Affiliate Marketing Plunge: Day 8
April 30, 2007 Posted by Tyler CruzWell, I finally did it:
Timeline: April 22nd 12:30pm – April 30th 12:30pm
April 22nd: 5 Hours
April 23rd: 9 Hours
April 24th: 6 Hours
April 25th: 7 Hours
April 26th: 9 Hours
April 27th: 4.5 Hours
April 28th: 7.5 Hours
April 29th: 10 Hours
April 30th: 1.5 Hours
Total: 59.5 Hours
After three unsuccessful attempts at my 40-Hour Week Challenge, I finally did it… and with flying colours. It was obviously due to the newfound energy and motivation that delving into affiliate marketing gave me. It’s kind of amazing though.. I did almost double the amount of hours that I was able to do before.
While the vast majority of that time was spent on affiliate marketing through reading, learning, testing, and building, I also managed to get some other work done from my ‘todo’ list as well which makes me feel good. I started to get some stuff done from it that I had been procrastinating on for too long.
With that being said, let me give you a bit of an update on my affiliate marking plunge.
Affiliate Marketing
Shortly after writing my last AM update, I received my very first lead! That was pretty joyous, as it was my latest goal. My goal now is to average a -80% ROI total average. Again, not the biggest goal in the world, but attainable and progress nonetheless.
After that first lead, which yielded $6, I received another two leads a few hours later, giving me a total of 3 leads, and $35. Still, though, the day I received that, on the 27th, I had spent $185 on AdWords, giving me a -81% ROI, which is not the best thing in the world.
So, after some investigating, I found out that my first offer wasn’t working! The link wasn’t redirecting/working, which meant that all the clicks I had sent that link from my landing page never went anywhere. My affiliate manager confirmed this and then shut th e offer down. Since it was a Friday, I was told I had to wait until today (Monday) for the company to get back to them. She said, though, that I’d be compensated for the clicks.
I asked her how this would work since I was a brand new to AZoogleAds and didn’t have a past conversion rate (CR) to go by. She said that it would go by the network average CR, which is good news for me, ha! Because, since I’m a newbie and am sucking horribly right now, I’ll get the benefit of being compensated by the average CR. Although, now that I think of it, there’s also bad people too, so many it won’t be as high as I thought. But let’s say it’s 10%. I gave around 45 clicks to the offer while it was broken, which means 4-5 leads by the 10% formula. The lead paid $22, so that would equate to $88-110 that AZoogleAds owes me, if my calculations are correct.
That’s partly why I waited until today to make my affiliate marketing update; I was hoping I’d be compensated by now and could give more accurate results on my ROI thus far, but my affiliate manager hasn’t got back to me yet and I don’t see any changes in my account yet.
Anyhow, while that was some good news, the last couple days brought me down a bit again. I’ve been sending a lot of very targeted clicks to my offers, but no futher leads yet. So, I reduced my Max CPC by nearly 50%, and it’s down to a $1.35 average now, which is good, but obviously gives me a lot less traffic. Which means I need to hunt for more keywords.
In other news, my other two affiliate sites/landing pages are complete now, and since they are in completely different markets, it will be interesting to see how I fare with them. Now it’s time to go keyword hunting, which is oh-so-boring.
I also added Blockbuster ads all around Movie-Vault, because the pay $40-50 per lead right now, but Movie Vault’s traffic has really dwindled lately!
Oh, before I go, here’s an updated stats pic for you:
Yup, $500 in the hole… -93.43% ROI… pretty pathetic, eh? Well it’s too bad I’m going to be stubborn then and keep cracking at it 😉
I think it is time to try different keywords and a different strategy. Don’t keep paying for something that isn’t making you money.
A negative return isn’t ROI; it’s a loss.
Great job Tyler! It’s nice to see you’re staying persistent!
You have to spend money to make money. You’ll learn with the money you’re spending now and surely be filthy rich soon – LOL!
I only wish I had the type of budget you have. Oh well, someday I’ll be making 6 figures a year!
Keep spending! It’ll all come back to you soon.
I haven’t made anything on the block buster ads either. I think maybe the people who are at your movie forums site already have some type of video rental account And it more than likely Net Flix depending on the demographics of people who visit your site.
What I have noticed is older people sign up for stuff that requires money right then such as DVD clubs, CD Clubs, tickets becuase they have they money to spend. The younger demographic like stuff they don’t have to pay for right then for example, screensavers and ringtones for cellphones win an FREE ipod for an email address or something that.
You may want to try the iphone ad from azoogle its nets only 1.30 per but you can make alot on volume. Just a suggestion.
Tyler, why wasn’t the link working? Was it something on Azoogle’s part, or the way you setup your redirect?
Two words: nickel clicks.
If your goal is “-80% ROI” then you should try some lower CPC niches than what you’re doing now. You’ll learn just as much and you won’t lose your pants.
Hope you’re tracking what keywords are getting conversions. No harm losing money at the start as long as you stem the flow after you get enough data.
Mr. Banfield:
Definitely their fault, which is why they’re supposed to be compensating me for it. I’m still waiting…
Peter:
Yeah, I am.. unfortunately there’s mainly one keyword that’s doing it, which would be awesome, only it’s obviously under heavy competition and very expensive.
Wow…I just started like a month ago and I’ve already made $130 on my $35-ish investment. You need to rethink your advertising seriously, cuz it’s obviously not working that well.
Since when did a week become 9 days???
Technified: If it makes you feel better, take off any combonation of two days, and he will still be above 40 hours.
uhuh tyler your killing me. 500 dollars blow!! cmon hit me up and ill help you. golly not even when I was starting would i blow 500 dollars unless I really had to learn the hard way.
A $500 loss to gain $35 isnt really good at all. I understand that your learning and gaining experience but that method isnt working.
I suggest reading some AOJon.com & WickedFire before continuing.
Loving the almost daily updates.
T-
Thanks for sharing your failures. It’s really great to read everyone saying AM is a “peace of cake” but your stumbling blocks in reaching those successes is part of the path. U got cojones ga
Tyler,
Any luck converting the blockbuster offer on movie-vault? AM takes some time but I like that you’ve jumped in and are going all out!
Nope, traffic on Movie Vault has really dwindled lately.
movie-vault’s a good site. you spend a month revamping it, getting the url of the reviews straightened out and flipping it for more than the 30-50k you’ve been trying to get for it.
(in the above comment) i meant to write, you *should* spend a month… sorry.
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