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1. Aaron,

   Your first goal should be to get a good approximation of your actual EPC, I would be sure to generate enough clicks so that – statistically speaking – the average EPC reported ny CJ (or another affiliate network) would have generated at least 2 or 3 commissions (assuming it is a CPA commission structure) and perhaps as many as 5 to 10 commissions (if the cost isn’t to high and you want a more statistically significant sample).

   Say your program pays $5 per download, and the EPC (earnings per hundred clicks, that is) is $3.50. Then you would want roughly 285 to 428 clicks – at least, before attempting to pin down your actual EPC (because you would expect 285 clicks to generate about 2 downloads – $10 – and 428 clicks to generate 3 downloads – $15). Of course, your clicks may perform better or worse than this, but that’s why we want to know your actual EPC instead of just trusting the average. This is a minimum range of clicks, though. I would say 700 to 1400 would give you a much more reliable idea of what your actual EPC is, but depending on how much this is costing you to find out, you might not want to wait that long to adjust your bids.

   If you are looking at a percentage commission structure, that is very hard to come up with a formula for, and I would probably just recommend you get somewhere between 200 and 500 clicks at least before shutting it off and – after the referral period ends – calculating the EPC.

   Now, getting to the crux of your question, if you haven’t generated any conversions by this point (x number of clicks), then that particular affiliate program is probably not going to work for you. Turn it off, and try another one. Maybe later in your career, experience will give you an important clue as to what went wrong, but today, you are not in striking range, and it would be very expensive to continue running the campaign at a loss while trying to turn it around.

   If you have generated conversions, but not enough to be profitable, then simply adjust your bids down to a level where you can expect to at least break even. If at this new bidding level, you can’t seem to generate any clicks, then again, that particular affiliate program is probably not going to work out for you, and for now you should simply turn it off and try another.

   If you are still generating clicks after adjusting your bids, even if it is a small number, this is good news. Now that you have stabilized your campaign at a level at which it is not losing money, you can now focus on ad tuning – and possibly some keyword list tuning as well – to turn the campaign into what we are all looking for… a money maker.

   Without giving the proper amount of time and attention to ad tuning, you will almost certainly never experience the drop in CPC and increase in click volume that a well-tuned ad can provide. The ad-tuning process is the step which will make or break your career.

   Patience is the name of this game, though. Probably at least half a the campaigns you try in the beginnig will not reach this break even point for you (another good reason to be conservative with these new campaigns), and maybe another half of the campaigns you get to the break-even point may not go much farther than that (but give them time, some of my biggest winners took the longest time to get traction), but over time, as you slowly build a portfolio of programs which reach break-even or better, patient attention to the performance tuning process (most importantly the ad-tuning), a small number of these programs should begin begin to make more than just a few dollars a day.

   I have had several programs earn more than $100 dollars a day, and a few campaigns that made $1000+ every day. But even if you never reach those levels, a dozen campaigns that make $10 or $20+ a day can change your life too.

   Tony

   Comment by Administrator — July 22, 2007 #

2. Hi Tony,
   This was a good question for me…and a great answer by you! Helped me a lot to get a perspective and apply rational thinking (should be subject for next edition book update)
   Just read your book, reads like the Holy Grail for us beginners, we have purchased and wasted so much valuable time reading many publications from the neer-do-wells, your knowledge and commitment comes over as a refreshing change. Thanks for the hope, welcome to my world.

   Magicmick

   Comment by magicmick — August 18, 2007 #

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