Here’s 10 quality Affiliate tips to tweak your Adwords PPC campaign and take it to profitability.

*

For a direct linking campaign [aka Google Cash method]. If you are getting slapped by Google, buy a domain name or set up a page on your own domain and do a simple redirect to your affiliate link. This will often change the quality score from OK to Good.

Spy on your competitors.  Sign up for a spy tool like Keycompete [hot tip] to identify winning affiliate campaigns.  Then invest in Extreme Conversions to identify and dump non-converting keywords.

With your new found James Bond “007” insight, you might bump an affiliate off the top spot, but if he bumps you off in return… don’t get into a bidding war. If someone else is beating you, and making you unprofitable, don’t waste time and money fighting with them. Instead focus on changing something to make the campaign profitable.

Don’t bother with position #1.  High positions encourage click happy marketers, not buyers.  Aim for  Position 4-6, even up to position 8 where conversions are almost always higher than at positions 1-3.

Don’t overbid. If you can’t be profitable at $0.40, lower your bids by working out that you could be profitable at say $0.18.  As long as it still keeps you in the coveted 4 – 8 spot. [refer free PDF at bottom for exact formula to achieve this]

Create a landing page on your own domain. If you have no design skills and a small budget - Ask the merchant, who will gladly provide this to you.

Look at the time of the day when your conversions/sales happen. Don’t display your ad during times that don’t convert. For example between midnight and 8 am in the country you target. There may well be clicks during that time. But often there are no sales.

Limit the Countries where your ads are shown.  Some countries are renowned for high charge backs. Omit these and stick to the major players – USA, Canada, UK, Australia etc.

Don’t Give Up. It might take 10 – 12 campaigns before you hit that winner.  It is this winner that will be the turnaround…  to provide you super affiliate income for years to come. [Don’t you want to give your boss the flick].

What’s that you say!    Only 9 tips?

You want the tenth?   I’d like your input please.

Leave a suggestion for the tenth in the comments field… and then be sure to

Go NOW, and get these free videos and PDF for structured steps on how to construct a PPC campaign that will be profitable for years to come.

HINT: You’ll also find the exact steps within on how to work Tips 4 and 5 so they stick.

You don’t need thousands to start with PPC marketing.  There were days I used to layout $5.

It is doable.

But only comes from the right mindset.

Remember… Napoleon Hill said:

***What the mind of man can conceive and believe… It can achieve!***

*************************************************
Don’t know what keywords to use in
your marketing campaigns?
Download the keywords your competitors use.

*************************************************

Introducing the first member of the team…

About 5 years ago… around the time I started online marketing… I ran into a struggling Uni graduate [phd in Economics no less] - so broke at the time - that he installed my ARP autoresponder script for the princely sum of $25!  Roll on 2008, and this very same student earned 2.5 million in 2007 as a PPC super affiliate marketer.

Here’s the second part of the killer team…

Around the same time in 2005, the blogosphere was buzzing about a new 21 year old hot shot Marketer who was already getting a monthly five figure cheque from Google Adsense.  Well… as fate would have it… our paths crossed [shortly after a colleague suggested I should make contact with him]

In response to the first blog post I did about him, this young man came back at me with, what I thought was quite a cheeky email… He said he would teach me all he knew about making a five figure income with Adsense, and I would be earning the same in a few short weeks if I were to follow his EVERY word.

What!  Follow the advice of a newbie who was 21 years old.  What a nerve, with all my years of experience in Marketing.  Right?

WRONG!  Oh! boy how wrong I was.

This young man, now a blazing success in Affiliate Marketing, has a deep seated talent that sets him apart from the rest of the same ‘ole Marketing crowd… with great admiration I proclaim him “a born natural at marketing”.

If you have been online for a while, and know the basics of PPC… but just burn to go those further steps and make Affiliate marketing your source of full time income…

AND - if you wonder why your keyword research always seems to fall flat…  you are just about to start finding out exactly why you fail, and then how EXACTLY to fix it.

Starting with…

This free report: “The 3 Critical Mistakes Affiliate Marketers Make“.

Here’s my take on a snippet of the exciting techniques revealed within:

When you first launch any PPC campaign, it is the breadth of your keyword list that counts, not the depth.

Briefly explained, take “spyware” as an example of a main keyword for a forthcoming PPC campaign.

You might be used to running “spyware” through Wordtracker or Keyword Elite and getting a long, deep list of words related to “spyware’.  Here’s a few examples:

anti spyware
anti spyware free
anti spyware software
antivirus spyware
best free spyware remover
best spyware download
free spyware download
spyware blaster
free anti spyware
free kazaa spyware removal
free removal of spyware

.. and so on and so forth!!! Right?

WRONG!

This is what is critical…

A Broad keyword list is one that has lots of related and lateral keywords, and not just variations of one root keyword

So the Broad keyword list for the term “spyware” [that should be used for the all important initial test that determines profitability for this campaign]… should correctly contain variations like:

adware
backdoor
browser hijacker
cookie
Dialer
keylogger
malware
spyware
toolbar
Trojan
w32
worm

You’d then wisely get inside the heads of your buyers and add some verbs to the above variations to make small phrases, just like the prospective buyer would type into a search engine when looking to solve their problem.

For example for the broad related keyword “adware ” from the list above , you’d add the following:

delete adware
destroy adware
find adware
remove adware

… and add words like delete, destroy, find and remove to the rest of the “broad” keyword list.

How to determine the profitability of those keywords, and the changes you make to the price of those keywords to take them to the “coveted” position in Adwords, is in the free PDF you can download at “3 Critical Mistakes Affiliate Marketers Make“.

If you are now shaking with a sense of excited anticipation like I am…

Cannot wait for the full release of this excellent PPC tutorial series on 14 October, and…

Want to find those important “broad” keywords today. Here’s a couple of tools I have used with great success.

Both of these PPC tools provide highly relevant broad keywords and are absolutely FREE:

Google Adwords External Keyword Tool - Select the first radio button “descriptive words or phrases” and tick the “use synonyms” box. Do not filter the results any further at this stage. The “broad” keyword gems you need are usually found towards the bottom of the results, under the heading “Additional keywords to consider” ]
Google Sets - Simply type in the main keyword like “spyware” in the first tab and perhaps one other like “adware” in the second tab]. What’s great with Google sets is that it also provides variations of those all important “verbs” you need to add before/after the broad keyphrases.

Thankfully being online as long as I have - allows me to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff, and to become a Super Affiliate you need mentoring from an Affiliate who walks the talk. I am so excited to have had the privilege to preview this course.

PLEASE!! If nothing else …. go now and grab the free PPC marketing videos and PDF tutorials they are handing out prior to the product launch… honestly, it will be worth your weight in super affiliate gold.

The kit costing $199 will go on sale Oct. 15, and includes a remote and an external TV tuner that plugs into the PC. The computer screen interface is identical to a TV equipped with a TiVo box.

Recording TV on a PC has been possible for years on computers equipped with TV cards, and some versions of Windows Vista include the necessary software.

But it will be the first time that both the TiVo interface and functions have been replicated on a PC.

The Nero LiquidTV/TiVo PC will go on sale initially in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, but it could open up some markets where TiVo does not yet sell its set-top boxes. Joshua Danovitz, general manager of international business at TiVo, confirms plans to launch in Europe next year, include Nero’s home country, Germany.

Britain is the only European country where TiVo currently has subscribers.

“It’s really part of a global TiVo strategy,” Danovitz said.

For people who already have a tuner-equipped PC, Nero will sell the TV recording software separately, for $99. Either way, buyers will get a one-year subscription to TiVo’s program guide updates, with renewal costing $99 per year.

The renewal cost sets the product apart from the digital video recording features of Windows Vista which has a free program guide. However, Nero and TiVo are counting on the popularity of the TiVo interface and brand to overcome that hurdle.

Similar to TiVo’s existing TiVo Desktop software, LiquidTV will allow users to transfer shows recorded on other TiVo devices to the PC’s hard drive, and bring shows out of the home either on a laptop’s drive or on an PlayStation Portable .

Nero’s LiquidTV also allows users to burn tv shows onto DVD if the computer has a DVD burner.

The idea for this blog post came from the frustrations expressed in the comments field of How To Start an Internet Business - by OZ blogger… Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey.]

The reason most of us fail at the beginning is that we try to set up niches, and simply sell basic how-to information.   Like offering a book on How to Knit to fanatical “Knitters” [is there such a word!].

A general audience like that would scroll through the pages of search engines more often than not looking for free information and might only buy the occasional info product.

Marketing 101 - Identify a market full of desperate buyers crying out for any kind information to solve their “emotional” issues and your on to a winner. Here’s why:

People with soul destroying problems and pressing issues are desperate! They buy on impulse, because they’re in an emotionally charged state of mind, and want to get the hell out of it. No matter what the cost.

I have witnessed marketers do it the other way around… that is to initially fall in love with a product or topic… and set up a companion blog or website… fully reliant on the underlying strength of their passion and industry knowledge to propel them to profitability.

After all a Blog is monetized by simply filling it with great content to generate zillions of monthly page views.   Major Advertisers will then line up … “gold” credit card in hand, vying for those prime ad spots on the blogger’s home page.

Here are some niches… full of desperate buyers… looking for knowledge, on how to conquer their:

weight loss problems
weight gain issues
anxiety and panic attacks
body building issues
desire to learn guitar, piano..

or yearning to:

learn Japanese, French, Spanish, German…
train disobedient, boisterous dogs
train disappearing cats
turn a car into a hybrid, and
save on fuel costs….

You get the idea.

Frequent the forums of any niche you wish to target.  You will locate within a myriad of desperate people looking for solutions to their problems, from like minded people.

Inserting ["niche keyword" forums] into the Google search bar will locate related forums.  Leave out the brackets, please.

Other ideas for Niche Topics

Believe it or not… a primary source of profitable niche market ideas comes from some of the bigger shopping, auction and article portals. The number of categories within multiply on a daily basis.

For example at Ezine Articles…

1. First have a look through  this printable page of categories, or  the Ezine Articles list of categories on their  home page.
2. Select a subtopic ["Arts-and-Entertainment: Photography" looks like a good one.]
3. Simply browse through the titles under these sub-topics at the Ezine Articles site.   Example:  Under each sub topic below are listed a few ideas for Info Products [information ebooks and video tutorials]

Digital Photo Manipulation

“Photoshop digital manipulation secrets”

“How to restore old photos”, etc.

Freelance Photography

“How to make money with your camera”

“How to buy camera accessories wholesale from China”

Portrait Photography

“How to use a hand held flash”

“How to use natural light”

“How to photograph babies”

“Pet photography - the how’s”

and so on!

Funnily enough, desperate buyers will even buy from the ugliest of websites. So don’t sweat the design too much.

I should know… I made some butt ugly websites 6 years ago, but have learned valuable lessons from each one. The path to success is to take action, NOW.   Really.

Go lurk in a forum and write a brief info ebook to solve the desperate members’ problem. You just might be surprised to find, that even a short 40 page book will sell for upwards of $67 on your first niche website.

What do you think? Have you any ideas on how to find elusive, winning niche topics to share with readers of this blog. Your comments are always welcome.