After having a number of “case study” campaigns that I ran without success, I’ve decided to take a several days break and get an eagle’s look at my business.
I analysed both my overall approach to PPC business, and the reasons behind failures with ClickBank products.
I found myself having a number of uncompleted projects, both for PPC and physical products that I’m promoting or intend to promote with other affiliate programs. I have over 24 domains on my Namecheap account, good domains but I een haven’t started to work on them.
I also was testing models from different courses like Commission Blueprint, PPC Classroom and Google Cash, it were different approaches to keyword research.
I was really looking for “that magic 500% ROI” campaign that will make me money right from the start. At least there’s a strong belief that successful campaigns are making money or breaking even right from the start.
And the last, I was really had too much of different info coming from all possible sources. I can say that “gurus” really SLOW DOWN our success! By their information overloads – they’re making THEIR business, all these bunches of emails every day are their bread and butter. Look into your inbox – I bet you have at least 2-3 emails from different internet marketing guyes offering you the SUCCESS FORMULAS.
That was mistake – I wasn’t too concentrated on my own success. I was very successful after 6 month of my own hard work with my 1st SEO site. I knew NOTHING about SEO, PPC and even what is domain name ))) but I tested, worked, and finally came to my first 20$, then 400$ and then 1000$ monthly and then even more… I didn’t follow courses, formulas and magic tips – I just did the tedious and dull work of submitting articles, writing pages, excahging links – and the same stuff again and again!
My Thoughts On Clickbank
After testing different CB products with both direct linking and landing pages, I’ve come to several conclusions and what I’m thinking about this whole stuff…
As a member of PPC Classroom, I’ve seen dozens of posts about “100 clicks and 0 sales”, “1 sale and 200$ spent” and absolutely the same topics. I guess that 90% of PPC Classroom students started on Clickbank and failed failed failed…
I too spent over 5-7 times MORE than I’ve made on Clickbank, and my biggest problem were non-consistent “random” conversions from different keywords, that made me lose my shirt while trying to identify these “winners”.
So what the hell happens?
My personal thoughts based on my own experience with CB:
1. Not every product is created for PPC traffic. Not every product will do well with ppc traffic. Let me tell you an example of this very overlooked concept. Some time ago I’ve created a site promoting a range of physical products in one niche (I canot uncover it). All I did was creating a design, and writing several articles and reviews – I havent still even completed this site yet!
All my SEO work was writing 1 article and manually submitting it into maybe 30 or 40 directories. That’s it! Since then, I abandoned the site and did nothing to promote it. Since 2009 it started getting some organic traffic, I really don’t know how that could be, as the site hosting was down for the whole month due to me not paying for hosting 
In March 2009, I’ve got 222 unique click-throughs to my main product and 6 conversions, with conversion ratio 1/37, that made me close to 1000$ in commissions. Just “accidental” organic traffic – no optimization for keywords.The same in April, May – sales from organic traffic.
In July, several days ago I’ve created PPC campaign with ultra-targeted keywords pointing to the same landing page that made me all the sales. Net result? 1 sale and over 250$ NET LOSS. that means 1/400 conversion rate from highly-targeted “low hanging fruit” keywords.
See the difference?
Now just imagine if we try to promote CB product with direct link and keywords like “lose belly fat fast” or “how to get laid” 
2. Missing organic competition is a HUGE mistake! Most of CB products are information by nature, and many affiliates use keywords that can potentially cause interest to our CB products. Now just imagine for a sec that I’m promoting “Stop Sweating Start Living” product from Clickbank using which keywords? Right – “stop sweating”, natural sweating cure” and the like…. And there’s 10 organic competitiors 5 of them offering FREE tips and advice on how to stop sweating.More to say, they have a whole sites packed with related articles that our landing pages have at the bottom links just to please Google )
FREE information available on organic results KILLS significant piece of our conversion rate!
3. Tons of PPC competitors bidding on the obvious keywords promoting the same product or similar products (and using similar landing pages). The visitor comes to google, clicks of ad #1, spends 2-5-10-50 seconds on the landing page, then comes to the ad #2, the same thing here, then comes to the ad #3, sees similar landing page…., then clicks on ad #5 and decides to buy the product…. Or returns to the ad#3 and buys from it….or finds organic site (after clicking on several paid ads!) that promotes this product, reads several presell articles and buys from it… Or bookmarks another organic site and returns 2 days after and buys from it…
The chance that every obvious keyword you bid on will make you sales? This is roulette, and I wish you good luck to catch a sale or 2 ))
4. Buying keywords VS informational keywords!
Another biggest problem with most of CB products (ebooks and the like). If you want to understand this better, go and watch my “GuyGetsGirl” case study. Here’s just a handful of keyword that I bid on:
| dating advice |
| get laid |
| dating tips |
| attract women |
| pick up women |
| seduce women |
| how to get laid |
| how to pick up women |
| how attract women |
| how to attract women |
| how to meet women |
| attract girls |
| how seduce women |
| how to get a date |
| online dating tips |
Question – are these people looking or ready to buy the product? Or they’re just looking for INFORMATION? Yep, GuyGetsGirl product does answer these queries, but do they have that buying intent in mind? Look on organic results and you’ll find what you’re looking for )))) Yes, I can click on ads just out of curiosity… Just to see what’s there this ad is offering… that doesn’t mean I’m ready to pay for this info.
I uncover a sevcert – I’m a PUA myself. The first book I bought on pick up theme back in 2006 was after 6 months !!! of hanging on forum and free site by some respected pua master. I bought one of his books 6 months later! I bought a book by a man that I knew everything about by that time, his way in pickup, his successes, his seminars, his livejournal blog… I wasn’t looking to “buy” something on women seduction right off the bat. I bought from authority, and that trust was built during 6 months of touching his info.
See why my “GuyGetsGirl” direct link campaign failed?
Or take “Hemorrhoid Miracle” product …no one is looking for “hemorrhoid miracle” in order to buy it – that’s not a big brand. We’re left with keywords like
“hemorrhoids treatments” – what kind of treatments they’re looking for? natural, like our product? or medical, like pills? or local treatment in the clinic? Can you see that 1-0.5% conversion rate?
“stop bleeding hemorrhoids” – again. am I looking for information, for tips, advice? or do I have in mind buying a product that will promise to fix my problem?
5. Direct linking with CB products
That naturally goes from the previous issues. Yes, I’ve got a successful direct linking campaign that makes me money still, despite seasonal slowdown. I bid on keywords that are exactly fit into my product and the product page is super targeted towards these prospects. Ideal combination of keyword, ad and product offer.
“stop bleeding hemorrhoids” – yes I see testimonials, I see promises to fix it in 48 hours, sounds good, BUT! is that enough to make me pay 40+$ now? Do I have enough trust to this offer that I’m seeing for 2 minutes only? What if that don’t work? If that’s a scam? Yep I’m sitting on my freaking bleeding hemorrhoids but I have dozens of these BUTs in my head… What’s that review site that recommends me this hemorrhoids product? Do I trust it? I only see 3 reviews and that’s it – no information to help me solve this problem, no authority behind….
Imagine if we’re “testing” this product with direct link bidding on 500 keywords like that. See that “I’ve spent 200$ I got 300 clicks and 0 sales, or 1 sale…” Is this campaign a dud? Yes! It’s a doomed to falure dud, but we keep on creating another similar campaign, lose another 100$ , than again….
6. Wrong combination of keyword->Ad->landing page presell->merchant page
No comments here as I’m tired to type in the text =) I’l leave it for comments…
I’ve decided to try CPA offers, to analyse offer, market, keywords and ORGANIC competitors more closely in order to better understand what I’m going to do…
I’ve also decided to cut down the number of projects that I’m working on, and hunting for too many squirrels will leave me with nothing. We need to more seriously prepare for success, instead of jumping into guaranteed failures hoping for “money miracles” to happen…
Related posts:
Great post, I see a couple things you’re doing that you shouldn’t. First drop all your subscriptions and stop buying new ones. Just focus on ONE thing and do it to completion. Second, stop reading those idiotic emails promising you the world. The truth is you’re NOT going to make as much as the so called “ppc gurus”, very few make what they’re making AND it took them YEARS to find the 500% roi campaigns they now brag about. If you’re going to do ppc, get one campaign doing $100 profit per day, then don’t touch it. Get a second one doing the same then don’t touch those two. Repeat that until you have 10 campaigns in different niches doing $100 profit per day each. Now you’re a real ppc marketer with a real business. Those guys telling you to shoot for large campaigns only never started out that way. Don’t be fooled by their huge number claims, most net far far less then they’ll ever tell you. (Gross revenue means nothing in the ppc world, net profit is all the matters and your roi is important too).
I think you’re starting to see this now and I think you’re going to do just fine. Turn off all the distractions now and focus and you’ll succeed.
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I am in the same boat. I would like to belive that there are a few products on CB that can make you some money but finding them seems to be quite hard. Good luck with the CPA offers
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Thanks a lot for your advice PPC Coach – I’m starting ppc game now with clear mind and I will concentrate more on 1 campaign at a time, as jumping from offer to offer with direct linking and a bunch of obvious keywords is not the way of how it’s done.
I’d love to have a campaign with 100$ net profit per day, as nothing is more rewarding than having a small but consistent profit.
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Hi Stefan!
I know that several guyes from PPC Classroom do really well with ClickBank, but on my personal opinion, it requires a lot of serious money investment to test all these products, to run all the possible (and outside the box) keywords and see what will work and what will fail. I’ve decided to shift my approach to campaign building and try to avoid of the “guaranteed failures” that I outlined in this post.
I’m starting working with a CPA campaign now.
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@PPC Coach: The problem seems to be finding those ‘$100/day profit’ campaigns. From the times I was a member of several paid PPC forums, I saw them to be full of affiliates, including myself, that couldn’t find even ONE single ClickBank product that was profitable at all! But we keep looking, because we hope somebody besides the merchant itself is making ‘profit’ …
@Grand: I’m thinking that those doing well as affiliates are dealing with physical products. Let us know how it goes, too, if you venture into that venue. The few PDF’s that seem to be selling are those that tell you “how to make lots of $$” rather than how to cure hemmorhoids, or so it appears. Odd!
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Where are you from? Is it a secret?
Have a nice day
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Bodyc
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Greatings, Where are you from? Is it a secret?
Have a nice day
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Hi! i’M FROM sAINT-pETERSBURG Russia. So I’m international afffiliate )
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http://www.grandonlineprofits.com – da best. Keep it going!
Thank you
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