You know one of the biggest reasons that so many affiliates are struggling is because what I call clone thinking. That is they do affiliate marketing like they’re following some cookbook recipe.
In particular when it comes to keyword research, they’ll go into a market like dog training. They’ll start by brain storming some possibilities :
dog training
train dog
dog behavior
dog obedience
and maybe a few more
They most likely got these right from the sales letter of the dog training ebook. Then they’ll put these into a keyword tool like wordtracker, and finally throw the results into separate adgroups. After running the campaigns for a few days they’ll discover that the keywords are too expensive and bid them down to the second page.
After optimizing the campaign for 3 months, they’ll think : “Damn! What am I doing wrong, I making 5 sales a day, with 50% ROI. How are these super affiliates making 50 sales a day with 100% ROI?!?”
Well here’s a tip, if you follow the same cookbook recipe to keyword research as everyone else then you’re going to face fierce competition and low profit margins (if any at all).
If you want to be a super affiliate you have to think outside of the box, especially when it comes to keyword research.
Here’s how I would tackle this market:
Dog Breeds
airedale terrier
akita
australian shepherd
basset hound
beagle
bichon frise
bloodhound
boston terrier
boxer
brittany
bulldog
bullmastiff
cairn terrier
cavalier king charles spaniel
chesapeake bay retriever
chihuahua
chinese shar-pei
cocker spaniel
collie
dachshund
doberman pinscher
english springer spaniel
german shepherd
german shorthaired pointer
golden retriever
great dane
great pyrenees
labrador retriever
lhasa apso
maltese
mastiff
minature pinscher
miniature schnauzer
newfoundland
papillons
pekingese
pembroke welsh corgi
pitbull
pomeranian
poodle
pugs
rottweiler
saint bernard
scottish terrier
shetland sheepdog
shih tzu
siberian husky
vizsla
weimaraner
west highland white terrier
yorkshire terrier
Dog Problems
aggression
anger
bark
barking
biting
chewing
crying
digging
flatulence
house break
house breaking
house training
jealousy
jumping
litterbox train
litterbox training
nipping
paper training
potty train
potty training
seperation anxiety
toliet train
toliet training
whining
chasing
begging
leash pulling
leash training
growling
Now the first row is a large list of dog types, including synonyms, such as canine, k9, and of course puppy. The second row is a huge list of all possible dog behaviors.
Multiple the first column by the second column and you have a highly targeted keyword list with broad reach. This is how a super affiliate would approach this market.
This is how a super affiliate makes 50 sales a day and 100% ROI. That is, by not just bidding on more keywords, but a much broader reach of keywords.
By the way all of this is from my presentation at the Affiliate Summit in Miami.
Paul, an affiliate, who saw my presentation at the Affiliate Summit, emailed me the following question:
“I enjoyed your presentation at Affiliate Summit. I have one quick question for you…
When you showed your example of building keyword lists using “dog” and “behavior”, what tool did you use to generate the list of various dog breeds? I tried to replicate your example in the Adwords keyword tool but that didn’t seem to return that same list. Ditto on the keyword “behavior”. Can you help?
Thanks!”
This is a really great question. Here’s what I wrote back to Paul:
“I’m glad you enjoyed my talk. 
I would just google search dog breads and find some websites that discuss the different types of breeds. You can do something similar to get all the behavior + use lateral search tools, similar to the one wordtracker offers.
The key is to think outside of the box, don’t strictly rely on keyword research tools.”
Here’s what Paul wrote back:
“OK thanks Amit. From your slide it had the “look” of a keyword tool that had generated the list of breeds and a separate list of words related to “behavior.” I ran a search for dog breeds and wikipedia has a great entry, and searches on “types of behavior” came up with good results too. So from there I guess I would dump the lists into Excel and create the keyword combos. That’s pretty easy to do.
Thanks for the info Amit!”
Paul, you have got it down! I never would have though wikipedia would be a source to dig up keywords!
Kudos.
It’s this time of creative keyword research that separates the men from the boys, and the women from the girls!
keyword research tips super affiliate marketing
Another great post Amit! I have certainly found going for very specific terms helps with CTR + ROI. Quick question: How would you maintain a high quality score w/ that kind of a list? I know you’ve said it many times before to “bid high”, but would that apply if all of those terms were together in the same adgroup? Would you create a separate ad group for each type of dog? Thanks!
You can also use Google Sets to get lists. I put in cocker spaniel, border collie, terrier, golden retriever, and lab then clicked Large Set. Check out all those other breeds! Pretty neat tool.
ok thats cool , how do you make the combo list with both keyword groups is that some forumla you use in excel to combine the keywords? im new to this stuff ! thanks
Another awesome post, Amit. Keywords seem to be one of the trickiest yet most important parts of the whole affiliate business. I’d really like to know your philosophy behind when to use broad match, when to use phrase match, and when to use exact match. I’m always wondering whether some keyword wouldn’t be better suited to another match. I’ve heard some theories that say to start out with all phrase and exact at high bids and then drop your bids once your quality score is determined to be high by the big “G”.
Robert: Yes, I’d definitely make a separate adgroup for each dog type X dog behavior.
Eric: Thanks for the tip!
JB: There’s lots of keyword tools out there that will do that. I like using a tool called DigDB (goto digDB.com) it’s a neat add-on for Excel that lets you do a lot of stuff.
Tim: Use broad, phrase, & match for high traffic terms, you don’t need them for long tails. Your quality score is determined by your ad and landing page quality, not your CTR. CTR X (your max bid) determines your ad position. Your quality score determines your minimum bid. Hope that help!
I really enjoy your blog and added you to my blogroll. I hope I can meet up with you at some point.
Excellent blog man, thanks for the tip
Thanks for the reply + tips, Amit!
Hi Amit,
thats great! I totally agree with you; its about stemming off those words and increasing your reach.
awesome blog!
I like your formula but I have some questions. I’m building a voip campaign and having trouble finding groups to build so I can multiply them together. Any advice?
Also, what do you use to multiply the groups together? I was thinking of writing a quick page to do it myself.