Serious Feedburner Mistake

Unless you know what you are doing, do not turn on the LinkSplicer on Feedburner.

It ended up putting my Nerdcore posts(via Digg) in my computer security blog, and I lost 80% of my subscribers in one day.

*Pitfall* Adwords Minefield

Google Adwords is a minefield for a starting affiliate.

First of all, the tutorials that Google provides probably leave out as much information as the $37 eBook that I bought.

Yes, you can get started, but you are heading for a fall.

After my first sale, the high-and-mighty MCP (master control program) from Google decided that my ads did not provide relevant content.

Of course, one of 19 clickthroughs did think it was relevant enough to pull out some cold, hard cash and buy.

So, my solution is to create a squeeze page between the Adwords link and the affiliate site.

I do not know how or when the content bubble is going to burst, but it seems one day, there will not be enough people on planet Earth to create the "unique" content Google is seeking.

When that point comes, you will either have a pile of unique information assets, or be left out in the cold.

One final note, just because everything goes fine on Google the first few days, eventually your ad will be disabled unless you really have it tuned.

I cannot give anyone sage advice on avoiding this pitfall other than watch out for it and do your best to avoid it.

Affiliate Ethical Code

A lot of the ethical code referred to in this link is not directly applicable to the activities documented on this blog.

However, the document can provide some guidance on ethical behavior.

Google Adwords Guidelines

Here is a little tip.

Please read these guidelines.

In addition to providing boundaries, these guidelines also give hints as to the architecture of your campaigns.

Enjoy!

First Sale!

I made my first sale yesterday.

I had spent $2.38 on Adwords marketing, and the gross sales was $16.02.

My net profit on that transaction was $13.64.

My conversion rate was 1/19 (It took 19 clicks before a purchase).

Obviously, if I could have 10 of these everyday, it would be awesome.

10% to 14% Clickthrough Rate

I have an affiliate product that I am promoting via Adwords, and it is getting an incredible 10 to 14% CTR.

The key is good ad copy, which I tweaked following a couple of free tips from other Internet Markaters e-mail newsletters.

Right now, I just started hosting for one of my domains.

On the hosted site, I am going to deploy some squeeze pages, landing pages and sales pages.

I do not yet have a clear mental model of what these pages do, but I do know that I want a squeeze page for this product.

A squeeze (AFAIK) page is a page that asks for a little bit of information (the person's name and e-mail address), provides a little pre-sales information, and then send the prospect to the sales page.

A squeeze page builds an e-mail list, but it also gives the chance to market the product using several follow up e-mails.

The next steps of my action plan include:
1. Signing up for aweber.com
2. Finding PLR (private label reports) and free reports to send in my newsletters; things that are related to the product being pitched.)
3. learn how to write squeeze and sales copy
4. learn how to test

Adwords, Day 5

I have spent $160 on Adwords, with 221 clickthrouhs.

That is $.72/click

I am not unhappy about this, but my ROI is still zero.

Even at an average .04 conversion rate, or 8.84 sales, with an average sale paying $30, that would still only be $105.

Unfortunately, my conversion rate is zero...0%...nada...zilch

What have I learned?

For one thing, I have learned that it is necessary to have analytics tools for analyzing pitch pages to see if they will produce a decent conversion rate.

Well written ad copy is critical to getting conversions, and the vendors I selected to be an affiliate for are not getting it done.

My only option is to spend another $100 per product to find some good converters, or maybe try to create a landing page that will have more buyer-oriented words for the related Ad.

The purpose of an AD is to lead to some action. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

I hope that I can recoup some of the cost of my first campaign(s) by getting some returns; in other words, perhaps some people want to buy and bookmarked the pitch page and will return for a purchase.

In any case, I have accomplished the following in my educational journey:
1. Selecting keywords
2. Testing keywords
3. Getting lower ad bids (My bids are between .15 and .20)
4. Creating relevant ads that get get clickthroughs (1.5 to 1.8% response)
5. Spit testing and creating A/B ads to optimize CTR
6. Managing a campaign to generate target ROI

Okay, well, I suppose one more important thing is to not beat a dead horse.

At first, I figured that there was some anomaly or thing I was not doing right that was preventing my product from converting. However, I thing the Adwords part is optimized, so I have to conclude that the pitch page or the product are not going to work.

This product is getting discarded; however, I will keep the keyword group in case I see another product that can fill that slot.

Sites used in this process:
http://www.cbtrends.com

Adwords, Day One

I threw a bunch of Adwords up against the wall for a Clickbank affiliate product.

I found these words by using this product here:

(This tool has a free-trial which I am currently using while I bootstrap).


I also used:
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

Once I got my potential keywords, I plugged them into Adwords and starting writing ads.

By testing the ads and keywords together, I have been able to improve my click through rate (CTR).

At this point, I am triggering ads at a reasonable rate, I have had 25+ clickthroughs for about $1 per click.

There are no conversions yet, but at an average conversion rate of 5%, I will have accumulated 100 clickthroughs at $100 and 5 conversions.

Since the affiliate product I am promoting pays $30 a unit, the potential upside is $150. $150-$100 = $50 profit

The down side would be a low conversion rate of 2%, or $60, creating a $40 loss.

However, a loss today does not mean it is not possible to tune the campaign and get it right in a few tries.

I think the ebook I purchased was well worth it. At least I can understand all of the different parts of the life cycle so I can have better questions to improve my performance.

Flattening Out Performance

My blog feeds from Feedburner are flattening out.

On one of my blogs, I posted a well-researched article that did not get Dugg as well as the previous two articles.

I think my headline was a little too esoteric.

All-in-all, I am at neutral with a slight downward dip.

I think I may go change my article headline so that at least the search engines will pull it in.

Additionally, I setup an Adwords campaign today, and I am waiting for results on it.

If all goes well, then I have an e-book to recommend; so far the directions have been step-by-step and extremely valuable.

Some of the mystery of the mechanics on getting things done has been exposed.

Take a Road Trip and Learn Internet Marketing

Whether you are a college student or retired, we have all had spontaneous desires to jump in the car for a road trip. But you might want to put on the brakes before you leave the driveway to prepare yourself and make your road trip worthwhile.

The most important thing to do before leaving is to look at maps and to plan your route. Check out maps and directions online, and research any construction that may get in your way. From these, make estimates of travel times so you can have an idea of when you will need to stop for rest and meals. Additionally, you will know when to avoid traveling through major cities during rush hour.

When you arrive in the vicinity of your destination, stop by a motel lobby and look for an advertiser rack. There you can find fliers for attractions and res truants, as well as free apartment guides.

In terms of car maintenance, there are several things you will want to check out. Get a full service oil change, which will include a check of the filters, belts, fluid levels, etc. Check the condition of your wiper blades along with the operation of turn signals, brake lights, and high/low beams. Depending on the time of year and your route, you may need weather-oriented products such as anti-freeze and an ice scraper and examine the treads on your tires.

Pack an emergency kit including motion sickness medication, bottled water, emergency flashers, jumper cables, etc. Remove any items from your car that you will not need on your trip.

Check plates, registration, and insurance information to make sure they are all valid. Also, insure that all drivers in your party are licensed and insured on the policy. Be sure to place your insurance company’s emergency contact number in your car. Fill the car with gas before you pack the car so all the fumes won’t bother passengers.

Buy some new music or interesting audio books to listen to while on the trip.

Here is a suggestion:
The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New RichGetting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Shoe Cobbling Elves

I had to take the day off yesterday to visit a friend at the hospital.

However, I did check my Feedburner ad stats, and I see that so far I have had 120 impressions.

Unfortunately, there are no clicks yet.

The good news though is that my subscriber base continues to grow.

All of these parts are functioning together, even if I have to be out of the loop for a day.

The Subscribers are Back

I checked my subscribers this morning at 5 a.m. (GMT -5) and the stats were all zero.

However, I just checked again and now I have 8 subscribers.

That means that I have more than doubled subscribers since March 1, 2008

Losing Focus by Crosslinking

I linked all of my blogs together, although indirectly and lost all of my subscribers.

No big deal, as this is valuable feedback.

I need to improve the quality of my articles and continue to define my niches.

Also, my Feedburner campaign is running, but so far there have been no impressions and thus no clicks.

I am going to send in an e-mail to Feedburner and see if I can get some understanding as to what is happening.

Errata

Actually, Feedburner seems to be working just fine.

At this point though, I have zero impressions (and zero clicks).

Patience...

Who does the Internet Marketing thing?

I love computers and technology.

This should not be a factor in doing Internet Marketing...

How much do I love computers?

Well, enough to get a Master's degree in computer security.

However, I want so much more.

What if I had the time and income to spend time learning from the best technology minds?

What if I could hire bright college students to tutor me quickly on things I want to know?

I also love theology and philosophy.

I want to go to wine and cheese meet-n-greets with influential thinkers like N.T. Wright, Alister McGrath or Alvin Plantinga.

So, I want to give up being made to come to a rectangular prism (an office) at a specific time, and I want to be able pursue my own heart interests.

Other things you need to know about me:

• I worked in the corporate world for companies such as Symantec, Business Objects and NCR
• I co-founded a technology start-up that to date has raised $17 million in Venture Capital funding
• I have seen the peaks and the valleys in the Internet "bubble"
• I have 3 cats
• I play on and offline role playing games, and I brag about it

If you want more and have beaten your head against the role you have been assigned, then download the free eBook off this site, subscribe to the Internet Business Mastery RSS feed and get started.

What have you got to lose?

You can level up on WoW or LOTRO later. For now, level up on passive income.

Internet Marketing is Not All Pushbutton

Getting to this point has been remarkably simple.

However, I have hit a roadblock and I have to back up and examine my attitude.

I set up a Feedburner ad campaign, and I was expecting for it to start running in a few hours; it still has not run as of today.

I wanted it to run over the weekend, but apparently the approval process can require some lead time.

By the time my campaign was approved, the time limit for the campaign had expired.

Should I be angry...well maybe.

But I am just taking it as a learning experience and a reality check for my own attitude.

It is not going to be all instant push button gratification.

So, just learn what the lead times are and set your expectations appropriately.

Still waiting for my Feedburner launch

I allocated $35 for about 12000 impressions, or about $3 per CPM.

CPM means "per thousand" impressions.

The campaign has to be approved by Feedburner, so I am still waiting for it to launch.

I am going to run it for one day and measure the results.

In the mean time, I have been reading "The 4 Hour Workweek" and I found a list of useful sites at the back of chapter 10.

One of the sites is TollFreeMax (http://tollfreemax.com?qagent=1118)...this site allows you to have an 800#. I plan to use this to test a product idea by having prospects call the line.

I plan to collect their information and gauge the response.

Right now, I am working with an inventor who has a pretty interesting exercise machine that I think can be a hit.

I was skeptical about the machine at first, because there are a lot of crackpots out there, but after I saw it, it was really simple and elegant.

My task this morning is to research copywriting so I can put something together to test the viability of the machine.

(Some)Free tools

Correction:The eBook is free, but the others are pay-for tools you might find useful.

Here is an e-book with some links to resources provided by Yanik Silver:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dwzmentztgr

Here some examples of copy writing and income systems
http://bentaisan.freedomlip.hop.clickbank.net/

Make money with blogging:
http://bentaisan.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net/

Building links and promoting your blog:
http://www.instantbloglinks.com/?hop=bentaisan