AndQuocDrew
Registered Member
- Dec 6, 2014
- 56
- 38
Background
Hey everyone at BlackHatWorld! I'm starting a new journey in Internet Marketing hoping to make some money and be financially independent just like everyone else. Before all my actual marketing content I wanna tell you guys about myself first. Skip this part if you feel like it.
I used to read different topics on BlackHatWorld extremely often starting about 4-5 years ago. I used to just read and not take action. Then when I first took action back then it was also through BingADs and Clickbank. I think I made like $75 spending $100 which isn't too bad considering I knew nothing about making good landing pages, tracking, or optimizing. I stopped though after I saw a company that offered an affiliate program that I thought I could really do well marketing.
Let me be real this was an EXTREMELY easy product to market. I'm not gonna give exactly what company but it's a popular app that also has a referral program. I was invited by them to be an affiliate marketer because I got a lot of referrals that gave me a lot of in-app credit. So I was working directly with the company. I only worked with them for about 8 months until they ended their affiliate marketing program but was by the end was making about $15k a month from them. I earned enough to pay for my 3 years at University as well as rent and whatever else I needed for those three years.
I was extremely fortunate to have been invited to this program since I would have had to take out loans. It was a huge relief of stress for both me and my family who would have helped me get through university but also aren't extremely financially comfortable themselves.
Now I am graduated from university with a well-known degree similar to Computer Science in the US from a university that is well known for it's tech majors. I don't want to say exactly the name of the department because I think only few schools call it what my University calls it. I learned UI/UX Design, Software Dev, and Website Dev. I feel like my major will actually help me in my Internet Marketing career because we learned how to perform user research and think in the shoes of the users. This will be similar to market research in a way.
So now I'm starting up a real internet marketing career. As I said, my own IM job was extremely easy so I don't see myself as really learning or having IM success just yet. I still have about $20k leftover from that job so I can invest some in BingADs.
Thanks for reading about my background if you did and lets get started with what I've done so far!
What I've Done So Far
I started a couple days ago after watching countless videos and reading lots of forum posts. Decided to go with BingAds because of my past (very limited) experience with it. I started with a Maxbounty offer that paid out $60 per lead.
This campaign is "old campaign" on the bing ad picture above. On the first day I ran the campaign I made one sale for $60 and but also spent $60 on ads so I pretty much broke even on that day which was much better than expected. I know that first days will likely be negative ROI while I gather data to try and optimize. I then ran it for another $20 the next day but realized that I should start with a lower cost, lower payout offer. I also learned that I need to do a lot more than I did for this campaign when starting a campaign. I direct linked to the offer. I didn't create separate ad groups for separate keyword groups. Since I direct linked I didn't have different landing pages to test. Hell I don't know how I even broke even the first day! I did write multiple ads with different angles and got some good data so I may come back to this offer when I'm more experienced.
So now, I decided to start a new campaign with a new offer. It's a Clickbank offer with a lower cost and lower payout. This way, I'll probably be able to collect more data (hopefully) and optimize it base on that data.
I hope I'm doing this right. I'm going to write out my process but replace the niche with something random like.... "Weight Loss Recipes". First, I did keyword research and came up with three different Ad Groups that are relevant to the product. In the example it would be something like "Weight Loss Recipes", "Weight Loss Cookbook", and "Weight Loss Plans". Each ad group had around 8-13 keywords in it with phrase match so I could try to find more keywords that people are searching for.
For each ad group I created three different ads. Each of the three ads for each group is advertising from different angles. For example in the "Weight Loss Cookbook" ad group there would be things like
"Best Weight Loss Cookbook 2018 - The #1 Cookbook for Weight Loss" (Generic "Best" Advertisement)
"Healthiest Weight Loss Cookbook - Including the Best Healthy Recipes" (Catering towards people looking for the "healthiest" options)
"Weight Loss Cookbook for Everybody - Fastest and Easiest Meals to Make" (Works toward people who are new to weight loss and want the easiest recipes to make)
I'm using ClickFunnels to create my landing pages. Each ad group is being split tested with two different landing pages that are reworded for the adgroup. For example, the page for "Weight Loss Cookbook" would have the header "The Best Weight Loss Cookbook" whereas the page for "Weight Loss Recipes" would have the header "The Best Weight Loss Recipes".
In summary, I'm promoting a Clickbank offer. I made 3 ad groups for this offer. Each ad group has two landing pages.
I'm using ClickMagick to track my data. I can see which ad gets sales. Which keywords get searched and get sales. Which landing page is getting more sales. I will use this data to try and optimize.
As you can see I spend about $41 dollars on the campaign today and only made one sale of about $17
Revenue: $17
Costs: $41
Profit: -$24
Obviously it's sad that I lost money but it's to be expected at such an early stage of my campaign! Glad I even made the one sale. I made a mistake of not putting the negative keyword "free". I got some clicks from people that were looking for a free alternative to my product. So I added that negative keyword. I also figured out some keyword phrases that would not lead too well to a sale. I also added them to negative keywords. Not too sure which landing page is better yet because of only getting one sale. Also, some ads have a higher CTR so it seems like I may have winners in that department but I'm going to leave all of them running for one more day to see how it goes. All the changes I've made are on the keyword lists. Hopefully it gives me good results!
Questions for the Experts
How do I track people who click on my link and also click through to the product page? I only see which page leads to a sale but I don't know how to see which of my landing pages make people go to the product page. I've searched but I don't even know what to search for so if someone could explain it briefly that would be a huge help.
How do I optimize with such little data of sales? I figured out some negative keywords to add but also don't know what keywords to keep in because there's so little data to work from. Do I just leave it running and wait until a lot more data comes in?
Is my CPC too high? Is 1 sale with 35 hops alright? Spending $40 for $17 revenue is a little disheartening even though I know it needs to be worked into profit with data. It may be because I'm not exactly sure what to optimize with this little data.
Thanks all!
Conclusion
Sorry if I wrote too much. I bet I wrote stuff that could have been condensed when explaining what I'm doing. I hope it can be helpful for others looking how to set up a campaign though! I'm planning to update this at the end of every day but obviously life is busy and also writing this entire post out made me realize how much work it is to write a decent post. I'll try my best to update as much as possible! I won't quit this campaign because I have so much time to work, I have a house over my head, and $20k in the bank to work with. I'm also already inspired because making sales first day for both campaigns. I'd appreciate any help and advice that you guys give me.
Hey everyone at BlackHatWorld! I'm starting a new journey in Internet Marketing hoping to make some money and be financially independent just like everyone else. Before all my actual marketing content I wanna tell you guys about myself first. Skip this part if you feel like it.
I used to read different topics on BlackHatWorld extremely often starting about 4-5 years ago. I used to just read and not take action. Then when I first took action back then it was also through BingADs and Clickbank. I think I made like $75 spending $100 which isn't too bad considering I knew nothing about making good landing pages, tracking, or optimizing. I stopped though after I saw a company that offered an affiliate program that I thought I could really do well marketing.
Let me be real this was an EXTREMELY easy product to market. I'm not gonna give exactly what company but it's a popular app that also has a referral program. I was invited by them to be an affiliate marketer because I got a lot of referrals that gave me a lot of in-app credit. So I was working directly with the company. I only worked with them for about 8 months until they ended their affiliate marketing program but was by the end was making about $15k a month from them. I earned enough to pay for my 3 years at University as well as rent and whatever else I needed for those three years.
I was extremely fortunate to have been invited to this program since I would have had to take out loans. It was a huge relief of stress for both me and my family who would have helped me get through university but also aren't extremely financially comfortable themselves.
Now I am graduated from university with a well-known degree similar to Computer Science in the US from a university that is well known for it's tech majors. I don't want to say exactly the name of the department because I think only few schools call it what my University calls it. I learned UI/UX Design, Software Dev, and Website Dev. I feel like my major will actually help me in my Internet Marketing career because we learned how to perform user research and think in the shoes of the users. This will be similar to market research in a way.
So now I'm starting up a real internet marketing career. As I said, my own IM job was extremely easy so I don't see myself as really learning or having IM success just yet. I still have about $20k leftover from that job so I can invest some in BingADs.
Thanks for reading about my background if you did and lets get started with what I've done so far!
What I've Done So Far
I started a couple days ago after watching countless videos and reading lots of forum posts. Decided to go with BingAds because of my past (very limited) experience with it. I started with a Maxbounty offer that paid out $60 per lead.
This campaign is "old campaign" on the bing ad picture above. On the first day I ran the campaign I made one sale for $60 and but also spent $60 on ads so I pretty much broke even on that day which was much better than expected. I know that first days will likely be negative ROI while I gather data to try and optimize. I then ran it for another $20 the next day but realized that I should start with a lower cost, lower payout offer. I also learned that I need to do a lot more than I did for this campaign when starting a campaign. I direct linked to the offer. I didn't create separate ad groups for separate keyword groups. Since I direct linked I didn't have different landing pages to test. Hell I don't know how I even broke even the first day! I did write multiple ads with different angles and got some good data so I may come back to this offer when I'm more experienced.
So now, I decided to start a new campaign with a new offer. It's a Clickbank offer with a lower cost and lower payout. This way, I'll probably be able to collect more data (hopefully) and optimize it base on that data.
I hope I'm doing this right. I'm going to write out my process but replace the niche with something random like.... "Weight Loss Recipes". First, I did keyword research and came up with three different Ad Groups that are relevant to the product. In the example it would be something like "Weight Loss Recipes", "Weight Loss Cookbook", and "Weight Loss Plans". Each ad group had around 8-13 keywords in it with phrase match so I could try to find more keywords that people are searching for.
For each ad group I created three different ads. Each of the three ads for each group is advertising from different angles. For example in the "Weight Loss Cookbook" ad group there would be things like
"Best Weight Loss Cookbook 2018 - The #1 Cookbook for Weight Loss" (Generic "Best" Advertisement)
"Healthiest Weight Loss Cookbook - Including the Best Healthy Recipes" (Catering towards people looking for the "healthiest" options)
"Weight Loss Cookbook for Everybody - Fastest and Easiest Meals to Make" (Works toward people who are new to weight loss and want the easiest recipes to make)
I'm using ClickFunnels to create my landing pages. Each ad group is being split tested with two different landing pages that are reworded for the adgroup. For example, the page for "Weight Loss Cookbook" would have the header "The Best Weight Loss Cookbook" whereas the page for "Weight Loss Recipes" would have the header "The Best Weight Loss Recipes".
In summary, I'm promoting a Clickbank offer. I made 3 ad groups for this offer. Each ad group has two landing pages.
I'm using ClickMagick to track my data. I can see which ad gets sales. Which keywords get searched and get sales. Which landing page is getting more sales. I will use this data to try and optimize.
As you can see I spend about $41 dollars on the campaign today and only made one sale of about $17
Revenue: $17
Costs: $41
Profit: -$24
Obviously it's sad that I lost money but it's to be expected at such an early stage of my campaign! Glad I even made the one sale. I made a mistake of not putting the negative keyword "free". I got some clicks from people that were looking for a free alternative to my product. So I added that negative keyword. I also figured out some keyword phrases that would not lead too well to a sale. I also added them to negative keywords. Not too sure which landing page is better yet because of only getting one sale. Also, some ads have a higher CTR so it seems like I may have winners in that department but I'm going to leave all of them running for one more day to see how it goes. All the changes I've made are on the keyword lists. Hopefully it gives me good results!
Questions for the Experts
How do I track people who click on my link and also click through to the product page? I only see which page leads to a sale but I don't know how to see which of my landing pages make people go to the product page. I've searched but I don't even know what to search for so if someone could explain it briefly that would be a huge help.
How do I optimize with such little data of sales? I figured out some negative keywords to add but also don't know what keywords to keep in because there's so little data to work from. Do I just leave it running and wait until a lot more data comes in?
Is my CPC too high? Is 1 sale with 35 hops alright? Spending $40 for $17 revenue is a little disheartening even though I know it needs to be worked into profit with data. It may be because I'm not exactly sure what to optimize with this little data.
Thanks all!
Conclusion
Sorry if I wrote too much. I bet I wrote stuff that could have been condensed when explaining what I'm doing. I hope it can be helpful for others looking how to set up a campaign though! I'm planning to update this at the end of every day but obviously life is busy and also writing this entire post out made me realize how much work it is to write a decent post. I'll try my best to update as much as possible! I won't quit this campaign because I have so much time to work, I have a house over my head, and $20k in the bank to work with. I'm also already inspired because making sales first day for both campaigns. I'd appreciate any help and advice that you guys give me.
