I have been getting the same question for years now from affiliates trying to launch new campaigns, and though it does have some merit, its answer will not completely make or break a campaign.
What’s the question you ask?
What are your best converting (fill in the blank vertical) offers you have right now?
I must hear this question at least a dozen times a day, and I don’t mind it at all, but wanted to share some nuggets of real wisdom on why it doesn’t necessarily matter what the “best” offers are and what you really should be focusing your time on. This will be longer than this one Cash Pile Maker will allow so we’ll just call this part 1.
Why do I call this the Holy Grail? Because, until I learned these little skills I wasn’t making money I was just following the herd and focusing on the wrong things. When I started to pay attention to what I’m going to share with you all, I started making money. My hope is you’ll do the same.
There are 5 components to a profitable campaign:
1. The Offer
2. The ad creative or copy
3. The traffic source
4. Bidding strategy
5. Tracking
In reality, we don’t push many offers that suck, plain and simple. Why would I keep an offer around if it’s not going to make us money? So, when I get the question what’s the “best” offer it’s kind of hard to answer as all of our offers CAN be profitable. The one’s with the highest EPC are a reflection on the publishers running that particular offer more so then the offer itself. Yes, some offers will convert better but I have seen tweaks on the publishers side yield so much more profit then tweaking different offers. I know some of you will disagree and that’s cool, you have every right to, it’s just what I’ve seen.
The ads you put out are of vital importance. Without clicks you have no shot of getting a conversion. I lump landing pages, email copy, banners all into ads. Whatever you use to get people to act on your marketing piece to get them to the offer I consider an ad, k? If you suck at copy and ad making you need to improve your skills. Like I said last time read Cashvertising, it will help you. Look at (DON’T STEAL) other people’s ads to gain inspiration. Come up with your own unique twist on the message. Always remember you’re trying to get the person looking at your ad to click it, that’s it. What would make you click on the ad? I shouldn’t have to tell you that what makes 50 year old moms click on an ad is going to be different then what makes an 18 year old boy. DON’T overcomplicate this. Make your ads crisp, ridiculously easy. NO BIG WORDS! You will want to make several variations on your ads. Test only 1 variable at a time (Yes just like in High School Biology class). We’ve covered this stuff a little more in depth in previous Cash Pile Makers so I’ll leave it here.
Traffic sources: If you’re still trying to figure out how to manipulate Google, STOP IT! Google hates you because you’re an affiliate. There are trillions of ad impressions across the net every day outside of Google use them. Whether that’s Facebook Ads (getting close to as annoying as Google), POF, Media Buys, PPV, email marketing, Twitter, YouTube, whatever a traffic source is needed. No traffic, no clicks, no conversions, sad affiliates. Each traffic source is different. I recommend that you settle on an offer or at least a vertical and then pick 1 traffic source. Yep, just one and focus on making that offer profitable on that one traffic source. Why? Because too many affiliates bounce from traffic source to traffic source wasting money. All of these sources can make you rich. All of them will make you broke if you don’t learn how to master them. How exactly do you master a traffic source? Well, you need to get a lot of data from it testing different features. Whether that’s ad placements, ad sizes, static or moving ads, etc. There’s a lot to test all on one source. Any of the above can you make a campaign profitable as long as all parts of the campaign work together. Yes, some traffic sources yield crappy traffic over others. So how do you know if a source is good quality or not? ASK! I know most of what’s out there and if I don’t I know who to ask that has the answer.
If you have questions on the stuff I’ve talked about so far ask me and I’ll include the answers in next week’s Cash Pile Maker where I’ll cover the remaining elements of a profitable campaign. These basic strategies can all be adapted to any offer, any traffic source. Use your brain. If you’re not creative read a book on becoming more creative.
Until next time…
To Your Piles O Cash!
Jim