affiliatemillions.com Blog

Just started – newbie questions

Tony,

Thank you for your book.  It was an easy read and I learned a bunch.  I finished reading your book last Friday and my first campaign was up Tuesday.  My first affiliate trials are promoting Amazon products.  I have had no luck with my first campaign (i think the niche is too small) but I am learning how the ad interface works.

I have a 2nd campaign that I just started not even 12 hrs ago and my stats are: 532 impressions, 24 Clicks, 4.5% CTR, NO conversions!  I checked the link- thats good. Maybe I am jumping the gun on realizing conversions?? Is Amazon just a slow/poor convertor?  My add specifically states what they are to buy at the click.  Please give me some direction as to where my investigation should begin.

Brian

Starting My Own Website

Tony,

Thanks for the book – great foundation for getting started in affilliate marketing! 

After some mild success with direct linking from Google to an afilliate program’s site, I’ve decided that I need to start my own website.  Once I’ve developed a theme for my website, what is the fastest & easiest way to join the affiliate programs that match my theme?  Do I have to search & join many affilliate networks to find the right affiliate programs that match my theme or is there a faster way to pull this site together?  It seems like a huge amount of work to join many affilliate networks to piece together affilliate programs that match my website’s theme. 

Also, if I create multiple websites then what is the best way to let affilliate programs know about each so that you have a better chance of being accepted?  For example, if I have a travel website and a mortgage website then I want to be sure that the travel-based affiliate program is evaluating my travel website and the mortgage-based affiliate program is evaluating my mortgage website.

Any help is appreciated.

Best,

T 

Using affiliates on multiple sites

Hi,

I use a webhost that provides 3 free domains. I’m only using 1 and was going to use the other for listing some content (which I’ll decide on later) and having affiliate programs.  I use various affiliate networks like CJ and Linkshare.  Do you know if I’ll need to reregister for each URL?  I couldn’t find that info. in your book, which is very helpful by the way!  Thanks!

MONTHLY IMPRESSIONS

Hi
I recently purchased your book Affiliate Millions which I find very interesting and easy to understand but there are some terms I do not get, I would like to know what IMPRESSIONS are, what is the difference between impressions and clicks. They ask for the number of monthly impressions for an affiliate site  Advertising .com. It is mentioned in the book on page 61 paragraph 4,  I have no clue as to how many monthly impressions to put, because I don’t know what they are. Thanks for your help

joseech

Search marketing

I have signed up for several affiliate programs. My question is, how do you get paid sending traffic to advertisers site?

Thanks,

Planner

Commission Junction – Quick Stats

Hi Tony!

I recently purchased your book and have enjoyed reading it. I found a CJ program that allows direct linking and have been running ads for the past 3 days. This is a “4 Bar” advertiser with an average EPC (3-month and 7-day) of about $30.00.  I have written my ads carefully and know I’m sending qualified traffic to the site.

When I look at my “Quick Stats” on CJ, it does indeed show I have produced about 250 clicks thus far. However, my commission earned is still a big fat $0.00. I certainly would’ve expect to see *something* by now!  So my question is, how long does it take for CJ to post commissions? Is there a 2-3 day lag before commissions are reported to CJ? Does it depend on the program?

I’m just curious if I should be continuing this program or if I’m doing something seriously wrong – or is it still too early to know.

Any feedback is appreciated!

New Strategies?

Hi Tony!

Thank you for being there when we need you. Your answers have been a great way to disclose many of our queries.

There has been so much changes to search marketing the way you taught us. I would like to know, if you don’t mind, could you share with us your newest strategies on this search marketing business.

This is my tenth month learning about search marketing, particularly adwords and affiliate marketing(clickbank & CJ). Well, i have yet to meet any sales. Quite to my own disappointment for not being able to emulate you and earn $10k in my first 6 months.

Please help us. For me, i am really in dire need.I really want to make this happen. And recently, i have just got myself PPC Classroom membership site to help me in PPC Marketing.

Please advise Tony, sir.
Would it be okay for me if i were to open a google group so that you and your students can post questions readily?

say: askanthonyborelli@googlegroups.com

eusof.

hellomynameiseusof.blogspot.com

aybeusof@gmail.com

p.s.: thinking of opening a facebook group on affiliate millions. With your permission, sir.

Still Valid?

Hi All:

Mr. Borelli, I have been reading your book with much excitement. I was wondering, is this strategy you mentioned in the book still valid on its own or does one have to develop a website. I only ask because I would much rather work with the strategy you mentioned to start out as opposed to building a website first. I guess what I am asking is do you believe I can make a reasonable income (let’s say $2000-$3000 a month) just using the search marketing strategy alone (assuming I am good at copy writing and the other essential skills you mention in the book). I would be willing to add the website strategy later but I would like to start with your strategy first if I can make this kind of income. Please help…  
 

Display URL’s

Hey Guys!

Mr. Borelli, I know that you must get this question all the time. I am at a loss for writing ads now that it has become so apparent that I can not use anyone’s “trademarked name” in the display URL. I have a website that is completely unrelated to 100% of the programs I have promoted. So, using my own URL, as the display name is out of the question and I certainly do not want to make a website for every program. This is search marketing right?

I will be the first to admit, I was excited about this business and I found myself reading the first 6 chapters of your book. Then…stopping. Why? because I was having small success with my ads. I failed to read chapter 10 before I could get your warning on all the newbie mistakes. I had to go back and read them, and I heartily thank you for that chapter.
So back to my question, I can totally deal with not using their precious “trademarks”, in my key words and search terms, but I can not seem to think my way around the “display URL” concept without loosing money.

Thanks,

Anthony

Competition and Click Costs

Tony,

I have launched a few campaigns on Google by direct linking (no website of my own) and have targeted high volume keywords similar to the approach in your book.  I have focused on programs that pay per lead for users signing up to a free online website.  They only require minimal user info (i.e. email address) and no credit card is required.

While I have driven decent traffic with a good conversion rate, I am having issues making a profit due to my high costs per click.  For my keywords, Google is requiring minimum CPCs of >$3 to get on the first page which makes it extremely difficult to drive traffic while keeping costs down, even with CTRs that are high.  When Google was using the old quality score measure with minimum CPCs, my quality score was “great” and my minimum CPC was 0.03.  If I use a maximum CPC of $1 then Google barely shows my ad even though my quality score is high.  With a lead payout of $4 and these high CPCs, I need a very high conversion rate to make any profit.

Is this issue due to the immense number of people competing for the same keyword traffic?  Do you have any suggestions to help reduce my CPC other than improving CTR through better ad copy?  Is your recent recommendation to create a website related to huge competition and a cost per click issue?  Would you recommend that we don’t bother with any programs that still allow direct linking and if so then what are your specific reasons?

If making a profit through direct linking no longer works even for programs that allow it then it would be great to know so I can move on to another approach.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

T

Affiliatefuel.com rejected my application

Hi Tony,

Great book, enjoying it. I have tried to register with Affiliatefuel.com but they have rejected my application. I followed your tips in the book but my email address is from .co.uk domain as my company is registered in UK and so it my mailing address.

I have another US business but that does not have a website at the minute.

I did mention that I am going to use search marketing and that I am going to use Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Any suggestions 

Sign up at Amazon.co.uk

Hi.

I have just tryed to join Amazon’s Associates Central Program. They say in a email that I can’t join as a search engine marketer. Do anybody have tryed to join Amazon with success? and how?

Regards

Tim

URL restrictions

Tony,
I’m in the process of running my first campaign w/ Adwords and I’m promoting an affiliate offer. The problem that I’m having is that although I have my own domain name, the URL that I have is completely different from the affiliate link that I will need to use, in order to have my visitors go directly to that landing page, from my ad- Google doesn’t allow this, they say that the display URL and the destination URL must be “fairly similar” in appearance. How do I get around around this? I was thinking about going back to my domain registrar or my hosting company and doing a redirect for the destination URL so that it looks identical to my display URL….any suggestions?

Amazon.com

Greetings everyone,
Does anyone know if I can us the word, “amazon” in my ad? As long as this word is not a “key word” or part of the “search terms”?

Software Tools…

To Anthony (or any reader of Anthony’s book). What type of software tool or tools would you recommend to assist with the management of campaign activitiy, commissions, etc.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!