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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.

Check out this shot of the MarketLeverage Team wearing SuperAffiliateMindset T-shirts :

WOW! This a great way to generate buzz for your company, especially considering market leverage has send out team shots wearing T-shirts of various blogs.

No, I didn’t write the headline for shock value, Stuff White People Like is actually a hilarious, somewhat edgy, and controversial blog.

Stuff White People Like doesn’t really make fun of white people, so much as it makes fun of urban hipsters & yuppies. The author of the blog is actually a white guy himself!

I love this blog because it describes people in Boston so accurately that it’s almost SCARY!

The reason I’m bring up Stuff White People Like is because it’s an amazing example of how POWERFUL blogging can be.

Here’s some mind blowing stats about Stuff White People Like :

1. Has over 14 MILLION visitors since it’s inception - started Jan 18th, 2008. No joke - check out the date on the first post.
2. Averages over 1000 comments per post - and that’s a conservative estimate.

Now go to Stuff White People Like and check out the cleverly placement of Google adsense ads, sometimes before a post and sometimes after.

Now based on the amount of traffic this guy’s pulling in can you IMAGINE HOW MUCH MONEY HE’S MAKING?

The blog itself ONLY has around a hundred posts.

Stuff White People Like has totally demolished any doubts in my mind about the enormous income potential of blogging.

So what stops most people from starting a money making blog of their own?

Two things :

1. Most people don’t have the technical know how to setup a blog properly
2. Most people don’t know the fastest and most effective ways to start getting a ton of traffic to their blog

Here’s some exciting news…

My good friends Anik Singal and Rosalind Gardner have recently launched a FREE Blog Classroom course on how to setup and start getting an avalanche of traffic to your very own blog.

I’ve been going through free Blog Classroom videos and I’m can’t believe the amount of free content they’re giving away. I wish I had had access to a free course like this when I first started blogging.

As an experienced blogger I can tell you Anik and Ros know what they’re talking about. Just based on the content they’re giving away, I can’t wait to go through the full course that they’re launching on April 29th.

So if you’d like to discover a simple step by step way to launch your own money making blog, sign up for the Free Blogging Course Now!

PS For those of you who decide to take it to the next level and purchase the full course on blogging next Tuesday, I have a very special bonus in store for you (note : must sign up through my link to receive bonus). Stay tuned for the details!

My wife and I had a chance to take a peak at the Boston Marathon today. The Marathon goes through Beacon St., 1 block down from where we live, at mile marker 23.

Funny thing, we actually had to cut across the Marathon runners to get to our acupuncture appointment!

Watching the Marathon runners got me thinking about one of the most important keys to affiliate success : persistence.

Running 26.4 miles is the epitome of persistence, training non stop for 6-12 months for a marathon is all about persistence.

My story of affiliate success is also all about persistence.

It took me about 10 months before I started making any significant money in affiliate marketing. I had officially started my affiliate business early in 2005, and it took me until Nov until I made any profit at all, and that month I ended up making around $3k profit.

In the first 6 months of building my business I didn’t make a SINGLE affiliate sale. Can you imagine how discouraging that is?

Once I learned about ppc affiliate marketing I got to work and launched a total of 15 failed campaigns, with nothing to show for it but one campaign that produced 3 sales a week before it fizzled out.

And you know what? I was a total newbie, I really didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t have a team helping me. I busted my butt setting up those 15 campaigns.

Some of you are crying because you launched 3 campaigns and they didn’t work out!

I’m here to tell you : SUCK IT UP!

No one is going to hand you success on a silver platter. If you want to make a 6 or 7-figure income in this business and have an incredible lifestyle, you’re going to have to pay the price. You’ve gotta toughen up, there’s no boss to tell you what to do anymore, YOU are responsible for YOUR success.

Biggest reasons most affiliates fail :

1. They quit too soon. How many affiliates would have kept on going after 9 months of no success? I can only imagine how many affiliates there are out there who have launched 10 campaigns, had no success, so they quit, when their 11th campaign would have been an enormous success.
2. They’re constantly jumping to something else. They try ppc for 2 months, doesn’t work, so they jump to SEO. They try SEO for 2 months, again doesn’t work out, so they jump to blogging. Etc, Etc, Etc… Ever met a leap frog affiliate like this? Here’s a tip : Try sticking to one thing long enough to actually get good at it!

Here’s a Secret…

It takes about 99% competence in ppc affiliate marketing before you hit it BIG. At 95% competence you’ll make a little bit of money but nothing significant. At 90% competence you’ll break even.

At anything less than 90% competence you’ll lose money.

Reaching the magical 99% mark takes some serious dedication and persistence.

How long will it take you?

It depends on how badly you want to succeed and how hard you’re willing to work.

So when you have a few failed campaigns, or even 15 failed campaigns as in my case, don’t tuck your tail in and hide under the bed like a scared little puppy. Stand UP and say “I’m going to WIN no matter WHAT IT TAKES!”

If you want to play ball with the heavy hitters you have to prove that you have what it takes first.

Now last time I talked a lot about health issues, there’s other stuff you have to deal with, here a major one :

#3 MOTIVATION

Before I quit my job I was super motivated. Just the thought of not working job kept me up long hours working on my affiliate marketing business.

I remember like yesterday, I would just toss and turn all night because I was SO EXCITED I could barely sleep. This was especially true when I was close to hitting the numbers I needed to quit my job.

Guess what happened after I quit my job?

That’s right, I lost a lot of my motivation. Furthermore I no longer had to answer to a boss and was now-for the first time in my life-TOTALLY responsible for my success or failure.

Scary!

What’s worse is that I had the crazy idea in my head that once I quit my job my affiliate business would skyrocket since I could dedicate full time to it.

Well, thanks to my drop in motivation + lack of self discipline my business stagnated.

Another BIG factor that killed my motivation was the fact that I was doing EVERYTHING in my business. I was the : marketer, content writer, web designer, project manager, copywriter , bookkeeper , etc, etc, etc..!

I’m not going to go into detail about how I overcame these obstacles (actually thinking of writing a free special report about these and other important issues).

Here’s a quick run through of what I had to get right to overcome the obstacles of low motivation, poor work ethic & productivity, and a business that stagnated as a result :

1. Setting Bigger Goals, and putting them right in front of me
2. Effective Time Management : daily to do list, cutting out time/productivity suckers, etc
3. Learning How to Outsource and Manage a Team

#4 SOCIAL ISOLATION

For all the downsides of working in the job world, there’ s one upside : you get lots of social interaction with co-workers.

Working from home can be a very lonely experience for a lot of people, especially if you’re single. If you’re married (like me) and have a family it’s less of an issue.

Honestly, because of my personality type and the fact my wife is at home a lot of the time, social isolation has never been an issue for me. However, I know it’s a BIG issue for a lot of full time affiliates working from home.

How are you dealing with this?

#5 HOME WORK ENVIRONMENT

If social isolation is not your problem, this may be your problem : you can’t get anything done at home because you have : a spouse, 3 kids, grand parents, and other family members putting constant demands on your time.

If you’re in this situation you need to start looking for an office space ASAP. If you can’t find at least 2 hours/day of quiet uninterrupted time to do your work, you’re killing your business.

I had a chance to talk to my good friend, and super affiliate Jeremy Palmer today, and he convinced me to join Twitter.

Click here to follow me on Twitter!

Honestly when I first heard about twitter I was reluctant to get involved. Twitter is basically instant messenger on crack. Every time you post something, everyone who’s following you gets it, and you get EVERY message from EVERYONE who’s following!

At face value it sounds like an incredible time sucker. Jeremy somehow convinced me to try it and even twittered about me, so now I have a following already!

Pretty sweet, but now I have to start posting!

I know I post on my blog a lot less than I used to in the beginning, my goal is to have twitter bridge the gap.

I’m going to test it out and see how I like it. Who knows, I may get super addicted and end up twittering 30 times a day! LOL

Check out this news story :

“Google’s (GOOG) U.S. paid-click growth in March was as bad as in February — up only 2.7% — rounding out a violent deceleration in Q1…”

Looks like the party’s over.
Potential causes according to the article :

“1. Google’s ongoing efforts to improve both lead quality for advertisers and the user experience for searches.

2. A macroeconomic dampening of commercial queries by searchers”

I long suspected that this would eventually happened.

After getting hammer with Google Slap after Google Slap many advertiser have gotten so fed up that they have reduced or just stopped advertising on Adwords.

The fact is Google’s attempt to weed out “low quality” sites has really hurt a lot of legit advertisers (and affiliates).

Then if you try to actually call Google and ask them why your campaign was effectively shut down you get a generic canned response from someone who has no idea what they’re talking about.

And who defines what amounts to “low quality” and what “improves the user experience”?

Google does, that’s who!

Here’s the million dollar question:

Now that Google’s theory that cutting out a large numbers of “low quality” site out of their paid search results will improve the user experience and therefore encourage more people to click on paid ads (and bring them back to Google more often) has collapsed will Google continue to hammer us with more Google Slaps or cool of a little???

I suspect now that they see their bottom line falling, they’re going to ease off with the Google Slap mania.

Your thought?