Looking to run my first PPC campaign, any tips?

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forumstorm

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Jan 20, 2011
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Hi folks,
Just alittle background on me so you know what sort of level I am at. I'm 24, run my own company dealing with website management for local firms (everything design through to seo) and have an extremely tech background. I've been reading about affiliate marketing for a while and have put a few products on a couple of my sites that have converted. Nothing impressive, we're talking about $120 in commission but it gave me a good insight into how it all actually works - alot more valuable that just reading about it.

Its now got to the stage where I'd like to run my own PPC campaign. I don't have a huge budget, only around £200 ($300-$350) that I can afford to lose. I just need a few pointers. Thinks like:

Do you use a % to figure out what to bid per click? e.g commission on Prodoct X is $100 so we'll bid 2%, so $2 bid?

Do I need a bigger capital to get into the game? I can put it off for a while if I'm gonna run out of cash and be left stranded.

I read in a few places that adwords can be difficult to turn a profit with. Who would you suggest or does it depend on the vertical?

Should eBooks be avoided? Seems like a pretty saturated market but I could be really wrong!

Was there anything you overlooked when running your first campaign that it may help me to know?

Any and all help would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks
 


I recommend diving right into a campaign. Start making one immediately so that each question that you ask pertains to something immediately relevant. The questions you ask will also be easier to answer because they'll be specific and it'll be clear that you're actually trying something rather than stroking the cock of execution delay.

Bid per click: Cost per click is purely relative. You're only bidding enough to compete with the other ads for the keyword and no more than it takes to reach the #1 position. For most keywords, the CPC is below a dollar. Your bid might be $2, but Adwords will only bid the amount it takes to be #1, and whether or not $2 is ever worth it is determined by your conversion data that will take a while to accrue meaningfully.

Keywords: If cost per click is ever a big deal, chances are you have a keyword that's too broad. Trying to appear on a search for "widgets" does you absolutely no good. Only a fraction of people typing that in have an intent to buy, and your clickthru rate will indicate that.

Startup cost: You can call it your tuition. You'll blow $300 just releasing your first ads into the wild and seeing which ones survive. Most people here will say you'll blow more, but I've even gathered enough discovery data on $100 to decide on how I want to target/phrase my landing page.

You obviously want to start making a positive return on your initial investment, but this is an incredibly educational part of the process and easily worth the cost of rotating your first ads. Even if you spent $300 now and ran out with no income, you gained a significant amount of data and intuition about PPC and your ads which will help you prepare for the next sum of money you have to actually launch a profitable campaign.

Adwords difficult to turn a profit with? Ok. It's also difficult to turn a profit with your employable freetime because you have to work. Making ad groups, linking them to a landing page, and running the campaign doesn't entitle you to profit. Fortunately, the journey is a lot of fun, especially if it's your own product.

If you heard that Adwords is difficult because the PPC industry is dying or failing or underwhelming, then you just heard someone that is clueless about the most profitable, margin-reducing, product-to-customer channel that humanity has ever fucking experienced. :1orglaugh:

Ebooks: Avoid unless you want to google "ebook title rar". What ebooks can do well is package the basics into one pdf that will at least give you a high level picture of where to begin. And consuming even highly marketed perspectives still builds an overall intuition for the subject.

Make Money Online with Uber | is a blog that a WFer runs with some decent PPC information.

But real experience comes from crossing bridges as you arrive at them--consulting resources only when you want advice, insight, or an explanation.
 
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