeskj on WF



But don't stop reading the articles on here, there is a lot of knowledgable IMers on here but if you have the basic knowledge then nae you just need a guide

hey Nick

It looks like you need a PPC specialist to take under his or her wing and show you past campaigns and how they've worked, so you can model on those methods and come up with a similar approach.

You said you do have some experience with keyword research and testing different layouts. Maybe your traffic didn't convert either because it wasn't targeted or it was little.

Would you mind giving us more details bout your testing?

I've used Aweber before when I first began IM and I really like their program. That's what I will be using for my lists.

However i'm a bit confused still. If my plans are to build a niche site with content around a specific niche, and then I create a squeeze page promoting a free video series around the particular niche, will this method work for building a list?

What I still dont understand is how can I make a sale with PPC?
My idea was to send PPC traffic to a landing page that presells my affiliate link.

What i've learned from the thread is that if the visitor isn't interested in the product then they will exit and I will have lost the PPC money along with not capturing the lead.

Should I just focus only on getting subscribers to my list and then sell to the list?
Can I use PPC to make a sale from a landing page?

What I failed at previously in my attempts at PPC was I wasn't getting a high Conversion Rate. What's the best method to get a higher CR with PPC?