Questions and Answers – Round 3

At what stage did you think to yourself that your ready to do this full time?

I.e, did you have X saved up in the bank just incase or did you have x stable campaigns etc.

Was no stage…I lost my job at a local steel mill and needed to provide for my family…I used my unemployment to start my affiliate marketing business…haven’t worked another 9-5 job since then.

1.) Could it be possible on DirectTrack or any other platform to shave more or less leads/sales from each affiliate, individually, based on affiliate’s performance, country location, etc.? I mean, affiliate networks could adjust their tracking systems to shave more valid leads from affiliates who are less savvy (newbies, based on the performance) and/or non-USA affiliates and less -from savvy marketers (super affiliates, etc. -the guys who can figure it out).
2.) Do you trust those average EPCs that affiliate networks/managers state or it’s just trials and errors?

1. Yes it’s possible…software people can do whatever they want to their software…do I think it’s likely….NO!

2. I wouldn’t say I trust them…They can be a good starting point for NEW affiliates…that’s about all their good for.

Hey Derek,

Just a few questions —

1) I’ve heard of quite a few affiliates who are able to do really well in the short term (making say, 10k in a month) but are unable to sustain that kind of income. How can a new affiliate build up their income and sustain that kind of income for the long term?

2) What are the best ways of avoiding a Google slap?

3) Where are some good places to learn about how to get a good landing page created (creating them myself) or where are some good places to get them outsourced?

4) When doing your initial testing of a campaign, how do you decide if you want to stick with the niche or not?

5) Do you use Prosper 202 or some other tracking software?

6) What are your thoughts on PPC Bully?

1. Work on niches that are going to be around for a long while instead of niches that come and go.  Also work on building email lists, organic traffic, etc.

2. Make sure your CTR is extremely high and make sure you are following all the rules of the mighty Google and are providing real service to your visitors.  Yes it’s possible to sell and provide general help to your customers at the same time.

3. If you have the ability I’d say to try and learn to do them yourself.  Once you learn how to create them…hire someone else to do it and spend your time working on the meat of your stuff.  Always good to know how to do the stuff yourself though if you’re ever in a pinch!

4. If I see opportunity.  Is there sufficient traffic?  How bad is my ROI exactly?  Stuff like that.  If I think there is enough traffic to be had and I feel my ROI isn’t that bad and I could easily raise it by doing a little split testing I stick with it.

5. I use the Google Tracking Pixel and Yahoo Tracking Pixel…That’s it.

6. I didn’t care for it.  It does what it says but I dont’ think it’s worth the money.  Check out ispionage…a little pricey but worth it!

How to extract keyword from a cell in excel like: “23,keyword,313??

I have no idea…sorry

Hello Derek,
Nice to meet you.

Question on Keyword Research :

1)How long does it take for you to do keyword research for a single campaign(NEW), meaning will you complete doing keyword research (for a single campaign) with in few hours or does it take days. I am asking this question because I have been gathering keywords for a campaign from 2 days and still I dint complete gathering them. Am I doing something wrong? Can I improve(In Saving Time)? Any keyword research suggestions?

2) When doing keyword research, do you bid on low competition keywords at start or do you concentrate on high competitive keywords also.
(Keywords may be long tail too)

3) What payed keyword subscriptions do you use(Word tracker or spying tools)?

4) How do you track conversions for your adwords/yahoo/adcenter campaigns?
Google Conversion Tracking or Prosper202-tracking202 or any other tools?
What is the best conversion tool?

5) How much money do you spend to test a single campaign — to find it whether it is successful or not?
How many clicks do you send to the landing page to test a single campaign till you find it successful or not?

6) Are you still making money with facebook or Do you know any one still making money with facebook — considering their strict advertising rules?

7) You are a super affiliate. Generally super affiliates income will be thousands of dollars every month.
Do you or other super affiliates test each and every offer in their network to find the profitable one or do they make money from the top offers in the network alone?

If you are promoting a campaign, if at all if you notice that you are not getting any conversions, you might do split testing right?
What do you change first, meaning landing page design or domain name or any other thing.

9) If I get any doubts, If i need your help. Ca I contact you directly. Will you help me?

Sorry for my noob questions. I am a newbie. I wanted to clarify all my doubts that I am having.

Thanks so much for the opportunity.

1.  It takes me a couple hours…..my suggestion for you is to stop thinking about quantity and start thinking about quality of them.

2. Depends on the niche.  In really competitive niches, I start with more of the middle some short tails and some long tails…in not so competitive niches I mostly go after just short tails at my level.

3. I use Wordtracker, Wordze……that’s it besides free ones.

4. Google Conversion Tracking and Yahoo Conversion Tracking

5. How ever much it takes

6. I’ve never really made money with facebook, I don’t know why people think I make a ton of money with facebook!  I do know people making akilling with facebook still though.

7. Both (at least for me) ehh I don’t every offer, but I do test random ones here and there

8. Doesn’t matter what you split test first, just stick with one thing at a time.

9. You can try to contact me via AIM, I rarely (very very rarely) respond though to those I don’t already know…sorry!  Other option which is your best bet is to join the CC Forums. (FYI They cost money)

What is the best SEO tactics for the subpages of the site?

Make sure you have unique titles and meta tags for each subpage…rest is pretty much just like you do your homepage…

What is the current and future state of SEO as you see it?

Current = Easy – Future = Easy

Few more questions if you dont mind.
With how many keywords will you test campaign initially?
I am asking this question because some say that we have to gather as many keywords as possible, some say that we have to minimum and grow it. I am really confused. I watched your video http://www.clickconsultants.com/are-you-focusing-on-too-many-keywords

but you focused on niche website(in video weight loss), you said that eliminate all extra short tail and extra long tails.
What about an adwords/adcenter/yahoo search marketing campaign?

Yahoo search Marketing Vs. Adwords Vs. Adcenter
Which one is more profitable to you
Which one do you use to test a campaign first?

Sorry again for my noob questions.

Thanks again Derek.

I belive the saying is there are multiple ways to skin a cat.  This is especially true in AM.  Find what works for you…If your unable to focus on 10,000 keywords at a time start smaller..find what works for you and run with it.

I have a big list of email addresses, but when I want to send out an email it says “Please check all email addresses. Looks like one of them may not be formatted correctly.” It will take me forever to verify each email address individually to find out which address is formatted incorrectly – can you recommend a quick and easy way to find the faulty email address?

I’m sure someone out there could…but I can not…sorry!

Thanks guys for all your questions, I hope I didn’t miss any, I double checked and besides 2 stupid ones I think I got them all!