The last two days have not been good for me. After setting all-time records for me less than a week ago, I’ve managed to flip that around and lose money. (Actually, I didn’t lose much because I’m using a $100 Yahoo! Search Marketing coupon. I had to deposit an initial $30 upon signing up, so that means every dollar spent on Yahoo Search Marketing is only $.30 of my own money. Taking that into consideration, I still made a profit yesterday and ended up almost even today.)
But not all is lost. After sulking for a good hour or so today, thinking, “I’m back to square one, again! I guess affiliate marketing just isn’t for me,” I realized there is something to be learned from all of this. While I did lose some money, what I really did was invest in education.
Let me share a little about what I have been doing over the last week. I began affiliate marketing through PPC using COPEAC, Incent-a-Click, and Yahoo! Search Marketing. I have been promoting Zip Submits for varieties of gift cards (Like $500 to Target or Apple) which pay $1.25 – $1.40 per lead.
There are two requirements for Zip Submit campaigns to work.
- Bid low on keywords. Think like $.10 low.
- High conversion rates.
Bid Low
I have been able to find keywords with one or two OR EVEN ZERO advertisements. This way I can pay the Yahoo! Search Marketing minimum bid amount of $.10. This is very important because the payout is so low on Zip Submits. The margin we are dealing with is so slim to begin with that paying $.20+ on a campaign isn’t an option.
High Conversion Rates
Other than the last two days, my best campaigns have seen conversion rates as high as 25%! On a $1.40 CPA Zip Submit offer, that means for every $.40 I spend (four clicks * $.10 a piece = $.40), I am profiting a $1. Spend a measly $10 and make $35 or a $25 profit. You need to be creative and think of something that would make people want to play along and give out their Zip Code.
Naturally, my goal is to get several campaigns up to that 25% conversion rate. However, as I said earlier, the last couple of days haven’t worked out as well for me.
So what did I learn from the bad campaigns?
- Zip Submit campaigns don’t work for all demographics. I think the “smarter crowd” catches on to what is going on and actually takes notice of the asterisk next to the word “FREE” that reads “Participation Required.”
- From that conclusion I decided I need to pick keywords that younger people would search for. I have come up with a great way to research these searches… maybe I’ll share that tip another time…
Now I need to get back to work and make some of my money back. Stay tuned to see how it goes.
