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By: Carsten Cumbrowski
If you are a newbie to Affiliate Marketing, I do recommend to look into Pay-Per-Click Advertising at the beginning, because it is still one of the more easy ways (or less difficult would probably be more true) to get started in this industry AND get fast results. Results referring to earning commission. No more and no less.
Using the PPC services of the big three US Search Engines, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter or services of "second tier" Search Engines like Miva, Kanoodle, Ask.com or Looksmart is still not as complicated as most people believe. It will get harder as time progresses though. Nobody would argue this fact. Also bid prices will most likely continue to rise and not get back to what they were once just a few number of years ago.
The "golden age" of PPC marketing might be over, but it is still much easier to earn some commissions with it compared to most other, older and more mature marketing strategies.
Take Search Engine Optimization for example. If you start a new site today, chances are that you will not see very much, if any results for 3 to 6 months, assuming that you already know SEO, what is probably unlikely. "Trial and Error" is a concept that translates to years of trying and failing in SEO compared to hours, days or weeks for trying something new in Pay-Per-Click marketing.
It will not work without spending and loosing some money up-front while you learn to get the basics straight. Set low spending limits for new test campaigns if the feature is available. Wait a few days spending only a little bit of money and watch how it converts. If you make money which is simple to find out, by subtracting the number of click multiplied by the average cost per click (= spending for the PPC Service) from the earned commissions. If the dollar amount is a positive amount, you made profit.
Don't get over board because of it though. You can increase spending a bit, but I do not recommend to go full force without spending limit and buy every click you can get at this point. Wait at least until you posted your first commission check successfully to your bank account. I would wait even two commission checks with a bit of increase in spending and hopefully commission each payment cycle.
Also loosing money on the first few campaigns should not discourage you and make you stop. See breaking even as a success and progress. It is not very likely nor impossible to make profits right from the start. If you do, good for you, If you don't, try to find out why. Once you did use the services, you will at least know how the process works and understand a lot more of discussions at forums, related articles and tips from professionals. You don't if you don't do anything and give up before you even started.
You should not just stop at PPC though and only rely on paid traffic to your site; especially, if you rely completely on direct or redirected traffic to the merchant where you are merely a proxy in the conversion process without the customer being aware of your existence at all. If you have a site or "Landing Page" the customer sees first, you will get at least the chance to do something with visitors that do not convert for the specific offer you are promoting via PPC Ad.
Carsten Cumbrowski is doing Affiliate Marketing since 2001and Search Marketing since 2003. He also operates the portal Cumbrowski.com, which provides free resources to paid search, keyword research, landing page optimization and much more that are vital to success for internet marketers. http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/seosem_keyword_research.asp http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/searchenginemarketing.asp
If you are a newbie to Affiliate Marketing, I do recommend to look into Pay-Per-Click Advertising at the beginning, because it is still one of the more easy ways (or less difficult would probably be more true) to get started in this industry AND get fast results. Results referring to earning commission. No more and no less.
Using the PPC services of the big three US Search Engines, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter or services of "second tier" Search Engines like Miva, Kanoodle, Ask.com or Looksmart is still not as complicated as most people believe. It will get harder as time progresses though. Nobody would argue this fact. Also bid prices will most likely continue to rise and not get back to what they were once just a few number of years ago.
The "golden age" of PPC marketing might be over, but it is still much easier to earn some commissions with it compared to most other, older and more mature marketing strategies.
Take Search Engine Optimization for example. If you start a new site today, chances are that you will not see very much, if any results for 3 to 6 months, assuming that you already know SEO, what is probably unlikely. "Trial and Error" is a concept that translates to years of trying and failing in SEO compared to hours, days or weeks for trying something new in Pay-Per-Click marketing.
It will not work without spending and loosing some money up-front while you learn to get the basics straight. Set low spending limits for new test campaigns if the feature is available. Wait a few days spending only a little bit of money and watch how it converts. If you make money which is simple to find out, by subtracting the number of click multiplied by the average cost per click (= spending for the PPC Service) from the earned commissions. If the dollar amount is a positive amount, you made profit.
Don't get over board because of it though. You can increase spending a bit, but I do not recommend to go full force without spending limit and buy every click you can get at this point. Wait at least until you posted your first commission check successfully to your bank account. I would wait even two commission checks with a bit of increase in spending and hopefully commission each payment cycle.
Also loosing money on the first few campaigns should not discourage you and make you stop. See breaking even as a success and progress. It is not very likely nor impossible to make profits right from the start. If you do, good for you, If you don't, try to find out why. Once you did use the services, you will at least know how the process works and understand a lot more of discussions at forums, related articles and tips from professionals. You don't if you don't do anything and give up before you even started.
You should not just stop at PPC though and only rely on paid traffic to your site; especially, if you rely completely on direct or redirected traffic to the merchant where you are merely a proxy in the conversion process without the customer being aware of your existence at all. If you have a site or "Landing Page" the customer sees first, you will get at least the chance to do something with visitors that do not convert for the specific offer you are promoting via PPC Ad.
Carsten Cumbrowski is doing Affiliate Marketing since 2001and Search Marketing since 2003. He also operates the portal Cumbrowski.com, which provides free resources to paid search, keyword research, landing page optimization and much more that are vital to success for internet marketers. http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/seosem_keyword_research.asp http://www.cumbrowski.com/CarstenC/searchenginemarketing.asp
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