Made $11,600+ with Google Ads affiliate in 8 months — $0.04 avg CPC (screenshots inside)

Hey guys,

Been lurking and testing for a while. Finally have enough data to share something worth reading.

I run Google Search Ads sending traffic directly to affiliate links. No landing page, no funnel, no email list. Just ads → ref link → commissions. Total earned across two programs over roughly 8 months: $11,689.

I'll break down exactly what I did.

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The two programs I ran:

HeyGen (AI video tool) — heygen.getrewardful.com
- Total earned: $7,552.81
- Visitors sent: 103,823
- Leads: 16,165
- Conversions: 407
- Commission: 35% on all payments in first 3 months

Rork (AI app builder) — affilates.rork.com
- Total earned: $4,136.50
- Clicks: 22,775
- Customers: 279
- Commission: 20% recurring

Monthly ad spend: around $500. Monthly revenue: around $3,000. That's roughly 6x on spend, consistently.

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The method — brand keyword bidding

Most affiliates either do SEO or send paid traffic to a review blog. I skipped both.

Instead I bid directly on the brand name in Google Search. So when someone types "HeyGen" or "HeyGen pricing" into Google, my ad shows up. They click, land on the HeyGen signup page via my ref link, buy — I get paid.

Why does this work?

Someone searching for a product by name already knows what it is. They're not browsing. They're one step away from buying. That intent is worth a lot — but most people don't think to bid on it because it feels too simple.

The other thing: there's almost zero competition on these brand terms. Not many affiliates run paid ads. So CPCs stay dirt cheap.

My average CPC across both campaigns: $0.04.

At $500/month that's around 12,500 clicks. You don't need a crazy conversion rate to make the math work.

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How I set it up

Pick your offer first. What I look for:
- SaaS tool with a real affiliate program (not Amazon-level 3% commissions)
- Product that people actually search by name — meaning there's existing search volume
- Cookie window of at least 30 days
- Commission that makes sense at low ticket or has recurring upside

For keywords, I target exact and phrase match only. Never broad.

Examples of what I bid on:
[heygen]
"heygen pricing"
"heygen review"
"heygen free trial"
[rork ai]
"rork app builder"

I keep it tight. One campaign per offer, separate ad groups for different intent clusters (brand, brand+pricing, brand+alternative).

Starting bid I usually set around $0.10 max CPC and let it settle. Google pushes it down fast when your Quality Score is decent — and it will be decent because your ad is directly relevant to the search.

For ad copy I don't try to impersonate the brand. I write it as a referral:

Example for HeyGen:
Headline 1: HeyGen — Start Free Today
Headline 2: AI Video Tool Trusted by Creators Worldwide
Headline 3: No Credit Card Required
Description: Generate studio-quality AI videos in minutes. Supports 40+ languages. Try it free now.

Clean, relevant, no tricks. Google rewards this with lower CPCs.

For the destination URL — I send straight to my affiliate link. No intermediate page. For brand searches where someone already knows the product, the product's own landing page converts better than anything I'd build anyway. One less step = less drop-off.

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What I'd do differently

Early on I wasted about 3 weeks testing broad match keywords. Burned maybe $200 for almost nothing. The lesson: if you're bidding on brand terms, exact and phrase match only. Broad will serve your ad to people who never heard of the product.

Also — check the affiliate program TOS before running paid ads. Some programs explicitly prohibit bidding on their brand terms. Both HeyGen and Rork allowed it. Always verify first.

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Where I'm at now

HeyGen is shutting down their affiliate program on June 22, 2026 — so that income stream closes soon. I'm already shifting budget to test 3 other AI SaaS programs with similar search volume. Will post an update when I have meaningful data.

Rork is still running. That $4,136 came from 279 customers, which tells me the product converts well once people land on it.

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Happy to answer questions on campaign structure, how to find programs worth bidding on, or anything else. Drop them below.

great results, keep up.
but 0.04 cpc? that's tier 3 countries, right?

can you bid on brand's names?

isshmen said:

great results, keep up.
but 0.04 cpc? that's tier 3 countries, right?

can you bid on brand's names?

Click to expand...

Not necessarily tier 3 — low competition on brand terms keeps CPC cheap regardless of country. When you're the only bidder on "heygen", Google has no reason to charge more.
On brand bidding — always check TOS carefully and keep checking. I learned this the hard way: both HeyGen and Rork allowed brand keyword bidding when I started, so I scaled on it. Later they updated their terms and restricted it, which killed part of my traffic. The commissions I earned before the policy change were still paid out, but I had to rebuild with non-brand keywords after. So yes it works, but treat it as temporary — programs can change the rules anytime.

The brands usually prohibit bidding on brand terms. Don't they?

Yeah most do prohibit it, or they leave it vague so they can say no later when volume gets noticed. Had this happen with a SaaS offer last year... terms didn’t mention PPC at all, ran fine for 2 months, then manager emailed saying brand bids are “not aligned” and paused my account.

If anyone tests this, don’t just check the public TOS once. Screenshot the terms, ask affiliate manager directly if possible, and don’t build the whole income around one brand keyword campaign. Google might let the ads run, but the merchant still has final say on paying you.

Are you also using the affiliate tracking software to optimize the campaign?

rodrimar said:

The brands usually prohibit bidding on brand terms. Don't they?

Click to expand...

Most do, yeah. That's exactly why I said check TOS first. HeyGen and Rork were exceptions — they explicitly allowed it when I started. Most big brands do prohibit it, so this only works for smaller SaaS tools that haven't locked that down yet.

nice breakdown and solid results, congrats on the scale
questions: whats your tracking stack and how do you handle refunds affecting commissions?

Meta Master said:

nice breakdown and solid results, congrats on the scale
questions: whats your tracking stack and how do you handle refunds affecting commissions?

Click to expand...

No complex tracking stack. For refunds, HeyGen handles it automatically — deducted before payout, so every number I posted is already net. Refund rate has been minimal, maybe 3-5%

The WP Nerd said:

Yeah most do prohibit it, or they leave it vague so they can say no later when volume gets noticed. Had this happen with a SaaS offer last year... terms didn’t mention PPC at all, ran fine for 2 months, then manager emailed saying brand bids are “not aligned” and paused my account.

If anyone tests this, don’t just check the public TOS once. Screenshot the terms, ask affiliate manager directly if possible, and don’t build the whole income around one brand keyword campaign. Google might let the ads run, but the merchant still has final say on paying you.

Click to expand...

Exactly right. Email the affiliate manager directly and get written confirmation before scaling. I didn't do that early on and paid for it when they changed terms.

Ankitpal888 said:

Are you also using the affiliate tracking software to optimize the campaign?

Click to expand...

No affiliate tracking software. The limitation of direct linking is you can't fire a conversion pixel on a page you don't own, so keyword-level conversion data doesn't exist on my end. Everything is in the affiliate dashboard. Speaking of which — just pulled the payout history from HeyGen, 25 paid payouts going back to last year. Adding it as proof for anyone skeptical about the numbers.

Update — what's not working (Newsquawk + DataSift)


Promised to keep this honest so here's the other side.


Tested two more programs with the same brand keyword method:


Newsquawk (financial news service, 20% recurring for 6 months): 105 clicks, 0 conversions. Paused it. My theory: people searching "newsquawk" are mostly existing users checking the site, not buyers. Search intent doesn't match purchase intent here. Brand volume exists but it's the wrong audience.


DataSift (data analytics): 444 clicks, 0 conversions. Also paused. Similar issue — plus they require W-8BEN tax form before paying out which adds friction I didn't anticipate upfront.


Lesson: brand keyword bidding doesn't work equally for every product. It works best when the brand has strong buyer-intent search volume — people actively looking to sign up, not just existing users browsing.


Cloudways on the other hand is moving: 4 paid sales, $275 earned, 3 more pending at $225. Avg commission $68-75/sale. Slower than AI tools but holding.

Watch out because Cloudways does not allow brand bidding.

Fainaboy said:

Watch out because Cloudways does not allow brand bidding.

Click to expand...

You're right — Cloudways does restrict brand bidding in their affiliate TOS. I actually received an email from their team flagging it (screenshot attached).


That said, there's a nuance worth noting: the restriction applies to branded keywords globally, but Cloudways themselves run brand campaigns in non-English languages across specific regional markets — they even sent a separate email with ad copy templates for Hebrew, Arabic, Taiwanese Mandarin and others. So the rule isn't blanket across all markets, it depends on the affiliate agreement and which keywords/regions you're targeting.


Bottom line: I paused the brand campaign after their email. The lesson stays the same — always get written confirmation from the affiliate manager before scaling, and don't assume TOS silence means permission.

You are newcomer, though you shared one of the most solid methods and all of its details.

You literally gave out your whole money making system.

Great share.

you used your landing page. or like the same link + your ref link for ads

Yeah this is a well known method for anyone that's been in affiliate marketing for awhile.

Brand bidding is almost always going to be the best converters from PPC.

This issue is most times it isn't allowed.

Still, a good share man.

terrycody said:

You are newcomer, though you shared one of the most solid methods and all of its details.

You literally gave out your whole money making system.

Great share.

Click to expand...

Appreciate it. Honestly the method isn't complicated — most people just don't think to run paid traffic directly to affiliate links. Figured sharing the actual numbers would be more useful than keeping it vague.

xploadercpm said:

you used your landing page. or like the same link + your ref link for ads

Click to expand...

No landing page — straight to the affiliate ref link. The product's own signup page converts better than anything I'd build for brand searches. Someone typing "HeyGen" already knows what it is, they just need one click to get there. Adding a middle step just creates drop-off.

hammer35 said:

Yeah this is a well known method for anyone that's been in affiliate marketing for awhile.

Brand bidding is almost always going to be the best converters from PPC.

This issue is most times it isn't allowed.

Still, a good share man.

Click to expand...

Exactly — the TOS check is step one. HeyGen and Rork both allowed it when I started. Cloudways didn't, found out the hard way after they clawed back commissions. That's the main risk with this method: programs can change or enforce TOS at any point. Always verify before spending.

Brands that gain strong traction usually have a tight TOS, and some also demand you to send a keyword copy with specific negative keywords and ad examples. The real job here is to search for raising brands that need to increase their customer base, but this isn´t easy (and you are always exposed to their changing TOS)

Fainaboy said:

Brands that gain strong traction usually have a tight TOS, and some also demand you to send a keyword copy with specific negative keywords and ad examples. The real job here is to search for raising brands that need to increase their customer base, but this isn´t easy (and you are always exposed to their changing TOS)

Click to expand...

That's exactly the tradeoff. Early-stage brands are more permissive because they need the volume — established ones lock it down once they have enough organic traffic to not need affiliates driving paid.

The window is usually 6-18 months after a product gets traction. After that the TOS tightens or the brand starts running their own branded campaigns and pushes your CPC up anyway.

The negative keyword and ad copy requirements are worth doing properly — I've seen programs reject affiliates just for sloppy ad copy that makes the brand look bad. Take 30 minutes to do it right and you avoid a lot of future headaches.

0.04$ CPC that's a lie. In US there's no 0.04$ CPC it starts from at least 0.30$ bare minimum.

So take this post careful.

Why don't you register directly with the Hygen affiliate program (like Rork) instead of through networks like GetRewardful and FirstPromoter? Is it for easier management, payouts, and participation in the program?