In case you missed the previous entries in this series, you can read Polls for CPA Offers Part 1 here and Polls for CPA Offers Part 2 here.

Here is an overview of PPC Mom’s Poll Process:

• Research hot poll topics and choose 4 or 5 topics
• Generate a list of approx 500 kw for each topic (use Google’s free kw tool to help you)
• Write 3-4 kick ass poll questions per topic (approx 15 poll questions) using the guidelines in Part 2
• Grab at least 5 solid email submit offers from the networks – ask your AM which are performing best
• Create these 15 polls using the awesome and  free -> Word Press Easy Polls or similar software

How to test your polls and start making $$?

1. Launch at least one general poll topic per day (3-4 polls on the same topic, but with different questions)
2. Assign one email submit offer to each poll (3-4 different offers)
3. Set a very small campaign budget ($10 each poll)
4. Launch on content network only
5. Set CPC at a low level (right now I am using .10 to start)
6. Watch very carefully and PAUSE your campaigns after approx 30 clicks.

What to do after 30 clicks?

Assess each poll individually. There are so many factors you need to assess. It sounds like a lot now, but once you get the hang of this, it becomes second nature. Practice is the key!

Initially, in this early stage, you are looking for – an offer that converts (above 10%), a high ad CTR (above .20), a low CPC (below .10), and high impressions.

If you have all of this criteria met – you should have made a profit. Let that poll run  – set a higher campaign budget and enjoy your earnings!

If not – then it’s time to try again.  If I have at least one offer that converts at or above 10% – I switch that offer to all of my polls and watch them for another 30 clicks. If none of the offers convert that high, I switch them all around, rotating new offers in until I find one that does. Check your ad copy and poll question – if you’re sure they’re interesting enough, then test your results by rotating the offers.

How to judge a successful poll?

This is where things get a little tricky. No one can predict which polls will make money – or at least I can’t! Only you will know for sure if your poll is a success or not. You can follow PPC Mom’s guidelines, but in the end you are only going to really learn by trial and error yourself. With a little experience, you’ll start to be able to tell right away which polls have potential and which do not.

Keep testing in small doses like this until you find a combination that works and makes you a profit! If you cannot get a good result from your poll after testing and tweaking things a little, chances are it’s a dud.

Just so you know, I “kill” about 70% of the polls I create. When I first started I “killed” 19 out of 20 polls I created. So don’t spend too much time fussing over them. Just keep creating new polls, testing, deleting, and creating new polls, and you’ll get better and better at it.

“Can I really make $100 per day with polls?”

I get asked this question all the time. Yes! Polls can be a good source of profit once you get the hang of it. Yes – it is a lot of work to create a whole bunch of polls every day. Yes – it is annoying that 90% of your polls won’t make any money.

Do you want to make money with polls? Well, then you have to do the work.  It is possible to earn $100 per day from polls alone. My average poll profit is about $20. So you can estimate earnings between $10-$30 per successful poll, per day if you get it right. Create lots of polls, and you multiply your earnings!

Now – I am sure I have left some things out. There is just SO much to cover! This is meant to be an interactive discussion here, so please, comment below – questions, answers, if you agree or disagree, whatever! I look forward to hearing from you!

PPC Mom gets so many questions from fellow affiliate marketers about running polls, that it’s about time to make a few posts about it. There is a lot of information to cover, so we’re doing a 3 part series on it. This first chapter will cover the basic overview of polls. Let’s get started!

Many people have heard of running simple YES/NO polls on the content network. If you’re a member at PPC-Coach, you have had a complete overview on this method. This is certainly not a new idea. It has been around for years. Some people say this method is outdated, or that it’s a waste of time. PPC Mom disagrees entirely. New polls are created here every week and the money continues to roll in from them.

The biggest question that comes my way is this: “Should I keep going with polls or should I move on to something else?”

PPC Mom cannot answer this question for you. If you are a new affiliate marketer and are struggling with polls, then it may be wise to keep working at it until you profit from polls. There is so much to be learned from this process. However, if you are an experienced affiliate marketer, and you are comfortable launching high volumes of campaigns on the search engines, then there may not be a need for you to run polls. Many experienced affiliate marketers continue to run polls simply because they are an easy way to increase your income once you know what you are doing. unless you enjoy the process or need some quick cash.

First – let’s look at the drawbacks to creating polls to promote CPA offers. There are quite a few to list here, but PPC Mom thinks its good to get the bad stuff out of the way first so we can move on to the fun stuff, OK?

Drawbacks to Polls for CPA Offers

1. Most email and zip submit offers have very low payouts (from 0.75-$2.00) and you need a large volume of traffic to profit.
2. There are a lot of variables that you have to get right to make a profit – poll topic, question, image, ad headline, poll landing page, offer, etc.
3. Google does not like poll landing pages and they can get “slapped” quickly if you’re not careful. (slapped = Google stops showing your ad)
4. It can be hard to find good email/zip submit offers at the networks.

Benefits to Polls for CPA Offers

1. By running polls, you learn how to choose offers from the networks, understand your market, get the attention of people browsing the content network, and convince them to follow through by entering their email address.
2. You get really good at launching campaigns in the search engines & keyword selection.
3. Once you discover the formula for yourself, you can return to polls anytime to earn extra money online.

PPC Mom is not going to cover the basics of poll development here. That is covered in depth at PPC-Coach. Instead we are going to go through tips, hints, and suggestions to help you fine tune your poll campaigns. Polls for CPA Offers Part 2 will address poll topics, questions, and landing pages.

Please leave a comment with your poll related question/concern/issue and these can then be addressed in upcoming posts.

Every affliate marketer makes mistakes and often they end up costing you a lot of money. It’s important to learn from your mistakes so you don’t make them again, and so that you can gain insight into where you went wrong. In this section I am going to list the top 5 mistakes that PPC marketers make (I have made many of them myself). My hope is that by being aware of these mistakes you can avoid them and earn yourself a good income in the meantime.

1. Lack of Training - One of the biggest and most costly errors is to try to “go it alone” out there. How can you expect to earn a legitimate salary in excess of $100,000 with ZERO training?  In my opinion, the best investment you will ever make is an investment in your own education. There are several affiliate marketing training forums out there including : AffiliIT, PPC-Coach, and Wealthy Affiliate.  The value provided by these affiliate marketing training programs far exceeds the monthly cost. I am an active member of all three of these programs. You can read my personal review of these three options here.
2. Lack of Focus - Choose one thing and stick with it until you feel ready to move on to the next thing. Many new PPC marketers move from one “hot” thing to another, trying every new product, in every niche, using all kinds of advertising mediums. You know what happens to those people? They lose money and quit.  To avoid this trap, become a member of an affiliate marketing training forum and follow their guidelines each month. I suggest you thoroughly focus on one method at a time until you feel confident in that method. Then you can proceed to the next thing, and the next. This is how you build a solid business online, by building on your skills each and every month. If you lack focus, or get distracted easily, you will struggle to earn a consistent profit.
3. Looking for “easy money” - Affiliate marketing is a job – a real business – that requires consistent inputs of time, effort, and creativity to be successful. If you don’t want to do the work, and just want easy money, then this is not the business for you. However, if you are prepared to take action, learn, test, review, and keep learning and taking action regularly without quitting, then perhaps you have what it takes. This is not “easy money”. But there is a lot of money out there waiting for those of us who are willing to do what it takes. Don’t delay!
4. Not understanding the market - It is so important to understand who you are marketing to and why they would want to click on your ad. People buy things to solve a problem. It’s our job to find out what the problem is, and find a way to solve their problem. Most PPC affiliate marketers get started with email and zip submits because they are easiest to convert. Before you can be successful, you need to understand why someone would enter their email on your website: What’s in it for them? Once you understand your market, you can create a wide range of campaigns to “solve the problems” of your market and make a decent profit for yourself.
5. Avoid the Sharks - This is a big one! You do NOT need most of the PPC tools yet. Many new PPC marketers come in to this industry thinking they need the biggest and newest tools to be a success. That is not the case. Yes – there are some amazing and helpful tools out there to help you do things a little quicker or easier. But you do not NEED these tools or software to earn an income right now. Be very careful what you spend your money on. There are lots of sharks out there trying to convince you that this “next big thing” is a “must have”.  I suggest you focus on earning money now. Once you are bringing in some profits, then you can choose the tools that suit you best.

If you can avoid these 5 mistakes, you’re well on your way to building a solid business online. We’re in this together!

Have a great day! PPC Mom

It’s so nice that I have received a lot of support in the internet marketing community as the new PPC Mom, and I am so grateful! Thank you.

Here is a recent blog post from Chris, the co-owner of the new affiliate marketing training site AffiliIT.

Thanks for the kind words and warm welcome, Chris!

- PPC Mom

Today we are going to discuss PPC vs SEO and why I believe these two methods go hand in hand for all successful affiliate marketers.

First, the definitions for anyone who does not know already:

Search Engine Optimization ‘SEO’ : the process you follow to improve your website’s position in the search engines. This process involves ‘keyword research’, ‘quality content on your website’, ‘external and internal link building’, ‘article marketing’ and of course ‘tracking’.

Pay Per Click ‘PPC’ : A form of advertising where we pay for every click on our advertisements. Usually we place our ads on the larger PPC engines such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN/Bing, Facebook, and MySpace.

So what are the differences between SEO and PPC?

* Costing methods : a click from a search engine listing will cost the website owner nothing whereas a click on a PPC ad will cost you something (anywhere between 0.03 and 5.00 per click or more!).

* Time to see a result : PPC ads can be live within an hour whereas a search engine optimized listing may take weeks or months to achieve

* Longevity : A PPC ad disappears as soon as your budget has been spent whereas a search engine optimized listing may remain for months or even years.

* Expertise : The two techniques require varying types of expertise and knowledge but everyone has to start at the beginning, right?

SEO and PPC are both valuable online marketing techniques. Both have the affect of increasing your website’s visibility. If your site, or links to your site, are more widely available on the web, then this will usually translate into an increase in traffic and hopefully sales. Many people make the mistake of only focusing on ONE method – PPC or SEO. However, massive power is generated when you COMBINE these two methods together into one powerful marketing force.

I have learned that if you combine these two methods you will build a strong, solid business online. When you build a landing page for your PPC campaign, be sure to use relevant keywords, and optimize the site for SEO. This way, while you are sending paid PPC traffic to your landing page, you are also increasing its perceived value in the search engines.

The golden rule in marketing is that you should constantly strive for maximum results and ROI for your budget. In other words, if your marketing is making you a profit – even if it’s a thin profit – it’s worth it. Knowing this, pay per click is certainly worth doing, and you can make a lot of money quickly. Overall, using pay per click alone will leave you with thinner margins. If you focus on search engine optimization for your landing pages, you will significantly increase your margins over the long term.

In short, PPC Mom says : PPC and SEO are both very valuable. Combine the two, and you become unstoppable!

My name is Jennifer and I am very proud to be the new “PPC Mom”!

My affiliate marketing journey began on this very website back in January 2009. Like many of you, Mary helped me get started and I am so grateful for her help and guidance.

First of all, let me introduce myself. My husband and I live in Australia with our three young boys. I am a busy mother and a pre-school teacher who has now become a full time internet marketer. I was able to resign from my teaching job in August 2009 and I now work from home full time. Thanks to the information I learned here, my life is so different now than it was just one year ago.

I am an active affiliate marketer and I am committed to helping you reach your goals. I believe in this website and see it as a guiding light through the “minefield” that is Internet Marketing. You can count on me to continue to provide the honest, valuable information you’ve come to expect from PPC Mom. If there is something specific you’d like me to address here, please let me know. I have a lot of information to share and I’m excited to get started.

If you need to contact me, please don’t hesitate to send me an email : ppcjen@gmail.com

Alternatively, I’d love it if you could leave a comment here! I look forward to getting to know you too!

Have a wonderful day!

Jen

What usually happens is someone new to PPC is going into the dating niche, or something else that has a ton of competitors and they bid on keywords such as online dating. Now granted there are probably close to a million searches a month for online dating, but its an awful broad niche, so there are a lot of people competing, and the cpc is enourmous, probably up to $10 a click. And think about it, the networks don’t pay $10 for someone to fill out the form for online dating. You are lucky if you get $5 or  $6, so you are definitely in a negative ROI, even if you get everyone to fill out your offer.

So, what should you bid on? One of my suggestions is longtail keywords, by this I mean 3 or 4 words that make up a phrase. Usually one or two word phrases get far too many searches to be targeted enough to make a decent ROI. Instead I recommend you choose an offer such as over 40 online dating, single mom online dating, some kind of culture dating, etc.

Before we go to my favorite keyword tool to come up with keyword ideas, lets think about what people who are looking for online dating might also be looking for. They might want to meet people, visit forums, want dating tips, dating advice, etc.

Ok, so what I did was put dating tips into the search tool and went to the second part of the list. One of the top keywords there was flirting, so I put that back in, I figure people who date online might also want to learn about flirting because Google says so (thats what the second list is). Now with flirting there are 300k searches a month, and it only costs about $.50 How Great is THAT?!!!

Here is a screenshot:

If you are wondering what to do next, put together a free guide for flirting and put the cpa offer in it, then you build a list and make money at the same time

I check the site every now and again and I often read the forums but let’s just say it was awhile. In fact the other day when I stopped in I hardly recognized the place.

I have been a member there for over a year, since May of 2008, and I am pretty impressed at how far the site is coming. Coach is always working on something new for the members.

It is a little pricey for those just getting started at almost $50 a month, but it is very much worth it. Access to all the different strategies for CPA and affiliate marketing are great. You can get one on one support from Coach or Coach V2, who runs Wotogepa, their own CPA network.

The community is pretty great as well. Because Coach offers help to everyone, it can take some time to respond, so you are best off posting on the forum first if you need help.

My biggest qualm with PPC Coach is that is has never been a great place for beginners. There are far too few tutorials and people get lost there. It seems like a lot of people leave for that reason too, which sucks affiliate-wise.

On the other hand once they are making money on there, they tend to stay forever. I have a few people signed up that I know have been on the site for months, because every month at the same time I get a notice saying I generated a commission.

Anyway, the update: New Month 5. There are now more monthly strategies than ever at PPC Coach. As well as more forums, more webinars, more members, etc.

I just want to say anyone who joins through my link, please let me know so I can help you out there. Its a great community and it can really help you with ppc and cpa, so please let me help. Go check out the site, and let me know what you think below!

Media Traffic $100

Traffic Vance $500

Clicksor $300

I couldnt find the cost to start AdOn Network, but here is a great post from InsideAffiliate.net about the different PPV engines.

I have done PPV, I was a member at CPV Coach for two months, and it just didn’t work for me. The profits were so small, and it was so hit or miss I couldn’t make it worth my time. I should have stuck with it though, because people are doing great with PPV now and its becoming a favorite for a lot of super affiliates. I think it has to do with the volume of domains you are bidding on.

I went with Media Traffic and Traffic Vance when I started, and I do recommend them because the interface was easy to use and the customer service at Traffic Vance was awesome. Have you got any PPV experience?

What you have now is a good starter list of keywords, export this whole list. Now take the top keywords that Google thinks your site is about and put them back in the tool. You will get two lists, the bottom list is the one I am most concerned with. It gives you ideas of other words people use to search for the same thing when they are looking for your product/service/site. Usually you can find lower cpc keywords here. Add them to your list as well. Keep doing this with all of the main keywords from when you first put the link to your site in. Once you have a list of 50-100 keywords you can start your campaign.

I don’t use too many keywords when you first start the campaign, unless you have a lot of money to burn to find every conceivably converting keyword possible. My way of doing it allows you to get started with general keywords in your niche, but cheap ones as well. I generally do $5 a day for every 50 keywords I am bidding on.