The Very Heart Of Affiliate Success Is Simplicity Itself
Beginners Affiliate Marketing, General Add commentsI’ve been thinking about this one for a few days. Affiliate marketing these days is a seemingly endlessly complex corridor full of confusing information and allegedly killer schemes to make you a millionaire and hand you the affiliate holy grail within 3 microseconds.
Apart from all the outright lies and half-truths you have to wade through, you now need a thorough understanding of the Google Adwords Landing Page Algo and need to work out exactly how to build those killer Landing Pages Google won’t assign to Google-Slap oblivion as soon as your local friendly Adwords Robot pays your page a courtesy call.
Even more confusing… exactly what the hell is a robot? What in the name of all that’s holy is a spider doing on my web page? Why does someone try to sell me something every fizzing time I look for a plain and simple answer about any of these things?
Affiliate marketing these days seems to be a potentially wide and gaping chasm into which your valuable time and money, if you’re too quick to believe all those promises, will vanish without a trace as you struggle to understand what the bloody hell all these experts are talking about.
So let’s make like Margaret Thatcher and say LETS GET BACK TO BASICS
OK. For the sake of argument, lets say you’ve spent 12 months desperately trying to work out how to build a landing page that Google will think is A1 perfect. What now? Do you even know what to do with your landing page? Have you even built a landing page that you know contains something that will convert? The point I am trying to make is that there seems to be a preoccupation with getting a landing page sorted before moving on to promotion. That’s the way to do things though, right?
Wrong. You’ve heard of not being able to see the wood for the trees? I think too many would-be affiliates these days can’t see the sales for the landing pages. Too many people are worrying about the landing page first, and the actual commercial value of the work they have put in is an afterthought. They see the vast hurdle of landing page creation, and completely miss the glistening gold of the revenue stream that should be put in front of it.
So What Should We Be Doing Then, Oh Sarcastic PPC Lady?
“Good words are worth much and cost little.”
George Herbert
Everything else aside, Mr Herbert’s quote neatly encapsulates the very heart of what I perceive to be the secret of my affiliate marketing success. Your 12 month slog to create a killer landing page is totally useless if you can’t find the right words to throw at it.
I am, of course, talking about finding the right search terms for your campaign and even more importantly finding the merchant who will truly pay you the value of your words. You’ve got a landing page, OK. But your landing page is so much internet piss in the wind if you don’t use it to send the right traffic to the right merchant.
It is vital to make sure of this before you even put finger to keyboard to start creating the landing page that will see you on a beach in Barbados this time next year.
Well, That’s All Very Easy For You To Say Kirsty. How The Blazes Will We Do That?
Well. Another wee secret actually. One that many merchants (and even affiliate managers) seem to be unaware of. Certainly a lot of newbie affiliates don’t know it.
You ready? Lean in Now….
It’s still OK to send traffic direct to merchant.
Yes, Google has this single ad per display URL… but that doesn’t mean that Google has banned affiliates from doing this. Nor does it mean networks have outlawed it. Some merchants don’t want you to do it these days, but there are still a lot who are happy for affiliates to do send the traffic right up to the door.
No, you won’t get as much traffic as a landing page… but with direct to merchant all you need are those words the clever Mr Herbert saw as so valuable. By using your words cleverly, ferreting out things others have missed, and really placing yourself in your would-be customer’s shoes you can create a small traffic stream. What this will let you do is test your words, test a niche you are interested in, find your revenue stream.
THEN you can worry about creating a landing page. Your effort will be more productive. After all, you will already know where the money is. You will probably even have a better idea of what your prospective consumer expects to see in a landing page for your chosen niche.
The short version of this very long story?
Get the words right first.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
“No, you won’t get as much traffic as a landing page… but with direct to merchant all you need are those words the clever Mr Herbert saw as so valuable.”
I’m not sure I follow why you would get less traffic sending ad clicks direct to a merchant.
I’d assumed that the wording of the advert was what got you the traffic - or do you mean by sending traffic to a poorly designed merchant’s landing page, your quality score goes down and you get less impressions?
Good post btw!
October 17th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Hey Hadi,
What I meant that was by sending traffic direct to merchant you’re competing with the merchant’s own PPC on their display URL and all the other affiliates who are also attempting to send traffic using the same method.
Hence, a smaller slice of the pie in terms of traffic!
October 17th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Aha!
Thanks for clearing that up Kirsty.
I created an adgroup and did a split test with 2 ads using the same display URL (my own landing page) but sending the clicks from one of the ads direct to merchant.
Looking at your post in more detail, perhaps I’m breaking Google’s AdWords TOS - I’m off to check now!
October 17th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I totally agree with you Kirsty. Copywriting is indeed an essential skill that anyone in this business must possess!
So now that you’ve written a dose of your wisdom, why not write a post that actually teaches how to write copies that convert??
October 17th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Hadi - the landing page is probably what pushed up the minimum bids. If you delete the ad pointing at the landing page, you should find it will eventually normalise your bid levels on the direct to merchant stuff.
That’s Google’s subtle way of telling you that your landing page didn’t cut the mustard. Back to landing page training school with you!
Frank - All in good time!
October 17th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Thank God for your site, its become my favorite blog to learn all about AM!!
anyways, if you send people direct to merchant, what are you using for your display URL? You don’t use your affiliate link correct?
October 17th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Hey super newbie. I’m super glad you like my blog writing gig!
Display URL is the merchant URL. i.e. the ultimate destination of the link. Google and MSN are both happy for affiliates to do this.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Nice post !
exactly the trap I was falling in.
Do you know of any books / sites / etc … that you would recommend that teach good copywriting ?
October 18th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Hey Kirsty
Brilliant article as ever but it was John Major who brought in the Back to Basics idea, not Mags.
Yours
An ex A level politics student
October 18th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Was it? Bah! Bloody Google, it was one of them.. so I looked it up and got the impression it’d been the Iron Lady. I’m afraid I’m going to let the error stand mind you, nobody knows who John Major is… Maggie’s a much better analogy even if it is wrongly attributed, lol.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Nice blog Kirsty, I use a silly acronym which i constantly remind & apply to myself .. KISS .. Keep It Simple Silly.
October 20th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Nice acronym Paul! One that more affiliates should be writing large upon their mental wall IMHO.
October 23rd, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Kirsty,
Interesting reading your comments and certainly from own PPC efforts, its surprising which adverts work. Also very surprising quite often how you can get good conversions from one merchant and hardly any from another - both with the same product range and the same approx. prices.
Could spend ages agonising over why, but in the end the results of a live experiment cannot be denied ! Costs money of course, but not as much (if you value your time) as lovingly constructed landing pages which don’t convert.
Usually try about 3 adverts on Adwords in each adgroup to start with. One calm, one wizzy and one ‘mad’ one.
Just as a matter of interest, does anyone think that Google’s relevance rating (however its doing it) is turning the Adwords into a load of cloned headings ? Only if people are searching for green and blue widgets, it does seem that you have to pay more for using a heading that says ‘blue and green widgets’, or ‘two tone widgets’. End result, a column of identical adverts… not exactly in the public interest.
Off to find a trick on how to write an advert that looks different, but has the same relevance… back next year I reckon !