PPC advertising

[allthediscounts]

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Hi,

I'm pretty new to affiliate marketing, but I enjoy a challenge, and if possible the possiblility of making a few quid too.

I have been looking at Google Adwords as a means of driving traffic but the costs do seem extraordinarly high even when you don't consider the quality aspect of the ad.

For instance I took a look on AW today and at random picked a company called sleeping solutions. They have a pretty high EPC at £1.51 so probably not the norm.

I then looked at Google traffic estimate where it seems you need to spend at least £1 per click to get any traffic. The figures estimated by Google were 40 clickthroughs per day at position 1-2.

Given that clickthroughs from my site to a merchant site aren't going to be anywhere near 100%, the £1.51 soon gets diluted - only 37p at 25% conversion 15p at 10%!

How can anyone afford to pay and sustain that level of price, especially in niche sites where traffic is pretty specific?

Is it near impossible for affiliates to get involved in ppc or am I missing something obvious?

Any advice would be appreciated.

John

[shane8960]

High quality score + right keywords = low cpc.

The site im currently working on which will be my first (personal) attempt at PPC will return an average of around £20 per order. I've got a list of around 500 keywords at the minute that will bring in a few clicks at a few pence per click. These are long tail keywords that are likely to convert, ie "extra large round blue widget". That way it keeps the cost down, I can deliver the user to a page showing EXACTLY what they are looking for, which will in turn lead to higher conversion rates and lower CPC.

Providing I get each keyword at 5p per click, if I can convert 1% of the traffic, it will cost me around £5 to make a £20 order. Once I can see which keywords are converting best (ie if I see that most searches for containing the term "round widgets" are converting, then I will start bidding on those keywords to increase the traffic a bit more...

PPC can be a good source of taffic, if done right, otherwise you may as well throw the money away.

[marc83]

The site im currently working on which will be my first (personal) attempt at PPC

I've seen a number of people talk about sites designed for PPC rather than using PPC for an existing affiliate site. Do you just mean making sure you have good product pages that should convert? So you can deliver the PPC traffic to a relevant product page rather than to the homepage, or is a site designed to use PPC significantly different to one relying on SEO for traffic.

I've also not managed to find a good way of tracking/monitoring PCC to see what terms are converting. Anybody got any recommendations for that?

[Travel Pixel]

They have a pretty high EPC at £1.51 so probably not the norm.

Certainly do not base your decision to promote a merchant via PPC solely on the EPC. Talk to the account manager about the nitty gritty. The EPC can be swollen by VC sites, unauthorised or authorised brand bidding and other factors.

Dave

[shane8960]

I've seen a number of people talk about sites designed for PPC rather than using PPC for an existing affiliate site. Do you just mean making sure you have good product pages that should convert? So you can deliver the PPC traffic to a relevant product page rather than to the homepage, or is a site designed to use PPC significantly different to one relying on SEO for traffic.

I've also not managed to find a good way of tracking/monitoring PCC to see what terms are converting. Anybody got any recommendations for that?

For tracking which keywords are converting, I've written a free wordpress plugin that you can download here New Wordpress Keyword Tracking Tool Plugin!! | Shane Brown .

The site target 5 generic terms via SEO initially, targetting around 500 smaller terms via PPC. As the site grows I'll start developing the better performing PPC terms so that they appear in the natural listings.

[marc83]

For tracking which keywords are converting, I've written a free wordpress plugin that you can download here New Wordpress Keyword Tracking Tool Plugin!! | Shane Brown .

The site target 5 generic terms via SEO initially, targetting around 500 smaller terms via PPC. As the site grows I'll start developing the better performing PPC terms so that they appear in the natural listings.

Thanks. That plugin sounds great. I will definitely give it a try when I get started with PPC.