New Page Up

Yes, the mad man is in. I spent most of today working on the Wordpress site/page for another offer that has proven to convert. It took longer than I thought it would because directly copying and pasting the format from the one I completed yesterday created a bunch of errors. Most of the work was troubleshooting.

But it is up and ready to go. I have some concerns about my tracking though. I'm not sure that it is fully operational yet. I'll have to hold off on sending traffic until I have confirmation.

Since the same format was used for the site I finished last night, I'm worried about the tracking there as well. Fortunately/Unfortunately, the campaign isn't doing anything. No impressions whatsoever. This is especially strange because it is just a duplicate of a campaign that I already have running. I did forget to set the target countries but I fixed that today and still have no impressions. Very strange.

Oh well. I have one more of these sites to build before this holiday weekend is over. Wish me luck.

First Wordpress Site Complete

Yes, it is complete and ready to go. All that remains is to retool one of my existing PPC campaigns and start directing traffic to it. I was going to take the rest of the night off but doing the retool is pretty mindless. On top of that, this offer typically doesn't convert on Saturdays but does on Sundays. If I do this now, things will be ready for traffic tomorrow morning. I REAALLLY hope this works. I have very high hopes for this. If nothing else, it should convert better than sending traffic directly to the merchant. At least this way, the potential customers will be warmed up a bit.

What else? Oh yeah. Google & I had a bit of a confrontation. I believe I mentioned that I changed some of my Adwords ads so that they would push the promotion I was having for my product. Well, Google's new On-the-Fly Quality Score system didn't like that and slapped my ads. Adgroups that had 6%+ CTR were suddenly inactive for search. Where I had been paying less than 5 cents in some cases, they now demanded $0.40!

I changed my ads back last night and I can say this about their new system - it went back to normal afterward. I did change my bids on my main keywords but I think everything should be alright.

Still, I'm not a fan of this heavy handed approach they seem to favor.

Biggest Day Ever!!!!

AHHHHHHH!!! Yesterday was the biggest grossing day ever!!!1!!!11

$395.76

Sweet!

A Good Night's Work

Indeed it was. I was able to get some of my affiliates on board for the promo and it has really ramped up! Also, an email sent by one of them triggered a thought. For the first time since I learned how to pull this trick, I'm letting others outside of my affiliates and my list know about it. I put up some Adwords ads letting the world know about it. Tomorrow and the next day will be the real test to see if the new Adwords campaign will pull in any extra sales.

I've pretty much finished the design of the offer site I mentioned in the last post. It took some doing but I was able to finally get it up a few minutes ago. Doesn't look bad at all if I do say so myself.

I'm on the hunt for a writer to provide some content for it now. Fortunately, I had thought about getting into this niche back in '05 and had my writer make some great articles for me back then. She has since gone on to bigger and brighter things but those articles (which I never used) are ready to go. I'll load them tomorrow morning.

Oh, here is some light reading you may find interesting. I especially like the part about the concierge. I'm definitely getting one of those. I think you get access to one when you become an AMEX Platinum card member. I will have to look into it. Anyway, read up!

10 Things Millionaires Won't Tell You

New Date, New Start

Yeah, I've been having my pity party here for the last few weeks. My goal, which I established last year, was to be able to "retire" this month. Didn't happen. Dave over at PPC Fool gave the best explanation as to why most of us fail to succeed in this post. Dave is a great guy that I met at the Affiliate Summit.

For this entire duration of my business, I have not stayed focus on one area. I've been jumping ship to the next idea each time it looked like the first one wasn't moving fast enough. Basically, moving around in the sphere instead of making a beeline to the outside.

This CPA-PPC strategy is my beeline and I'm going to stick with it until I reach exit velocity. One thing I have been failing to implement that has always been a part of my strategy is the creation of a website after proving the viability of an offer. Yeah, I started messing round with a few landing pages but I really need a full fledged site.

Last night, I started working on building a Wordpress site for one of the offers that performed well back in June. I've never been a fan of building those types of sites but they do have some advantages. Hopefully, I will have it up and running by the end of the week.

I also launched a couple of new offer tests in the past few days. We will see how those go.

Finally, to boost revenue a midst this poor performing month, I started doing one of the promos I learned from Mass Control using my product. Things looked rough at only $51 when I got home from work but I checked my stats this morning and that turned into $166 overnight.

My intention is to have that promotion cut into the losses I have been suffering this month.


No more pity parties and whining. Just focus & hard work.

The new goal is to quit by December 19, 2008.

Quest for Bigger & Better

Well, the Race to $200+/Day was a failure in many ways but a lot of learning took place during that time. I guess you could say failure's reward is wisdom. If someone hasn't already said that, then I claim that quote as my own=)

So, what's next? I spent this weekend working building landing pages for the 2 main offers I'm promoting. One of those landing pages converted today but the weekend is a bad time to test such things. There just isn't nearly enough traffic. I'm really looking forward to this week to see if the landing pages do what the big PPC guys say they do - increase conversions. If it works, then I can start increasing my daily spending limits and branch out to other search engines to increase traffic volumes.

I also put Camtasia to work by creating a video for my virtual assistant (VA). I want him to be the one to do my keyword sorting. This is a very time consuming task but it is necessary for getting highly targeted adgroups. So, rather than me doing all of the sorting myself, my VA will be doing this for me so that I can focus on gathering the keywords and setting up campaigns.

The test list I sent worked well so I'll be sending him 2 more just to make sure he has the process down. Once I'm sure, I will just start sending my keyword research results to him.

Back from Affiliate Summit

I had planned to keep you updated about Affiliate Summit while I was there but the hotel I was staying in didn't offer free internet. That was pretty disappointing considering how much the room cost.

Affiliate Summit was fun but I have to say that the majority of the breakout sessions were very basic. There was one, the copywriting session, that was incredible and was definitely worth sitting in on. They gave a lot of information on how to approach copywriting in order to generate more conversions. I know that I can use all the help I can get with that one=)

I did get to meet two of my affiliate managers and they were both great guys. I look forward to working with them more as I continue this journey to independence from the jobbie job. One of them said that he could get me to the point of quitting in about 2 months. He also said that I could get set up on new payment terms so that I would be paid bi-monthly rather than monthly and also he could negotiate higher payouts for offers since I'm using PPC. It's great to have an affiliate manager.

As far as earnings go this month, they are pretty low because I have had my campaigns paused for much of the time while I was away. I did find that I have a new winner that converts so now it is time to build a full site for that offer. In fact, there was one day that it pulled in $100+ on its own.

Affiliate Summit!!

Yes, I'm in Boston for the Affiliate Summit! Actually I have been here for the last few days hanging out with some college friends. I've had a lot of fun and have been able to go see a lot of famous sites in and around the city.

I will be transferring to my hotel later today and then going into the conference. I'll keep you updated.