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1. Michael,

   Thank you for your kind words, and for purchasing my book.

   As for multiple ads within an ad group, the main reason for this is to compare ad performance. Wriing better ads is the real key to success in this business. If you have a few different ads, periodically you can edit the lowest performing ad, trying to make improvements. You would always leave the highest performing ad alone as a control ad against which to test the others. Eventually, one of your new ads will outperform the others and become the new control ad. I should mention, though, that if the difference in perfomance is relatively small, it might be better to ad a new ad rather than edit an ad that performs almost as well as the control ad.

   A second reason for having multiple ads inside one ad group might also be that some ads will perform better for different keywords, even in a related group. If you are using an ad rotation optimizer function, which Google and most others provide for, the right ad should show most often for each keyword. If you have a particularly large ad group, with dozens or even hundreds of keywords, you might also want to consider having more than just three or four different ads to help you gain any possible advantage that the different ads might provide for some keywords.

   As for the maximum budget question, I get a lot of questions asking for a formula of some kind, but I am very loathe to do so. The bottom line is, higher maximum budgets can help get you statistically significant data quicker, but they also increase your risk of losing more money faster. It is a very personal decision. Add to that the fact that different industries tend to be harder/easier, cheaper/more expensive than others, and dollar figures are hard to come by.

   The best I can do is to suggest you start with a conservative amount you feel very comfortable with, and then if the results are coming to slowly, gradually increase your budget and perhaps your bids as well, until you are collecting data at a rate you are happy with.

   As for $3000 budgets, those examples are for campaigns that already have proven they make comfortably more per click than they cost. Once you know you you are making money, the budget maximum can be slowly raised to whatever amount you can afford to put in, without much fear of losing money. I have occassionally started campaigns with very high daily budgets, but this was when I was already making huge amounts on other campaigns, and could afford the risk. Also, this was only with campaigns that I had reason to beleive – from similar campaigns’ results – would be very profitable. This early in your career, it would be crazy to set a budget that high.

   As for previously successful ads, I believe I have some examples in the book, but I don’t like to give out a lot of them because, even though program term changes or other factors may make a profitable ad unprofitable, their is always the possibility – and this has happened to me a few times – that future changes will make the ad valuable again one day. If you would like, though, I’d be happy to look at any ad of yours, and suggest some improvements. Just email me at AffiliateSupport@AffiliateMillions.com.

   Tony

   Comment by Administrator — July 15, 2007 #

2. Hi Tony,

   Thanks for responding!

   I think I better understand the multiple ads in one ad group; advertise the same program but use different angles, calls to action, different filters in your 2nd line of the ad (filters being words to weed out people) etc. Monitor and tweak as necessary.

   I’ve taken your advise and started out with a budget I’m comfortable with and we’ll see how it goes.

   Here’s the stats on my 1st ad after ~24 hours;

   Google AdWords;

   $20 daily max
   $0.60 max bid
   2.5 avg pos
   9 active keywords
   2 inactive keywords (cost too much)
   3 negative words
   25111 impression
   88 clicks
   0.43% CTR
   $0.42 avg CPC
   $36.50 total cost

   Affiliate Program;

   $81.47 3 month EPC
   $75.46 7 day EPC
   5 bars network earnings

   1 lead
   0 sales
   $0.51 commissions

   I’m going to give it a total of 72 hours before I shut it down. I’m not going to get discouraged by this 1st campaign!

   Best Regards,
   Michael

   Comment by Michael Robert — July 16, 2007 #

3. Michael,

   The first thing I should point out is the short time frame (24 hours) in which these results were acquired. You may well have commissions that are yet to be reported.

   I advise you to wait until your returns are fully reported. That can take up to 24 hours from your last clicks (more if batch processed), plus whatever time length the referral period for this affiliate program happens to be. A week is common, but they range from days to months. Check out the actual program terms for this program in the CJ interface.

   If you are spending more per day than you are comfortable with keeping up for this long a period (whatever the referral period is), you can turn off the campaign after a few days, and then wait out the referral period. Make sure you get enough clicks before shutting it down to accurately judge the program first, however.

   Tony

   Comment by Administrator — July 20, 2007 #

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