When mentoring publishers, I am often asked what is the biggest difference between when I started, and where I am at now. The answer, although seems quite simple, is actually what I believe is the key to success in this industry. I’ve been doing online marketing for quite some time (started in 2001) in all the different aspects of internet marketing and became really serious about search marketing specifically about 4 years ago. Below are some points based on my personal reflection between me now and then:

1.) Start campaigns with $1000 to spend, not $100! When I was starting off, I did the common mistake of depositing $100 into my Adwords account, and seeing where that got me. After I blew through the money in an hour, I would freak out and call my campaign a failure. This is HARDLY the case. There is a TON of trial and error in campaigns, especially when starting off. One ad group may get creamed and lose $80, while your other ad group may get a ton of leads for $20. The important thing to realize is that your statistics are worthless unless you have enough data to prove they do or do not work. 20 clicks and no conversions on an offer that pays $50 a lead does NOT mean it’s a failure. What happens if 2 clicks in a row convert? All the sudden your “failed” campaign is a huge success. It is important to make sure your keywords have atleast 70-100 clicks each before you make any decisions. In most cases, this will require more than $100 for your campaign to figure out. I’d say closer to $1000. Once I started depositing more money into my Adwords accounts, I started finding that MOST of my campaigns were actually having some sort of avenue to profitability. I found my converting keywords/ad variation combinations and scaled my traffic. This was only possible because I had put the proper amount of money into trial and error.

2.) If you’re not a designer, don’t create your own landing pages! There’s nothing wrong with admitting that a professional landing page designer is better at designing landing pages than you. Realize this, and accept it. A solid landing page increases your chances at success substantially. If you are truly serious about trying to succeed at online marketing, do it the right way. Spend the $100 and get your page done by someone who knows what they are doing. It could be the difference between your campaign hitting, or missing.

3.) Develop a healthy disregard for money. Don’t stress over a loss. Look at the situation similar to a college education. You are paying to learn. Be sure to reflect on every swing at a campaign, and develop a conclusion from your attempt. Document what you learn. The only way you really lose money, is if you don’t learn something new.

4.) Scale like CRAZY!!! If you find a particular keyword or niche that is working, SCALE! Do not hold anything back. Go after every single engine, every single language possible. Examine new traffic sources. You need to milk every cent of profit from you findings. You will find yourself in regret for not doing this when your niche dies down. Don’t leave a cent left on the table!

5.) Track your results thoroughly! This is the main reason why I made Bevo Media. I always found it a pain to track my results thoroughly, however it is of the utmost importance. I mean much more than tracking your keywords too. You should track your landing page and ad variations thoroughly. I built Bevo Media based on my needs as an affiliate marketer, and once I started tracking my results thoroughly with it, I found it much easier to draw conclusions about the aspects of my campaign that were successful, and optimized from there.

6.) DO NOT GIVE UP! A full time affiliate marketer, may as well be considered a full time ‘trial and error’ expert. 90% of the game is trial and error. Just keep trying different combination of keywords, landing pages, offers and ad variations. You are bound to hit eventually. Use your resources, such as your affiliate managers to let you know what niche is hot at the time. If you have a niche that is proven to be converting extremely well at the moment, then you know it’s working for somebody. It’s just the matter of figuring out the right combination within you campaign!

These are all points that have cost me both time and money to realize, and feel all newbies can get a jump start to success from my sharing. Do yourself a favor and take these points seriously. Don’t cut corners. Affiliate marketing is a dream job, but it’s still a job. Strive to be the best, but you need to earn it first. Lazy people do NOT succeed in life, no matter what the situation is. So work hard and celebrate after!

-RB

My buddies and I debate this subject all the time, and I figured I’d bring it out to see what everyone else had to say about it. Would you rather be in the NFL, or be a serious, high revenue affiliate marketer? Don’t laugh, this is a serious debate, and if you think about it, it makes sense.

I will start off by saying that I know 7 people who are currently in the NFL. A few starters, a few guys on the practice squads of their respective team. Many mixed reviews, but for the most part most say the same thing…. being in the NFL isn’t all it’s made out to be. Many face the day to day pressure of being cut, or deactivated from their respective teams, meaning their life goes from riches to rags within a day. It’s not all glamour and glory. Most people in the NFL are not super stars. Infact, the average NFL career is UNDER 2 years! The minimum salary of a person who makes a roster in the NFL is $330,000 a year. Being on the practice squad is a $4200 a week paycheck for 17 weeks. Do the math, everyone in the NFL isn’t nearly as wealthy as Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but for some reason, the general public see’s players in the NFL as “rich”.

A big time affiliate marketer has the potential to make millions a year. Every single dollar earned by the affiliate, is because of their knowledge of marketing, that CANNOT be taken away at ANY time. I know several people, including myself, who are making a lucrative living, much higher than an average NFL player, doing far less work. I wake up at noon every single day, sit on the beach, drink a Corona, brainstorm, make some phone calls, and THEN go on my computer. There is no one in this entire world, short of God, who can take away my knowledge of affiliate marketing. Their is NO chance of injury, and NO chance of being ridiculed on national TV. Messing up in affiliate marketing is part of the game. If you mess up in the NFL, you may very well find yourself out of a job and humiliated on national TV.

Forbes.com has recently rated an “internet entrepeneur” as the #1 job in the WORLD. This rates above a rockstar and a professional athlete, and there is a reason for this! Being an affiliate marketer is a dream job that allows the best of the best to sit at home, work as they please, and offer the opportunity to make well over the average American salary. It’s the best job in the world, and the reason why I am so thankful for all the blessings that have come my way.

Think what you want, but the next time you start stressing at your favorite sports team…. realize that it’s just a game… and life goes on.

-RB

If you’re a person with an above average IQ, you probably have several amazing ideas each day. On the one hand, it’s a huge advantage but on the other hand, it’s also something that can work against you if you’re not careful.

No matter how successful or well organized you are, a day still won’t have more than 24 hours and your budget will probably never be limitless either. Yes, it’s true that you need to diversify but that doesn’t mean that you should go overboard. Spreading yourself too thin is just as bad as keeping all of your eggs in one basket.

In Case You Forgot: Focus, Focus, Focus

Most people get really excited about a project at the beginning but end up being distracted at one point or another. The brainstorming process is almost always a lot of fun but when you start implementing everything, things tend to get a bit boring. It’s like that for everyone and it’s perfectly understandable.

While it is understandable, that doesn’t mean that you have to start finding excuses. So you have great ideas? Well, what good will it do if they don’t materialize? Writing stuff on a board or on a piece of paper is great and everything but making money would be kinda-sorta nice too, wouldn’t it? If you always jump from one idea to another, you’ll end up with a lot of “concepts” but no money in the bank. So, what’s the solution?

You’ve Guessed It: Focus, Focus, Focus

Keep your eyes on the prize and be sure to set goals. Reaching a goal always gives you a nice little boost, probably more than enough in order to make it to the next one and so on. Don’t forget to reward yourself, keep it fun!

Ok, so focusing is important. But does this mean that you should let ideas with a lot of potential go to waste? Of course not, be ready to always write a great idea down. Be organized, you’ll thank yourself later on. Notepad is your friend, seriously! Why complicate things? Create a folder, call it “ideas” or something and whenever you think that you’ve discovered the best thing since sliced bread, open notepad or an editor of choice for a moment and let your imagination run wild. Then get back to work, rinse and repeat. That’s really all there is to it.

You’ll cross paths with a lot of shady people as an affiliate marketer, there are always folks who want to make a quick buck and this industry definitely doesn’t represent an exception. It’s even safe to assume that a day never goes by without someone trying to cause trouble in one way or another.

Maybe it’s an advertiser who’s shaving like there’s no tomorrow, maybe it’s the owner of a network, maybe it’s someone who’s trying to intimidate your host, maybe it’s someone who wants to hack one of your websites and the list could go on and on.

Ready to Put Your Tinfoil Hat On?

Well, you should be. A little bit of paranoia definitely doesn’t hurt and it all boils down to this: watch your back! Let’s analyze two possible scenarios:

1. You blindly trust the people you do business with
2. You don’t trust anyone

Now in the first case, it’s only a matter of time until you’d end up being disappointed and possibly even broke. It happens time and time again. Do you think that blindly trusting an advertiser and/or your AM is the smart thing to do? Let’s assume that an offer converts great today and that your AM is insisting that you invest as much money as possible “until it’s too late”. Let’s also assume that you’re just starting out and only have $5,000 at your disposal. Should you invest everything you have? A lot of people do and end up being disappointed. There are more than a few advertisers who lure you in with an offer which converts great, only to start scrubbing like maniacs as soon as they see some serious volume. If you have a huge budget at your disposal then sure, you can afford to lose $5,000 or even more but if not, don’t get carried away!

What about Scenario #2?

Now as far as scenario #2 is concerned, one thing is certain: if you don’t trust anyone, you’ll never end up being disappointed. That doesn’t mean that you should treat the people you do business with like criminals, not by a long shot. Don’t start burning bridges, be rational.

Paranoia can work in your favor as long as you don’t go overboard. Be polite and professional but not naïve, that’s basically all there is to it. Do everything you can to generate win-win situations but don’t forget to watch your back!

Did you think that if your ads have an impressive CTR, the campaign(s) will automatically end up being profitable? Wrong! Think about it: the most important thing is convincing the people who click to perform a certain action. Maybe you’re selling something, maybe you want them to sign up for something.

Even if you have a brilliant landing page, convincing the “wrong” audience to perform the action(s) in question is so hard that it’s just not worth it. Most people think that it’s your job as an affiliate marketer to convince as many people as possible to click on an ad. Well, it’s not.

Do You Want Lots of “Curious Clickers”?

Here’s the thing: even a complete beginner can come up with an ad which is so “different” (weird, interesting, maybe even shocking) that lots and lots of people end up clicking. But there’s just one problem: most of them would be “curious clickers” who have no interest whatsoever in what you’re offering. They would click that shiny ad of yours, drop by and then leave.

In other words, you’d practically be throwing money away. While it is true that you will get cheaper clicks if your CTR is high (after all, networks display ads based on how much money they make from each of them – they make more money from people with low bids but a huge CTR than from people who are willing to pay a lot more per click but have an ad which nobody wants to check out), it still just won’t be worth it in most cases.

Exact Science + Art = $$$

Affiliate marketing is an exact science as well as an art and in this case, you have to find the right balance between creating an attractive ad and not making it appealing to the wrong crowd. It sounds complicated but it really isn’t. If you have at least some basic understanding of marketing, you’ll be fine.

All you have to do is make the ad “different” but still make it perfectly clear what you’re offering. The potential visitors need to know exactly what they’d end up finding if they choose to drop by. Show them what your site is all about in a unique way. Tweak, tweak and tweak some more. Find something that works, scale. Rinse and repeat. Have fun!

All of us want a piece of the action and that’s exactly why there’s an insane amount of competition when it comes to traffic, especially sources which have been proven to work. Let’s assume that you’re a beginner who wants some traffic: where do you go? In most cases, the answer is AdWords, YSM and/or AdCenter. Maybe Facebook, it depends on which websites, forums or blogs you have been reading.

But what about “Obscure” Traffic Sources?

Most people don’t have a huge budget at their disposal, so they’re not really willing to venture into the unknown. Second tier traffic sources may or may not be worth it, there’s just no way of knowing for sure until you test.

If you get it right, congratulations: you’ve just discovered a great traffic source where there isn’t a lot of competition. If your test campaigns end up being flops, too bad: learn a few lessons, analyze the data you’ve practically paid for and move on if you think that the traffic source in question doesn’t deserve a second chance.

Is Sticking with Established Traffic Sources the Smart Thing to Do?

There really is no “right or wrong” answer to this question, it depends. On the one hand, at least you know that you’re dealing with a legitimate company but on the other hand, you’ll have to compete with a lot of other marketers for a slice of the pie.

Let’s analyze AdWords Search as an example. If you’re an affiliate marketer and want to target extremely competitive terms, the chances of succeeding are slim to none. Why? Simply because you’ll be competing with networks and/or merchants directly!

And what’s the difference between you and them? The payout! You’re practically competing with people who make more money for each lead or sale they generate and, especially if the merchants are involved, it’s anything but a fair fight. Unless your approach is the best thing since sliced bread, you’re better of focusing on less competitive keywords, on the Content Network or even on other traffic sources.

So, What Will It Be?

If you’re just starting out, it makes sense to check out a few established traffic sources while learning the ropes. After you become more experienced and have a bigger budget at your disposal, you can take things to the next level.

Most people end up failing because they want things to happen yesterday. Be reasonable and don’t rush into anything because you’d probably end up losing your shirt. Seriously, just don’t.

It’s no secret that as an affiliate marketer, you need to risk money to make money. There’s just no other way. Test and see what sticks, that’s pretty much all there is to it concept-wise.

In theory, you could even sell used toothpicks if you spend lots of time and money in order to find people who would actually be willing to buy something like that. And since we’re looking at 10 figures when it comes to the number of Internet users, you’re bound to find at least one demographic that converts.

But Is Every Campaign Worth It?

Of course not! Yes, you could even sell used toothpicks if you were to test and test until you find people who are willing to buy them but we’re talking about so few potential customers and so much hassle that it just wouldn’t be worth it.

The time required to turn such a campaign into something profitable is always better spent working on campaigns with potential which can actually be scaled. But if you’re interested in becoming a professional time waster sure, go for it.

What If I’m Not Bill Gates?

Leaving campaigns which don’t have any potential whatsoever aside, there are lots which do have potential but are extremely “tricky”. In other words, campaigns which are definitely scalable but which practically devour a small budget just like that.

Just how much can you afford to pay for data? If you get carried away, there’s always the risk of being stuck with an “almost there” campaign and a depleted budget. You need to be realistic, painfully realistic. Your financial situation is what it is, end of story. Once you have more money to work with, you can afford to play the game on a different level but for now, focus on making the most out of your current situation.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

As an affiliate marketer, you need to know when to say no and move on. Analyze the data you have at your disposal and rationally determine if tweaking the campaign is worth it or not.

Let the numbers do all of the talking and based on your financial situation, decide what the best approach is. Don’t let your ego get the best of you and don’t take the “test, test and test some more ‘till something sticks” concept too far. Seriously, don’t!

When selecting keywords for your search campaign, many of the concepts of SEO keyword selection apply. The biggest difference is that, since we are paying for each click, we need keywords that are very specific and have a high probability of converting.

Develop a Preliminary List

The first step in developing your list is to find a large number of potential keywords that we can peel down through research and testing. Using the Google Keyword Tool as described in the SEO article, enter a few generic terms which would apply to the demographic you want to target with your offer. The Google Keyword Tool will give you a number of keyword ideas to work with.

Scout the Competition
There are two main pieces of information you need to gather during your competition research stage. The first piece is which keywords are currently being used for the offer you are promoting. If the offer is not currently widespread, this may not be important. If, however, you are promoting an offer which many others are promoting, you will want to know which keywords they use.

When checking out others promoting the same offer, you will want to take note of which position your competition is paying for. This will of course affect bid price and should play a part in your total analysis of which keywords you bid on and at what price. The second major type of reconnaissance is the competition for keywords you are interested in using. If the competition is not promoting your offer for a given keyword, this could be an opportunity for you if you think the keyword could be successful. You also want to know the types of offers being promoted for a given keyword. If the offers are similar, this is a good sign as it shows you may be targeting the correct audience. You need to be careful of keywords with heavy competition as the bid price may be
too high for you to bid on that keyword.

Keyword Elite and Google Keyword Tool

As with evaluating keywords in the SEO article, you should perform an analysis of competition vs.
searches. Using the Google Keyword Tool, green bars will show you the number of searches on a
keyword in a given month, as well as the competition for that keyword. Always compare searches to competition level – a word with high searches and low competition offers an opportunity to get your ad shown for a low bid price. Of course, you must always mind how well the keyword is targeted to your audience as I will explore later in this article.

Keyword Elite is a paid tool which offers more detailed research on keywords. I would suggest using a paid tool such as Keyword Elite if you are serious about putting together professional keyword lists. Keyword Elite will show you exact search numbers and competition levels, providing you with much more detailed research. Of course, Google’s free tool still provides enough information to develop a strong keyword list.

Less is More

You DO NOT need an enormous keyword list to be profitable with search marketing. Instead, you need a list of quality words targeted to your audience. It all breaks down to a science – you need keywords that have a higher conversion rate (producing more revenue) than what you spend bidding on the keywords.

A good strategy is to develop a number of small keyword lists with separate sub IDs so that you can track the success. Pay attention to each keyword click‐through ratio, as this shows attractive keywords, but you also need to use sub IDs to know how well your keywords are converting. By creating a number of small lists with separate sub IDs, you can easily track how well your keywords are doing, and delete those which are not profitable.

Targeted Keywords

When selecting keywords, always think about the audience you want to target. Think about the
demographic of the users clicking on an ad displayed from each keyword you bid on. Are there multiple reasons why a user would search for that keyword? Would users searching for that keyword be interested in the offer you are promoting?

Focus on keywords that are very specific, as opposed to generic, broad keywords. Broad keywords may show your ad, but will probably not target your audience well. If the broad keywords don’t convert on your offer, you will end up spending a lot of money and making very little. Pick specific keywords and track their conversion rates. Delete keywords which aren’t producing.

Keyword List Mistakes
1. Broad or popular keywords which are not targeted to the audience you know will convert
2. Not researching the competition
3. Targeting keywords with very few searches
4. Failing to test your keyword list and update as necessary

Test, Monitor, Re­Test

Using sub IDs, you should always be monitoring the click through ratios and conversion rates. By
breaking down your keyword lists into small groups with sub IDs, you can track performance and make modifications just as you should with your landing page. After you test and monitor, you can delete keywords that are not paying off, and re‐test to check performance. Competition and audience taste is always evolving, so testing and modifying is essential to keeping your keyword list profitable.

Although there is a lot of money to be made in search marketing, blogging affords another great
opportunity to earn money. Blogging is great because it does not require as much time as a website, yet can still capitalize on all three of the advertising models.

Step #1 – Pick a Niche
The first step in becoming a profitable blogger is to determine a niche that you feel comfortable
blogging about. There are three ways you can go in regards to making a decision about the niche of your blog. One method would be to choose a topic you are very familiar with and maintain some type of expertise in. Obviously, it’s easy to write about what you know. Another method to choose a topic would be to pick a topic that has high paying keywords and offers. A final method you can use to pick a topic would be to create a blog based on what is popular. Using Google Trends, at trends.google.com, you can see some of the most popular searches in the Google search engine.
If you go with the first method, you most likely will not need much additional research, as you are an expert on the topic. With the other two methods, it is important that you perform indepth research.

Research is extremely important because you will not keep many readers coming back to your blog if your content is just BS – quality content is the key to generating profits from your blog.

What to write about?
As mentioned previously, content is the most important thing to being a successful blogger. Sumner Redstone, a media mogul, says that content is king in the entertainment industry.
Don’t think on a high level about a topic. Instead, take your niche and peel down to the deep questions people interested in that topic would care about. Controversial topics are always a good way to draw back visitors.

Step #2 – How to Get Readers

Bringing readers to your blog is done in much the same way as luring visitors to your website. Search Engine Optimization is the first and foremost thing you should keep on your mind.
Pick a domain name keeping your SEO tactics in mind. Once you have your domain, you will probably want to install a blog script. We recommend using Wordpress. Wordpress is easy to install and has a number of plugins to use later on as you become better and better at blogging.

Some bloggers attempt to make a small amount of money with a large number of blogs. The reason is that using advanced methods, such as content scrappers, you can automate blog posts across a number of different blogs. Instead, we suggest building up one blog to be a big money maker. The reason for this is that you will learn the whole process of being a profitable blogger by building up one strong, profitable blog. Once you learn all the concepts first hand, you can then experiment with creating many more blogs later.

Step #3 – Make Money
Once you start bringing in visitors to your blog, you will want to focus some of your effort on monetizing the traffic. You can do this by using a variety of advertising methods, including CPA, CPC, and CPM ad models. CPA offers are especially useful if you can find a tactful way to promote a product in one of your blog posts. CPC and CPM ads are good to use on the side of your blog to capitalize on the traffic you bring to your blog.

It’s all about building connections with your readers. If you can build a relationship of trust, readers will return again and again to read your blog. Additionally, trust makes it much easier to sell some of your CPA offers.

A final pinnacle to making money with blogging is to gain so much trust and respect that web site
owners ask you to review their website on your blog. Often, web site owners will pay enormous sums of money to bloggers for a few paragraphs reviewing their website. Keep to the basics – quality content and gain the respect and trust of those who read your blog, and you will see a large revenue stream through blogging.

Numerous studies have shown that NO, Google infact has the lowest conversion rate out of the Big 3. This is large inpart that Google has the youngest audience. As we all know, the younger audience are less likely to have the money (or even a credit card) to buy things online.

So what search engine converts the best then? The answer is MSN/Bing hands down. The ROI I’ve traditionally received from MSN is actually surreal. The traffic isnt even 1/3rd of the traffic that exists with Google, but the audience is substantially older. My assumption is that this is large in part because most of the older generation are less tech savvy than the Google crowd. Because of this, they are more likely to use Internet Explorer as their main browser, and the default home page for IE happens to be MSN.com.

To further backup my argument, one of the best case studies I found out there was a series of posts wrote by a WickedFire member:

Case 1:

http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/44358-case-study-quality-between-adwords-yahoo-adcenter.html

Case 2:

http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/45411-case-study-2-quality-between-adwords-yahoo-adcenter.html

The smaller traffic makes it harder to get burned and newbies have their best chance at converting with MSN. Once you have developed a solid campaign and provided it could succeed on MSN, then you can scale up with Google.

-RB