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I’ve recently taken on a one-on-one coaching student. He’s doing very well, he has 2 profitable campaigns right off the bat!

There’s something he said that really struck me : One of the reasons that he wanted to work with me on a one on one basis was to avoid getting confused.

What did he mean by that?

Think about all the enormous amount of information about ppc affiliate marketing out there, let alone affiliate marketing in general.

Just to list a few courses/membership sites : adwordmentor.com, googlecash.com, payperclickformula.com, wealthyaffiliate.com, ppc-coach.com, ppcclassroom.com, quityourdayjob.com, etc, etc, etc!?! These are just a few I remember off the top of my head.

All of the above courses (more or less) teach different strategies for doing ppc affiliate marketing. So which one do you follow?

On a related note, I was sharing some of my ppc strategies with Anik Singal and he told me flat out that me and Jeremy Palmer have totally different strategies for doing ppc affiliate marketing. Both Jeremy and I are both very successful affiliates, so who do you follow?

Here’s the deal…

There’s more than one way to slice and dice an onion and there’s also more than one way to do ppc affiliate marketing successfully. The worst thing you can do is buy 5 different courses and try to follow all of them - especially if they have conflicting advice - i.e. bid your add to the top, no keep your bid prices low!?! That’s where confusion kicks in.

Overloading yourself with information and getting confused will paralyze you and your business. Follow ONE system and try your best to make it work before you jump to another system for doing ppc.

Once you find a system that works for you, run with it. In time you’ll develop your own system for doing ppc. In my opinion that’s the mark of a true super affiliate, someone who has reached a level of expertise that they are coming up with their own techniques and strategies.

Here’s a quick thought for you :

PPC affiliate marketing is an much art as it is a science .

I talk a lot about :

1. Optimizing your bids
2. Split testing ads
3. Split testing your landing page
4. Setting up your campaign properly
5. And tracking your metrics

This is the scientific, or analytical, aspect of affiliate marketing. And as a former scientist I, no doubt, really like this aspect of the business.

Now here’s what I’ve realized : you can be a quiz at the analytical left brain aspects of this business and still struggle to make it work!

Why?

Because there’s a right brain creative aspect of ppc affiliate marketing that’s just as important as the analytical one.

So what’s the creative right brain element to ppc affiliate marketing?

1. Understanding the USP (unique selling proposition) of the offer you’re promoting
2. Understanding what the emotional hot buttons are in your niche
3. Understanding consumer buying patterns in your niche
4. Writing your copy so it speaks the language of your demographic, whether they’re new moms, single male yuppies, or whatever. Do you even know what your target demographic is?
5. Overall, understanding the psychology of your niche and getting into the frame of mind of the customer

By really doing your homework before hand (5 point above) you’ll be able to write really effective Google ad copy (that will get a high CTR) and landing page copy (that will get a high conversion rate), and even do much more effective keyword research. Just doing this will often spell the difference between success and failure.

Have YOU been doing your homework before you promote a new affiliate offer, or are you like most affiliates who just jump in a niche and throw up a campaign as fast as they can hoping it will convert?

Have you ever wondered why only 2% of affiliates completely clean up, bring in 95% of the revenues and profits, while everyone else is fighting for table scrapes?

In this special report I answer this question.

Click Here to Download The Special Report: “Why 2% of Affiliates Rake in 95% of the Profits…”

This is the first report of a 3 part series which will cover :

1. Your Thinking (this first report)
2. Time Management (second report)
3. Building a Team/Outsourcing (third report)

Everything I share in these reports is based on my personal experience and NOT theory. It’s what ACTUALLY worked for me.

The information in these 3 reports will change your business and your life if you take IMMEDIATE action and apply what you learn.

Check out this very funny SEO Cartoon Quiz.

I only scored a 67%, just missed the passing score of 70%!

LOL

What can I say, I’m a PPC guy.

If you’re following me on twitter then you already know that I’m helping Jeremy with the Black Ink Project. In fact Jeremy has been gracious enough to let me do 2 modules: “Pay Per Click Mastery” and “Outsourcing - The Key to Growth and Sustainability.”

I can remember back when I was a newbie affiliate struggling to make this business work, I had bought Jeremy’s Ebook QuitYourDayJob. I learned a lot from that ebook, it was just one more piece (a BIG piece) in the puzzle that helped propel me to success.

So as you can imagine it’s a big honor for me to have the opportunity to work with Jeremy, who in my opinion is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world.

So some of you may be asking what is the Black Ink Project?

The Black Ink Project is a 100% Free, no strings attached comprehensive course on affiliate marketing. It’s 4 weeks long with 5 one hour modules a week.

Here’s some exciting news…

Many of you may have heard that the black ink project is ALREADY sold out, all 1000 seats are taken. It turns out that 1000 people is as much Webex, the company hosting the Black Ink Project webinars, allows at one time on a webinar.

Well, I just got off the phone with Jeremy and he shared some exciting news with me :

After some negotiations and arm twisting, Webex has agree to open up an additional 2000 seats for the Black Ink Project!

This is a first come first serve opportunity, if you haven’t signed up for the black ink project then this is your last chance. The Black Ink Project promises to be the #1 COMPLETELY FREE affiliate marketing training ever offered.

Chances are that Jeremy may never do anything like this again, so sign up for the black ink project as soon as you can before those 2000 seats are gone too!

PS There really is NO catch to this, no upsell, no nothing - just solid content on how to grow your affiliate marketing business to the super affiliate level.

Here is an awesome poem about the July 2006 Google Slap, written by David Guggenheim, “Ocean Doctor”, one of my top coaching students.

David is a marine biologist and founder of 1Planet1Ocean, a non-profit organization “founded to explore, restore and sustain the oceans through strong international partnerships, offering solutions to the problems our oceans face.”

What’s cool is that David is using his affiliate profits to help fund his organization.

Anyway, check out the poem he wrote :
“An Open Poem to Google AdWords
by Ocean Doctor
July 17, 2006

A decade ago, from the hallways of Stanford,
came a new way to find things, just using a keyword.
Two grads used their noodles,
built something called “Google.”
It’s a verb now in Webster’s — who figured?

It was different, superior – a gem.
We bookmarked and embraced it back then.
Six colorful letters,
it really worked better.
“Do No Evil,” they said. We believed them.

In 2000 many web sites were dying.
But Google knew soon folks would be buying.
They launched a product called “AdWords,”
though pay-per-click then still seemed absurd.
Google knew it was a risk, but worth trying.

Of course AdWords went on to success.
With this tool we could build strong business.
Selling local or other nations,
stay-at-home moms or corporations,
we quit our day jobs to do this, no less.

But in the darkness something sinister lurked.
They monkeyed with something that worked,
and gave us “Quality Score,”
“user experience” it was for,
but clearly explaining it was something they shirked.

In selling and marketing we’re well-versed,
skills we needed to get rising click costs to reverse.
Sometimes we’d get by,
though we never really knew why,
but then in July of ‘06 things got much worse.

We went to bed without warning,
and awakened ripped from our mooring.
A terrible lurch
Our best words “inactive for search,”
what was a penny last night cost ten bucks in the morning.

So many found their campaigns in ruin.
Even hit those who knew what they were doing.
Not newbies, but veterans,
now addicted to acetaminophen,
which Google mails out if you boo ‘em.

Our reward for loyalty, millions spent?
We’re suddenly broke, can’t pay our rent.
We believed at the IPO,
but now live in Google Gitmo,
Without a clue as to why we were sent.

We plead, “Google, just tell us what to do.”
But the response is unhelpful and cool.
Their vague ramblings of a madman
belie “Quality Score” is no more than
a black box, contents shielded from view.

But perhaps most serious among this wreckage?
Google’s judging for itself what’s quality vs. garbage.
It’s the hallmark of ivory tower,
of a corporation drunk on its own power,
trying to reshape the web in its own image.

But assuming that Quality Bot’s airtight,
and for “user experience” it has insight,
please explain – and this is critical –
how it’s not plain hypocritical
that poor quality’s OK if the price is right?

Google, please put yourself in our shoes.
Say you bought a new car for your business to use.
It runs faithfully day and night,
then one morning, only turns right.
But to fix it, the dealer gives you only vague clues.

We understand selling’s risky, often dangerous,
but the tools that you sell us should be helping us.
Large and small business alike
saw loss of fortunes overnight.
If that’s not evil, than really, what is?

So the next step isn’t hard to construe.
We’re frustrated and angry with you.
Larry and Sergey might be deafened,
inside their 767,
‘cause that sucking sound is adCenter and Yahoo.

Don’t underestimate the web “marketeer,”
Whose resilience and spirit will persevere.
Big changes are underway.
Every Empire has its day.
But, Google, it’s not too late for you to reconsider…

We thought you were different, not like the rest
We trusted “…No Evil” I guess
And though naïve and extraordinary,
to fight corporations with poetry,
frankly, it’s all I’ve got left.”

If you’ve been following Part I & Part II at this point you should have :

1. A Keyword list broken into different categories or themes
2. 2 Ads (just the body copy) for each category of keywords
3. Your Google Conversion Tracking code on the thank you page of the affiliate offer

The next step is to use EfficientPPC to quickly setup your campaign.

Before I talk about the how, I want to talk about the why - which is just as important.

As I mentioned before, here how your campaign structure will look like once we’re done building your campaign with EfficientPPC :

1. One Unique Keyword per Adgroup - broad, phrase, and exact match types of one keyword
2. One Campaign per Keyword Category - with a different landing page for each category
3. 2 Ads per Adgroup - with the keyword in the headline

So why do I structure my campaigns this way? There’s a bunch of reasons :

1. Adwords highly rewards you for relevancy, and by structuring your campaign to have one keyoword PER adgroup and the keyword in the headline, you’re super relevant right off the bat. Just by structuring your campaign this way your quality score will immediately go up vs the alternative of throwing 20-50 keywords per adgroup.
2. By having a seperate landing page for each keyword category you are, again, giving your quality score a big boost. Google’s algo checks to see how relevant your keywords are to the theme of the content on your landing page.
3. Building a seperate campaign for each keyword category allows you to quickly glance at your campaign stats and immediately see which keyword categories are producing the most sales and conversions - so you know where to focus your efforts. This is the 20/80 principle in action. Don’t ignore this step, it’s VERY important.
4. 2 Ads per Adgroup - This will set you up so you can immediately start split testing your ads for maximum CTR. Once you start finding winner, replace the losing ads with another ad and continue to test. NEVER stop testing, this is the KEY to long term success!

BUILDING YOUR CAMPAIGN WITH EFFICIENT PPC

We’re going to use dog training for this example.

The first step is to setup a keyword token list for each keyword category, be sure to appropriately label each list :

As you make and save each keyword list (one for each category) you should see them appear on the sidebar :

Just as a simple example I’ve setup two keyword categories for our example : Dog - General and House Training

The second step is to setup your adgroup structure and bid prices :

Don’t worry about the destination url on this part, that’s only if your want to specify a unique destination url for each keyword.

Also, notice how I set the broad match bid 33% lower than the phrase and exact match bid. I always set my broad match bid 25%-33% lower, since it usually doesn’t convert as well as phrase or exact match.

Third step is to write your ads :

To put your keyword in the headline use : {Result: Default Headline} where ‘Default Headline’ is the headline to use if your keyword is above 25 characters. The capital R in Result will capitalize the first letter of each word in your headline.

I only wrote one ad for this example, be sure to ALWAYS write two!

Next Step is to duplicate this first campaign and just change the name and the keyword list to create the campaign for the second keyword segment, House Training.

The next step is to edit the ads for your second campaign so they correspond to the two unique body copies you made for the second keyword segment (remember? I talked about writing 2 unique body copies for each keyword segment).

The last step is to create your campaign and upload it into Adwords editor!

Yes, it’s REALLY that easy.

Few last points:

1. Set your campaign daily budget to something within your risk tolerance, which could be anywhere between $25-$200. I set my daily budget at $200 when I first launch a campaign. After I let it run a day and am confident that 1) it converts and 2) I won’t get a flood of targeted traffic, I increase the daily budget to $1000 or higher.
2. Turn off the content network, if you want to test the content network make a duplicate campaign using EfficientPPC and add -Content to the campaign name. Set this campaign for content network traffic only. I also recommend lowering the bid on the content campaign by at least 25%.
3. Countries : For offers that work worldwide DO NOT turn on all countries. Outside of the US I would add the following countries ONLY : Canada, UK, New Zealand, and Australia.

By properly setting up your Adwords campaign, you’ve laid a SOLID foundation - which in my opinion is the MOST IMPORTANT PART. You’ve now dramatically increased your chances of success, now all you have to do if find an affiliate offer that consistently converts and optimize it for profitability.

When I last spoke with Anik Singal he was absolutely shocked with the success of the free Blog Classroom pre-launch course.

They’ve had over a 1000 comments! People are following all the free blog classroom videos, putting up their own blogs, and getting TRAFFIC right away.

I decided to check out what all the commotion was about.

Let’s get one thing straight , I’m skeptical about any product that claims to show you how to blog. When I first started SuperAffilatemindset.com I didn’t know squat about blogging.

Anik encouraged me to check out the free course and the outline of the full course that he and Rosalind Gardner had put together.

All I can say is that I’m completely blown away by the depth of material this course covers. I’m embarrassed to say that the Blog Classroom course covers a lot of material that I don’t know, but stuff that I SHOULD KNOW!

I can’t wait to go through Blog Classroom myself, I know I will learn a ton!

I actually learned about social media and blogging from Tom, one of my top advisers and partners. He actually setup SuperAffiliateMindset.com, helped me setup the all the social networking widgets, etc, etc. I learned a ton from him, and without his help this blog would not be where it is now.

Most people don’t have a blogging and social media expert at their finger tips to hold their hand and show them what to do to get a successful blog off the ground. That’s where Blog Classroom comes in.

Here’s just some of what Blog Classroom includes :

1. Easy to Follow Step by Step Instructions on Exactly how to Setup, Customize, & Launch Your Blog
2. How to Get a Avalanche of Highly Targeted Traffic to Your Blog
3. How to Make Start Making Money from Your Blog, Even a Full Time Income Stream! As I showed you in a previous post, you can make a killing as a blogger.
4. Detailed, Easy to Follow Answers to Every Possible Technical Question You Ever Had About Blogging. No Joke, this is a REALLY Comprehensive Course!

A lot of you have been asking about how to setup landing pages and Google Quality Score friendly affiliate sites. We’ll if you start a WordPress blog (which is what Blog Classroom shows you how to do) and add ppc landing pages to it, BOOM, you’ve got a high quality affiliate site up and running.

So if you want to discover how to quickly build an affiliate site that won’t get slapped by Google, Blog Classroom will show you EXACTLY how to do that. (Now make sure you have a customized Wordpress template and lots of unique relevant content on your blog or you’ll still get slapped - again Blog Classroom shows you how to customize your WordPress template as well).

Before you sign up for Blog Classroom I need to tell you about a exclusive bonus package I’m putting together with Andrew Wee.

SPECIAL BONUS FOR GETTING BLOG CLASSROOM THROUGH MY LINK

Top Blogger Andrew Wee, and I are putting together a HIGHLY exclusive bonus for the top 30 people who sign up for Blog Classroom through our link.

The first 30 people who sign up will get access to a live 4 part Advanced Blogging Strategies Webinar Series. For the first time (and most likely the last), Andrew and I are going to reveal our most closely guarded secrets :

1. Little Know & Unorthodox Techniques to Quickly & Easily Explode Your Blog Traffic
2. How to Create a Fanatical Reader Base that will come Back to your Blog Again and Again, and Tell Other People about Your Blog.
3. Why Most Blogger Fail and How to Avoid Falling in This Trap
4. How to Leverage Your Blog for Massive Profits & Not Just People Clicking on Adsense Ads

Andrew and I do not currently have plans to release this as a product to the public, this may be your only chance to get your hand on this information. We are opening this up for 30 people ONLY, so act quickly!

Sign up for Blog Classroom now and get access to Amit & Andrew’s Advanced Blogging Strategies Webinar Series.

Email your sales receipt to amit [at] superaffiliatemindset [dot] com to receive a sign up link for Advanced Blogging Strategies.

PS Based on the overwhelming number of people who signed up for the free blogging course after my post about Blog Classroom last week, the 30 seats for our Advanced Blogging Webinar Series will sell out FAST. So hurry!

Okay, last time we talked a lot about keywords, that is, how to clean up your list and segment it.

This time I’m going to walk you through how to write your ads, and setup conversion tracking. In the last post I’ll show you how to put it all together and build a killer Adwords campaign with EfficientPPC.

WRITING YOUR ADS

First I want to give you some basic quick and dirty guidelines for writing an effective ad :

1. Put the keywords in the ad at least once, I almost always put it in the headline. This is the biggest psychological trigger you can put in your ad, when people see exactly what they typed in Google in your ad, they immediately see it as highly relevant.
2. Include the BIGGEST benefit of your offer in the ad. Example : Discover 5 Simple Steps to Stop Dog Biting!
3. Have a strong call to action. Examples : Start Now! Begin Here! Start Your Search Here! Etc…

For a full list of tips and tricks check out Googlelady’s 31 Killer Adwords Ads Tips.

Let’s get down to business…

Now remember how I talked about breaking your keywords into different categories based on theme?

Once you’ve done that it’s time to write 2 ads for each keyword.

It’s not as bad as it sounds! LOL

Here’s how to do it:

1. Write 2 unique body copies (description line 1 & 2) for each keyword category
2. Using EfficientPPC we will dynamically insert the keyword in the headline, making 2 ads for each keywords

Ultimately, here’s how your affiliate campaign structure will look like : a different Adwords campaign for each keyword category, one keywords per adgroups with 2 ads per keyword.
CONVERSION TRACKING

Do NOT launch a campaign unless you’re tracking which keywords are producing sales for you. Here’s the bottom line, if you’re biding on 1000 keywords, you’re going to find only a tiny fraction of those keywords will produce consistent sales for you.

You probably find around 20 keywords out of the 1000 produce consistent sales over the course of a month. If you don’t have conversion tracking in place, you’re dead in the water. How will you know which 20 keywords are producing consistent sales?

A hard reality of affiliate marketing is that most successful campaigns will not be profitable right off the bat, you’ll likely lose money for a while (weeks!) before you’re in the black. Tracking which keywords convert is what’s going to allow you to cut out the non performing keywords and achieve profitability.

So DON’T be stupid, make sure to have tracking in place, whether it’s Google Conversion Tracking, Xtreme Conversions, or another tracking tool that will tell you which keywords are converting to sales.

Getting your code on the thank you page…

I highly recommend Google Conversion Tracking over anything else.

Why?

Simple, first off the conversion data is seamlessly integrated into your Google Account. Plus you can download all the data into Adwords Editor which makes optimizing your campaigns REALLY easy.

There’s only one problem : you’ve got to convince your affiliate manager to place the conversion code on the thank you page for you.

Most savvy affiliate managers either have a backend system in place where you can input your conversion id or add it to the end of your affiliate link (i.e. ?glid=XXXXXXXX) .

In most other cases you can just email your affiliate manager and they’ll put the code on the thank you page for you. For these cases, here’s a scripted email I recommend :

“Hi Joe,

First off, I’d like to say that I’m really impressed with (name of offer). In fact I’ve put a great deal of time and effort into setting up a large Adwords campaign for your offer.

My campaign is ready to upload in Adwords. However, before I do that I would greatly appreciate if you may add my Google Conversion tracking code (that I’ve pasted below) on your thank you page. This code will allow me to track my conversion to the keyword level so I can optimize my campaign and increase my sales and profits.

Here’s my Google Conversion Code :

(paste your code here)

I look forward to working with you.”

Here’s the trick : Don’t actually setup your campaign UNTIL you get a confirmation that your code is on the thank you page.

If they don’t reply, email them again in a couple days, if you still get no response, move on.

You want to start off by picking 5-10 offers that you want to promote and send the affiliate manager of each offer the above email.

Once you get a confirmation from the affiliate manager that your code is on the thank you page, start setting up your campaign for that offer.

Do NOT start setting up a campaign for an affiliate offer or launch an offer until you get confirmation that your Google Conversion code is in place.

Hard part’s done! The last step is setting up your campaign with EfficientPPC. Trust me, that’s easy. I’ll talk about it next time.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this lately and I wanted to clear up a lot of confusion that people have about setting up their Adwords campaigns.

Your first job is to build an effective keyword list, I’m not going to go into the details about that in this post. For starters, I highly recommend Google Keywords Tool, they just recently improved it, it will give you an amazing keyword list and best of all it’s free!

Also check out this post I did about keyword research.

FILTERING OUT LONG TAIL KEYWORD

If you do keyword research like I do, you’ll probably end up with anywhere from several thousand to ten of thousands of keywords for your niche.

Now I know a lot of you will go out and immediately try to upload ALL those keywords into your Adwords account.

That’s a BAD idea.

Here’s why it’s a bad idea :

1. If you’re a newbie ppc marketer you’re going to hit your account (50k keywords) and/or campaign (10k keywords) limits REALLY fast. And you’d better have some substantial history and adspend on Google before you try to get those limits removed.
2. The first 2 weeks of launching a new campaign is when Google pretty much determines your campaign quality score. If you have a TON of low search volume long tail keywords in your new campaign right off the bat then Google will penalize you with a lower campaign quality score (these low volume search terms put a load on their system, that’s why they penalize you).

When you first launch a campaign on Google you only want to bid on mid to high volume keywords FIRST. Once you’ve build your campaign history and quality score up over a period of 2 weeks then you can add in all the long tail keywords.

Here’s what also cool about this approach : it allows you to test & optimize your campaign on a small scale before you ramp it up with 1000s of keywords. In the next post I’ll show you exactly how to do this.

Now you may be thinking : “Amit, this sounds great, but how do I filter out all the high to med volume keywords from my huge freakin’ keywords list?”

Simple, use Ad Sage, it’s a nifty little toolbar addon to Excel that gives you the search volume of each keyword on your keyword list (on MSN search) in the past 6 month. For your initial campaign launch, bid on only the keywords that have had at least 1 search in the last 6 months.

In the next section we’re going to segment that keyword list…

SEGMENTING YOUR KEYWORDS

In most markets it makes sense to break up your keyword list into seperate categories.

Let me give you an example: let’s say your promoting a site about bedroom accessories, you probably want to break up the keyword list into these categories like these :

lamps

sheets

pillows

furniture

brand name (if you can bid on that)

competitor brands

etc

Once your done breaking up your keyword list into categories, put each category of keywords into a separate Excel worksheet. Make a miscellaneous category for whatever keywords don’t fit into any other category.

Here’s an important key to getting a good conversion rate and high quality score:

Build a separate landing page for EACH and EVERY category that specifically targets that category. Don’t just dynamically insert variables onto the page, make sure each page has unique and highly relevant content. Your landing page about pillows, better be about pillows and nothing else!

If you’re direct linking, see if you can deep link each category to a relevant page about that category. If you’re bidding on specific product names, deep link each product to its sales page.

Next Time I’ll show you how to setup your ads, choose appropriate domain names, setup conversion tracking, and build your campaign using Efficient PPC.