Clickbank + PPC ?

[SERPTurbo]

I am facing the same situation as you, did you find any solution to it?

See my latest reply addressed to @karmandy93 ....unless you can match his stats, it's not going to work for you no matter what you do.

1. You need 15% campaign CTR to be able to lower your bids down to $0.60-70. I mentioned many times before, anything with potential commercial value is usually $1/click, which you have to pay initially, but then you should be able to lower the bids, if you achieve a good CTR.....Well, that's the theory anyway, but I'm yet to implement that in practice. This needs to be done, so you can keep your advertising costs low and allow room for profit.

2. You need 70% landing page CTR, because otherwise if you are losing too many visitors on your landing page, then even if you convert well, then the numbers still won't stuck up. The best I've had was around in the 40-50% region, but it seems like I'm not doing well enough.

3. And you need to convert really well, typically 1:20, so again that's not easy to achieve. This is very important, because even if you have a perfect campaign + landing page CTR, but you don't convert well, you will end up making a loss in the end. It's a combination of choosing the right keywords, a good pre-sell and a good offer.


Clearly that's a lot of things that you need to get right for this work, so you can see that there are a lot of areas where things can go wrong.

karmandy93 is a real example that this can be done, but in the last 2 months I've spent $2.5k on Bing with $0 profit, so I'm not really in the mood of experimenting and keep trying different campaigns/products. I've paused all my campaigns and decided to park this method for now, because it just doesn't work for me.

 

[karmandy93]

See my latest reply addressed to @karmandy93 ....unless you can match his stats, it's not going to work for you no matter what you do.

1. You need 15% campaign CTR to be able to lower your bids down to $0.60-70. I mentioned many times before, anything with potential commercial value is usually $1/click, which you have to pay initially, but then you should be able to lower the bids, if you achieve a good CTR.....Well, that's the theory anyway, but I'm yet to implement that in practice. This needs to be done, so you can keep your advertising costs low and allow room for profit.

2. You need 70% landing page CTR, because otherwise if you are losing too many visitors on your landing page, then even if you convert well, then the numbers still won't stuck up. The best I've had was around in the 40-50% region, but it seems like I'm not doing well enough.

3. And you need to convert really well, typically 1:20, so again that's not easy to achieve. This is very important, because even if you have a perfect campaign + landing page CTR, but you don't convert well, you will end up making a loss in the end. It's a combination of choosing the right keywords, a good pre-sell and a good offer.


Clearly that's a lot of things that you need to get right for this work, so you can see that there are a lot of areas where things can go wrong.

karmandy93 is a real example that this can be done, but in the last 2 months I've spent $2.5k on Bing with $0 profit, so I'm not really in the mood of experimenting and keep trying different campaigns/products. I've paused all my campaigns and decided to park this method for now, because it just doesn't work for me.

I will just reply here instead. . .

You don't necessarily need 15% CTR or higher to get cheaper clicks, it all depends on the niche really. But if your AD out performs the majority, your CPC will be lower eventually. As for the campaign I'm currently running, I was able to lower my bids to 0.33 cents, with the same # of clicks -- which means more ROI.

As for my landing page CTR, my average is 50%. . . not much difference from yours.

Try and focus on one product. . . As far as that product has a good gravity on Clickbank, people are making money. Just keep optimizing your landing page. Quite honestly, there is no written recipe. . . you just have to keep testing and stick to one good product, till ROI starts to look good. Also, try less competitive niches, you might have better luck there.

I don't really know much about your campaign, to provide any useful feedback.. . . For example, your issue might be with the bids, keyword type i.e broad/broad modified or simply the way you pre-sell the offer. All I can do is extrapolate based on the information your provide here.

Best of luck

 

[SERPTurbo]

I will just reply here instead. . .

You don't necessarily need 15% CTR or higher to get cheaper clicks, it all depends on the niche really. But if your AD out performs the majority, your CPC will be lower eventually. As for the campaign I'm currently running, I was able to lower my bids to 0.33 cents, with the same # of clicks -- which means more ROI.

As for my landing page CTR, my average is 50%. . . not much difference from yours.

Try and focus on one product. . . As far as that product has a good gravity on Clickbank, people are making money. Just keep optimizing your landing page. Quite honestly, there is no written recipe. . . you just have to keep testing and stick to one good product, till ROI starts to look good. Also, try less competitive niches, you might have better luck there.

I don't really know much about your campaign, to provide any useful feedback.. . . For example, your issue might be with the bids, keyword type i.e broad/broad modified or simply the way you pre-sell the offer. All I can do is extrapolate based on the information your provide here.

Best of luck

Any advice on landing pages? How long/short are yours? What do you put there, personal review as if someone who tried the product, solved their problem and would recommend it, etc? Any proven call-to-action methods?

And what's your strategy with keywords/ads to achieve a good CTR? Not sure if you read my last post on the 2nd page, would appreciate if you could have a look and reply.

Thanks

 

[karmandy93]

@caramelrocks

You're clearly doing something right, if you are almost breakingeven, so possibly it's a just matter of neg'ing a few keywords, improving the ads or the landing page CTR? And no, you don't necessarily need to build a list - plenty of people making a decent income via PPC without a list.


A little update on my experiment with promoting a product from Software Projects - waste of time, clearly nothing to do with affiliate networks. It's all down to the campaign, so whether your offer is on Clickbank or anywhere else, it should convert well, if your campaign setup is right, which wasn't in my case....

@karmandy93

A few questions for you...

Looking at your campaign CTR (16%), I believe that's only achievable, if you bid exact or phrase match only, putting very similar keywords into a separate ad group and writing highly-relevant ads for those keywords. Is that correct? So does that mean that you only bid on very few keywords, which you could easily brainstorm simply by looking at a product or doing a quick keyword research and picking the most relevant keywords with decent volume?

I do use the above method, but I only apply it to relevant keywords, which have a reasonable volume for me to put them into a separate ad group and write specific ads for them. Otherwise, I usually bid something like "+buy +widgets", which then allow me to reach out to hundreds of relevant keywords containing those words, which won't be necessarily displayed in a keyword tool.

Obviously, applying the method of bidding exact/phrase on every single keyword that gets 1 click a day would take ages and you would have hundreds of keywords/ad groups, which wouldn't really make sense....Is that the case with your campaigns or you use the method I described above, where you only bid exact/phrase on a few good keywords?

The reason why I'm asking this, is because my CTR is in double digits (usually 15% +) when keywords have their own adgroups with highly relevant ads. However, for anything which is broad match modified, then the CTR drops to 5-8% range and results in higher CPC compared to those with better CTR.


As for landing page CTR, assuming you get 60-70% on regular basis, then that's significantly better than what I get (40-50%), so it would definitely make quite a bit of difference to my campaigns, if I could improve my rates.

So what would be the key points you would recommend for achieving a 60-70% lander CTR? Average word count? Mine's around 1k, which is possibly a bit too excessive? Best call-to-action techniques? Big anchor-text links or better an image with "click here"? Possibly use of banners from the product's affiliate tools? And generally the actual content or the tone of the landing page? Is it just a strict review of the product or an experience from someone who tried it?

Thanks for your help

I only go for exact and phrase. . . NO broad. I use google keyword tool to get my keywords. Usually I pick all keywords with minimum searches of about a 100 and up. I get lots of it (300 total keyword MAX), and form an adgroup; similar keywords gets put in the same adgroup and so on.

I let the campaign run for a while (usually a couple of days). After that, I eliminate the keywords with little to no searches. . . which is usually half of the keywords. So if I add 300 keywords, I usually end up with 50-150.

Next phase, would be testing for the keywords that generated me good conversion (Assuming your landing page converts). So usually, this phase involves picking out the keywords that had multiple conversion (this is where a tracker is required). At the end, what I end up with is a handful of keywords that converts and with good CTR (this is what you want). As a matter of fact, the last image I showed you (only 5 keywords were responsible for all the sales!!). Yes, 5. . .

As for the landing page, I would say 1k is quite excessive. More often it's not about the "length" of the pre-sell page. As in, your landing page can be 1k, and mine can be 500 words and my conversion rate could still be better. There's just a lot of factors that can affect how your landing page converts. For example, if at the top or the middle of the page. . . you have a link to the product (if it's NOT a review landing page), well the prospect is not even half way done reading, and they're being redirected to another page. . . this will most likely decrease conversion rate.

Also, try and limit the # of links to the affiliate product (1-3 should be enough). When they click on the link, make sure it ties into what you're saying. The link itself should NOT sound desperate like what 99% of people do. Here is an example (THIS IS NOT MY NICHE).

"So, if you have trouble keeping weight off (or are gaining some each year) make sure you're not eating these on a regular basis."

You see how this sounds as if you're going to provide them with something valuable and yet not sounding desperate in return. . . (Now that gives them the illusion that you're not just trying to sell them a product, your landing page should sound like that) - Anyways I hope you get the idea . . I literally wrote this half asleep.

Best of luck

 

[escobart]

Is it necessary to try cloaking + clickbank + ppc (adwords) ?

 

[Harnur]

I only go for exact and phrase. . . NO broad. I use google keyword tool to get my keywords. Usually I pick all keywords with minimum searches of about a 100 and up. I get lots of it (300 total keyword MAX), and form an adgroup; similar keywords gets put in the same adgroup and so on.

I let the campaign run for a while (usually a couple of days). After that, I eliminate the keywords with little to no searches. . . which is usually half of the keywords. So if I add 300 keywords, I usually end up with 50-150.

Next phase, would be testing for the keywords that generated me good conversion (Assuming your landing page converts). So usually, this phase involves picking out the keywords that had multiple conversion (this is where a tracker is required). At the end, what I end up with is a handful of keywords that converts and with good CTR (this is what you want). As a matter of fact, the last image I showed you (only 5 keywords were responsible for all the sales!!). Yes, 5. . .

As for the landing page, I would say 1k is quite excessive. More often it's not about the "length" of the pre-sell page. As in, your landing page can be 1k, and mine can be 500 words and my conversion rate could still be better. There's just a lot of factors that can affect how your landing page converts. For example, if at the top or the middle of the page. . . you have a link to the product (if it's NOT a review landing page), well the prospect is not even half way done reading, and they're being redirected to another page. . . this will most likely decrease conversion rate.

Also, try and limit the # of links to the affiliate product (1-3 should be enough). When they click on the link, make sure it ties into what you're saying. The link itself should NOT sound desperate like what 99% of people do. Here is an example (THIS IS NOT MY NICHE).

"So, if you have trouble keeping weight off (or are gaining some each year) make sure you're not eating these on a regular basis."

You see how this sounds as if you're going to provide them with something valuable and yet not sounding desperate in return. . . (Now that gives them the illusion that you're not just trying to sell them a product, your landing page should sound like that) - Anyways I hope you get the idea . . I literally wrote this half asleep.

Best of luck

And do you do on your landing page? Capture email leads?

 

[karmandy93]

And do you do on your landing page? Capture email leads?

I don't collect emails: my conversion rate is fairly good, so I don't bother collecting emails. . . Actually More like I'm a bit lazy to collect their email and set up an email sequence. So I just stick with a presell landing page (which works if you do it right).

 

[SERPTurbo]

Thanks for pointers regarding the landing page @karmandy93

As I previously mentioned, my landers used to be quite long (1k words), so I've made them slightly shorter now, down to 500-600 words.

Also funny you mentioned the links at the top of the page, because I made that mistake as well - I would have links scattered throughout the landing page, thinking it would help the CTR, but totally ignored the fact that people won't actually read the page and simply click-through, so essentially without being pre-sold.

So I corrected that as well by getting rid of all the links, only to leave 3-4 links at the bottom of the page - let's see how that works.

 

[BP247]

@karmandy93 sent you a PM
Looking forward

 

[karmandy93]

Thanks for pointers regarding the landing page @karmandy93

As I previously mentioned, my landers used to be quite long (1k words), so I've made them slightly shorter now, down to 500-600 words.

Also funny you mentioned the links at the top of the page, because I made that mistake as well - I would have links scattered throughout the landing page, thinking it would help the CTR, but totally ignored the fact that people won't actually read the page and simply click-through, so essentially without being pre-sold.

So I corrected that as well by getting rid of all the links, only to leave 3-4 links at the bottom of the page - let's see how that works.

Yes, also what you might notice once you make the changes is that your landing page CTR might decrease. Hence maybe the reason you even have 40% CTR might be the fact that . . . the majority of people are not fully reading the content and just clicking through the first link they see. Like you said, they're not being pre-sold.

If this turns out to be the case, you might want to improve your landing page content. As in, maybe most people are not resonating with your lander and they leave. This will in fact help you know where the real issue is. . .

Hope this helps

 

[karmandy93]

@karmandy93 sent you a PM
Looking forward

Sure. . . will take a look at it.

 

[SERPTurbo]

@karmandy93

What tips would you give for creating a landing page from scratch? My CTR indeed dropped to around 20% after implementing the changes, so I want to start from the basics and see what I'm doing wrong, rather than keep randomly changing things without making any progress....

In terms of the template - do you have one that you sort of customize for each offer or you get a new design out every time you do a new campaign? Are you using Wordpress themes or just simple HTML one-page landers? Would be great to know that.

How far do you go with the design? Any fancy header images or just normal text throughout? Possibly a photo of the person doing the "review"? Any use of product images on the landing page or maybe just generic niche images?

And with regards to content, how do you go about that? I usually use the sales page of the product to come up with a meaningful pre-sell without obviously copying too much, so I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it?

Would appreciate your thoughts on the above, because it seems like I've never paid too much attention to my landing pages, thinking they were ok, but turns out I'm missing out quite a few important things that could make/break campaigns.

 

[Harnur]

I don't collect emails: my conversion rate is fairly good, so I don't bother collecting emails. . . Actually More like I'm a bit lazy to collect their email and set up an email sequence. So I just stick with a presell landing page (which works if you do it right).

What conversion rates(Sales) do you get on your pre-sell landing page? How do you send traffic to it?

 

[William McCall]

Yes this is possible but the conversion rate was smaller for me than linking to the vendor page. Nevertheless this is still possible (at least some weeks ago).
You need to place a non existent 1x1 image code on your own website (to set the cookie/clickbank ID) and then link the user directly to the checkout page.

 

[Harnur]

Yes this is possible but the conversion rate was smaller for me than linking to the vendor page. Nevertheless this is still possible (at least some weeks ago).
You need to place a non existent 1x1 image code on your own website (to set the cookie/clickbank ID) and then link the user directly to the checkout page.

1. How did you create this 1x1 image code? Does this code opens in a new page/tab/window?
2. Do you replicate the landing page of vendor/ or make your own unique landing page?
3. And How is it possible to get the LINK of the checkout page? According to my understanding..clickbank doesn't provides link to check out page.

 

[lawyal]

Yes this is possible but the conversion rate was smaller for me than linking to the vendor page. Nevertheless this is still possible (at least some weeks ago).
You need to place a non existent 1x1 image code on your own website (to set the cookie/clickbank ID) and then link the user directly to the checkout page.

Yes this is possible but the conversion rate was smaller for me than linking to the vendor page. Nevertheless this is still possible (at least some weeks ago).
You need to place a non existent 1x1 image code on your own website (to set the cookie/clickbank ID) and then link the user directly to the checkout page.

Dude, what is wrong with you? I posted the same on page 1 of this topic and you just copy it?!

 

[Harnur]

Dude, what is wrong with you? I posted the same on page 1 of this topic and you just copy it?!

Can you please how do you create your 1x1 cookie code? And From where do you get this code in clickbank..?

 

[lawyal]

Can you please how do you create your 1x1 cookie code? And From where do you get this code in clickbank..?

The idea is to create a cookie with your affiliate ID as a 1x1 px image so that everything your visitors buy goes on your account. Then you link to the check out page like
http://ProductNumber.VendorID.pay.clickbank.net/

 

[mikelala]

@karmandy93

A few questions if I may.

You say you use a tracker.

1. Do you send the landing page referer or do you use a double meta refresh and hide it?

2. Is the tracker on the same domain as your landers so people might "trust" the link more?

3. Do you use target="_blank"

Thanks

 

[Nattsurfaren]

@karmandy93

A few questions if I may.

You say you use a tracker.

1. Do you send the landing page referer or do you use a double meta refresh and hide it?

2. Is the tracker on the same domain as your landers so people might "trust" the link more?

3. Do you use target="_blank"

Thanks

I will just reply here instead. . .

You don't necessarily need 15% CTR or higher to get cheaper clicks, it all depends on the niche really. But if your AD out performs the majority, your CPC will be lower eventually. As for the campaign I'm currently running, I was able to lower my bids to 0.33 cents, with the same # of clicks -- which means more ROI.

As for my landing page CTR, my average is 50%. . . not much difference from yours.

Try and focus on one product. . . As far as that product has a good gravity on Clickbank, people are making money. Just keep optimizing your landing page. Quite honestly, there is no written recipe. . . you just have to keep testing and stick to one good product, till ROI starts to look good. Also, try less competitive niches, you might have better luck there.

I don't really know much about your campaign, to provide any useful feedback.. . . For example, your issue might be with the bids, keyword type i.e broad/broad modified or simply the way you pre-sell the offer. All I can do is extrapolate based on the information your provide here.

Best of luck

Your posts are very inspiring karmandy93 and I'm soaking in loads of good information from you. I'm a total newbee with bing ads and I haven't run my first campaign yet. I tried adwords a long time ago with a total fail. Lost more than I paid. So this time I want to really really learn as much as possible before starting. I think I'm almost ready. With landing page I would think A/B split testing is very valuable. I think I would try to pick/borrow landing page content from various pages and generate a landing page and try to optimize it.
There is one thing I didn't really understand or it contradicts each other.

1. "You don't necessarily need 15% CTR or higher to get cheaper clicks, it all depends on the niche really."
2. "you just have to keep testing and stick to one good product, till ROI starts to look good"

What I don't understand is how do I know a good niche if I only stick to one product?
For example you need to test your ads and create several of them to increase conversion rate(not ctr as it can be very different) Same with products you need to test several of them.
I'm going to test with direct linking first to find a good niche / product and then focus on a landing page. That makes most sense to me.
What do you think?