Race to $200+/Day - Amazing

That’s what I have to say about The Business (yes, I am going to capitalize the “T” in “The” from now on). This method works despite my unpredictable, rollercoaster-esque bouts of motivation, hopelessness, frustration, and elation. Somethings that have come to light since I started doing this back in April:

* The more the merrier - The more offers/products you push, the better things go. Perfect example, The Business has produced at least some revenue everyday so far this month. A couple months ago, it would not be uncommon for The Business to have absolutely no income for 4-6 days at a time.

* Tracking tells the story - I’ve never tracked The Business with as much tenacity as I have so far this month. I mean, I can tell you exactly how much money was spent 3 days ago, how much was made, and what the ROI was all in a matter of seconds. This information has been invaluable to me compared to my blind, hope-things-are-going-well-but-I'm-afraid-to-look approach. Now I can make adjustments that I would not have been able to do before.

* ROI (on a campaign level) may not be as important as I thought - While ROI is important and you should always strive for getting it as high as possible, profit is profit. While it may not seem like a campaign with 10% ROI is worth having, that is still profit coming into The Business’s coffers. Rather than scrapping the campaign as I used to, I am now of the mind that it should be allowed to run as long at the ROI is above 10%. One thing to note though. A campaign with lower than 50% ROI should not be something you rely on heavily for revenue. Really, anything less than 80% ROI is fairly volatile and should be watched closely.

* Kill non-producers - While it is obvious that you should get rid of any keywords or adgroups that get clicks but don’t produce sales, I have the tendency to hang onto those keywords that don’t get many impressions or clicks. This has always been in the hope that one day a mighty keyword would rise from those humble ranks to produce sales with dragon-slaying ROI. This DOESN’T happen! At least not with enough frequency to be of any positive consequence. What does happen, though, is those low-impression, low-traffic keywords have a huge cumulative (and negative) effect on your CTR and ad spending. Those terms should be eliminated.

* Bid high - One of the many reasons why this method never worked for me in the past is that I always bid too low. Always. My thought was that by bidding low, I could always increase my spending after I found some winners. This way I wouldn’t lose much money in testing an offer/product. The problem is that by bidding low, you don’t get into ad positions that produce conversions. Suddenly, it seems like affiliate marketing doesn’t work and you find yourself in forums trying to figure out what the secret to this business is.

Here’s the secret to PPC affiliate marketing that I have found so far:

Bid High. Take the Initial Loss & Learn to Like It. Track Everything. Kill the Losers. Launch Another Campaign. Improve your ROI.

Note: This post was supposed to have been made back on the 10th. A lot has happened since then both in The Business and in my personal life.