Strategic Marketing At Warp Speed

When you start out in researching keywords you should have taken some time to get in a mindset of a college or future college student. Did you go to some Yahoo Groups or Yahoo Answers and check out anything people were asking about college scholarships? If so then your on the right track, if you skipped that step because you think your a badass then more power to you. You will soon realize why I think it’s important to take a little time and look at the landing page and see what others are saying about the topic.

First off you dont go firing up your keyword tool. This is a mistake. It’s been said over and over and you’ve probably seen me say it more times than you care to see that roughly 40% of the online searches are unique. If your using a keyword tool starting out then chances are your going to skip what I am going to talk about next. It’s imperative to develop a process so you dont miss out on keywords and ultimately traffic. Is this the right way to do it? Who knows but I can tell you personally after two years of testing, losing money, tweaking, profiting, scaling, test more that this system works pretty damn well for me. Granted you look at keywords and research the way I do we can all communicate effectively a lot better when things dont go our way.

First off Google Content Network

I like to strategize for the Google Content Network FIRST. Before we get into that let me tell you why. I’ve been asked many times why and how I am able to test offers by direct linking and now you know. While I do start off on the content network, I am only starting there as a RESEARCH point. I realize even with targeted adgroups and ads I can still get some shitty traffic. That’s ok though because Ruckles has a few filtering methods he likes to use to weed a bunch of that junk out from the start.

It’s been said that “he who has the most keywords, wins”. That is only partly true. What should have been said is “he who has the most CONVERTING keywords wins”. Keywords are the lifeblood of a lot of Affiliate Marketing. Whether your capitalizing on SEO or PPC, keywords are vital to your success. Often times as a Pay Per Click Marketer we have to weed out hundreds, thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of keywords to determine that only a handful will bring us profits. This takes time, money, TRACKING and patience. However when it’s all said and done, you can establish campaigns that literally run on their own with very little work.

Surfers use search engines everyday but their methods of searching are not always the same. For keywords that are profitable in Google may not be profitable in Yahoo or MSN. That’s the way of the land. So when you first put together your keyword list you will want to OPTIMIZE for Google (because they are such a pain in the ass) but you will also be refining separately for other methods of search traffic.

There is something VERY important you MUST learn if you want to succeed with PPC to CPA. You MUST develop good research skills and keyword strategies. Without them, your just going to hobble along and probably lose a lot of money in the process. I’ve done everything in my power to list tools and resources to help you accomplish this but it will ultimately come down on how you adapt and react and can think for yourself.

Role Playing and Choosing an Offer

This post is a PRIMER.

I am going to assume you know how or already have a Google Adwords account. If you dont know how to set one up then please refer to the Adwords Learning Center. You should really read that anyway. It will take you quite awhile but this is your livelyhood of your Adwords business for years to come we are talking about. I think a week out of your life is well worth it.

There are 3 ways I use Adwords to drive traffic to CPA offers. I use Keyword Targeted Campaigns on Google Search, Keyword Targeted Campaigns on the Content Network and Placement Targeted campaigns for site/page placements that has Google Adsense published on them.

For starters if you have a new account you can expect a somewhat tough beginning. This is just the way of the land. This is also why I recommend a MCC (My Client Center) account. Google allows you to have unlimited accounts using this feature. You had better damn well take advantage of it too. Account history is a very unspoken thing among Adwords but from my own personal testing and experience there are things that effect you from the beginning. Get a few accounts and start establishing right now. Bite the bullet now and get it over with.

Your account history and payments are on a somewhat type of “probationary” period right from the start. Generally I see that I pay a little bit more on new account campaigns than my older ones. Typically this actually lasts from 3-5 months. There is a way around this though but you may not like it. See Google will charge you after your first $50 in clicks has accumulated. They want to establish a relationship with you and it’s vital to your Adwords business that you do so in a very honest and professional manner.

There are so many networks out there that the last thing you should want to worry about are good offers and of course being paid. With that said I am going to let you know about some of the networks I have worked with as a Publisher.

• Advaliant
• Hydra
• NeverBlue
• Maxbounty
• ROI Rocket
• Market Leverage
• CPA Empire
• CPA Storm
• Rocket Profit
• Aquasis Media
• BluePhoenix
• Ads4Dough
• CX Digital
• RevenueLoop
• RexTopia
• Azoogle

I’ve never had a problem with any of these networks and have always been paid on time. Those are affiliate links but going thru them is going to ensure that you get accepted by them coming from here. :)

Now every network has a variety of offers. Dating, Ringtones, Debt, Financial, Education, Downloads, Email/Zip Submits and the list goes on and on. By being signed up for a lot of networks like this I can easily use the free services of OfferVault and/or AffSpy to quickly retrieve network payouts on any offer. This helps to ensure that I will get the best payout but I also know how each company tracks leads. Getting the highest payout just because it’s that way is not always the smartest thing to do. (More on this later).

The thing that separates CPA Marketing aside from the Retail side of Affiliate Marketing is that you have to put yourself in a variety of mindsets to promote different types of offers. If you are promoting a college education offer and your 27 years old (like me) then you have to put yourself in the mindset of the majority of people searching for information on this and then get them with an offer. I only use College Education as an example as it was a University of Phoenix offer that lured me and return myself to chasing a Degree in Accounting. Lots of role playing and mindset switches will be occurring so you need to adapt on how people are thinking when they see your offer.

I would like to kick this whole CPA Marketing Series off by clearing up a few things. I touched a bit earlier on my stance with CPA Marketing. No I am not stopping with my personal campaigns. As a matter of fact Jeff and I will be incorporating as an LLC later this month because of our combined CPA Marketing efforts. However since the cat is out of the bag and yes I will be partnered with some other friends and co-marketing colleagues on our own CPA Network, I find that I will be moving towards working on a more massive scale. Sure my personal Affiliate Marketing is going to slow down with the extra legwork of running a network but that’s why I got a partner. :)

With that being said your going to read things in the following days from a personal affiliate but also a network owner’s perspective. On top of that, let’s get it right out in the clear. The CPA Industry is sometimes or (alot) of times frowned upon. While I will remain neutral with my personal thoughts I will tell you that I have seen some of the shadiest shit ever being in the CPA Industry. The funny part is that two networks who have owed me money have made good in February. Imagine my surprise after being owed over $4200 from two networks that never paid over a year ago. Seems like this blog may be getting read by more than I thought.

What’s the CPA Marketing Series? Quite simply I am going to walk you thru step by precious step over the course of March on how to get into the world of CPA Marketing. First let me comment that yes my partners and I are launching our own Affiliate CPA Network. So in case your wondering at the end of the month if I posted all the information that is about to come just for my own personal gain I will tell you right now that it’s simply not the case. I have never really done anything like that other than a few affiliate links here and there on this blog. Now will writing all of the following and teaching you this hurt my chances of you WANTING to be a Publisher in my network? As a matter of fact, it possibly could. However I believe in the power of persuasion. In all the things you have ever read online, I can promise you one thing. Your never, ever going to get information like what I am about to share with you, WITHOUT spending a lot of money that only contain bits and pieces here and there.

One last word on the CPA Marketing Series. I am well aware of the nature of conversations from the *whities* on CPA Marketing. This offer is junk, this offer is deceiving, blah blah blah. If your one of those types, feel free to NOT participate in the conversations that follow. You will only waste your time. Your comment will simply be deleted and if you persist please feel free to get a proxy or aircard. I’ve done every form of spam on the planet, so if you think your a badass and feel compelled to test me, by all means dont hold back. Give me your best. This series is designed for the insane amount of people interested in specifically promoting CPA offers who as in this blog’s readership greatly outweigh the ones who have issues with it. If your not into CPA Marketing please note that a lot of what I will share works directly in conjunction with Affiliate Marketing (specifically retail) and will probably be of value to you as well. Also dont hold back on the questions. We want everything out in the open and detailed as possible.