It's no secret that the people who cut the biggest cheques in this world are the people who are willing to write smaller ones to get there.
If you're reading this, you already know that affiliate marketing is a tough game for anyone involved, but particularly for the type of person that wants to dip in and out of new markets and spread their assets across many different niches (always a good idea).
So unless you've already got a well trafficked website and/or a huge list that is highly focused and relevant to the products you're aiming to promote, you've got a choice:
1. Start working hard at building sites, hunting backlinks, writing a serious amount of articles, content and blogs...
...eventually your efforts will pay off. But don't expect money (or indeed traffic) to come knocking for the best part of the next 12 months...not consistently or in large volumes at least.
2. PPC traffic. Bam.
Remember the cutting small cheques to win bigger ones philosophy? Well, PPC is the broker and boy has it got some big affiliate cheques waiting with your name on it.
In a world full of potential markets to dip into and make money, the first option is simple not viable for the hungry netreprenuer. There's too much work and time required, unless you outsource all of the work (which can often be a huge energy hog and often ends up in tears anyway).
However, people may argue that PPC is also a huge time and energy hog, and PPC can also leave you ended up in tears, particularly after the major PPC search engines such as Google are becoming so competitive and particularly about the campaigns you set up and run.
But in order to get instant traffic and make money from literally every corner of the internet, PPC is still the ultimate way to tap into hungry buyers overnight (plus you don't have to worry about your traffic levels suddenly dropping like you do with free traffic).
So the real key is to beat the system, and make PPC easy to operate, without losing money and spending lots of time in the process.
In order to do so, you'll need to address the following key aspects to making your PPC campaign a success...
1. Testing is key
If you don't test which keywords are bringing you money, and you don't test which way of presenting your offers (via your webpage/landing page etc) then you'll always be throwing money away. Once you know what is working, you can dump the duds and literally save yourself thousands in wasted clicks.
Then, reinvest that saved money into more clicks, or even use it to outsource some of your "nitty-gritty" work that you don't want to do yourself anymore.
2. Target desperate keywords
It's far easier to target people who are in a desperate mental state than it is to target "tire kickers" who are just snooping around, with no credit card in hand.
3. Watch your budget, but don't limit it
Of course, the safest way to save yourself wasted PPC cash is to keep a close eye on your campaigns. However, the common mistake here is to cap your daily PPC budget.
By doing this, you're essentially telling Google not to show your ads too often. This will save you money, but will also limit your exposure and will take you longer to find out of your campaign is going in the right direction. It's far better to stop the campaign manually when things start getting expensive (providing you're not in profit that is!)
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My husband is a stockbroker in Florida. We have been hit very hard by the accelerated real estate crash in our area (2nd in the nation for foreclosures) and as a result of tenant vacancies and inability to liquidate investement properties ahead of the bow wave of declining values he now has nearly 7 properties in foreclosure. I am extremely concerned about the mortgage companies pursuing him for deficiency judgements. There is just no way he could pay all of them if they are granted to the creditor and goes to collection. He says he can't file for bankruptcy because he will lose his stock broker license. I think a bankruptcy is less risky then having all the foreclosures on his credit and the possiblity of judgements/collections against him. What can he do to protect his license?
Small Scale Affiliate Marketing
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I'm looking to establish a direct affiliate relationship between myself (the affiliate) and one specific retailer that I deal with regularly. They're not looking for any other affiliates other than myself, but I need this to be a software-based solution. Anybody know of any generic code out there that I could modify and pass off to the partner? Are there any other solutions that don't involve paying huge upfront costs, or a recurring commission to a 3rd party network? Your help is greatly appreciated!
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