Affiliate Marketing is all about testing. Testing your way to a profitable campaign is your only way to do it , unless you got the secret sauce, or get lucky on a few campaigns, but in reality, test until you got data, and test some more . This brings up a question …“When is it time to quit?” Generally, if I get 100 clicks to the offer page, from my landing page, I will count that as a sample size. I’ll stop everything at 100 clicks, and analyze my data. This maybe too soon, but you will only be able to tell by looking at your tracking. Okay, I got 100 clicks! Time to analyze. I am looking for 3 things.. (or 2, if you are direct linking)

1) Click Through Rate for Ads

2) Click Through Rate from Ad to Lander

3) Click Through Rate from Lander to Offer

4) Conversions

5) ROI

This should give a general idea if you should dump it, or keep pumpin. If you think your deal needs more clicks, take another sample size, there’s no right answer. Looking at my data, I can see which combinations worked best, and use them, and ditch the others. For example, for the ads, I can look at which ad is getting the better CTR, keep that one, and ditch the other. The next thing, which lander is performing the best? You should be split testing all your landing pages, and offers, using prospers, landing page rotate script found here. It is all trial and error. Think of it like solving an equation like (x – 2)(2x – 3) . There is no explicit way to solve this problem, but to try numbers in x, and see what works. There may be ways, but if you took Calculus, you would understand what I mean. So, after a few tests, . Money Made > Money Spent? Good find ways to improve campaign, and keep kw’s converting, pumpin till they die out. Money Made < Money Spent? This part is up to you, you could ditch it, or take high performing elements of your campaign , and change out things you feel need improvement. If your getting high CTR on ads, but not landers. You may have good ads, but need some work on your landing pages. What do you do with a failed campaign?

My signature Wickedfire has gotten me some leads in the past, but nothing quite like this. Some member submitted this picture that was found on my signature , and just look at the response it got: http://digg.com/comedy/Money_Talks_Baby_Hell_Yeah_PIC.  I kept the link, so you can see what category it was submitted too.It was very unfortunate he didn’t put diggalive.com in the URL, or we would for sure have some more readers by now.  There was also a lot of comments, where I could of gone back and left replys.  This at least will give you an idea of images users are Digging. This one must of ended up on the first page, it also has a ‘tag’ associated with it, which is for the higher Digged entries. What are some ways that you could monetize this situation? If I was in control of the URL, which I wish I was in this case, I could of pointed it to DiggaLive, and hoped to get some subscribers, or I could of created an offer page, or jumper, and linked it to that , with an offer. This could have been 2043 potential clicks, and definitely missed out. I would probably stick with something like an email submit, or 1 page submit. Dig traffic is not going to convert nearly as high as targeted traffic, but what’s the harm in testing. What kind of deals would work? I can answer that the same as almost any other question having to do with affiliate marketing, and that is …T E S T.

Have you found ways to monetize Digg Traffic? Let us know!

Yes diggalive was at ASW, and has plenty to post about it. These posts have unfortunately not shown up yet because I have been extremely busy.  I will get some fresh content up there asap, and some of the upgrades I have planned for the site.  Thanks for reading, please subscribe to the RSS feed, and I promise to give some good content in the near future.

Digga.

Take a look at the #4 searched term …is this some kind of warning? Do you think people actually searching for that, or is google trying to play a trick on us?

Either way, I thought it was pretty bizarre. 

Link: Google Trends Results

Update: Here’s what google has to say about this…

“The Hot Trends list is automatically generated by machines and algorithms that detect hot or breaking queries. In this case, it appears that the html code for this query was posted on a popular internet bulletin board, which led to quite a few people searching to find out more about this symbol. The Hot Trends list reflected that surge due to people searching with this query.”

I am going to try and limit my posts to ones that are helpful to everyone, and where we can all learn something, including me.  The past 3 days I have used pretty much only a few ways to get my site out there. I originally wanted to get some paid advertising to start off with, but that will come later, right now we are looking for FREE ways to promote our site.  You see that Twitter Icon everywhere, but may ignore it because you think it’s another Myspace. Totally false.  What it is, is a great way for you to get yourself, your business, or your website known fast! Twitter  is a great way to build your online community. Once you sign up, you will realize how easy it is to follow sites and friends of your niche, and share with them what you have to offer. Which brings me to why I’m writing this post.  Yesterday, I wanted to break 100 followers. I had 50 going into the day, and judging how fast I was able to get 50, I thought I could pass 100 no problem.  I could of done it by writing some API that every time someone followed me, I would follow them, then go and follow everyone under the sun.  Instead, I just laid back and worked on my campaigns and see if I could pass it without following anyone that just followed me for the day. When I got on, I noticed a reply from ShoeMoney! Unfortunately I did not get the official screenshot, but it was just a basic shout out, calling me a cool cat, which I thought was sick, along with a link to my website.

Lets take a look at his stats:

View Full Stats Here

Here is one result from his shout out…this alone made it worth it. Gaining a readers is my goal, and this helped out beutifully….

So, we finally reached 100 users.  According to Twittercounter, I will have over 1k next month.  I will believe that when I see it, but this just shows what a usefull tool this can be, and easily applied to your website.

Visit Diggalive Twitter Stats

If you have a twitter account, leave it in the comment below, and share it. I got this idea from Jim Connolly.
You can check his post out here, so go there and leave yours too! : Building Your Twitter Network

Wikipedia allows you to create your own user page.  What does this mean?  Free links of course. Granted, Wikipidia does not pass any PR since all of there links have the mighty nofollow, however, if you get creative with it, you can get a quality backlink from one of the biggest sites on the net.  You can try and stick your link in other places on wiki, and it works, but watch out for the moderators, the’re sure to ban you as soon as they feel your spamming, and most likely , if you add your link to a popular page, it will get removed in seconds…dam wiki!!

I may be the one posting the posts, but that is just the beginning.  There are many ways to interact, and get your link love, here’s one of them.

How do I get my Link Love?

1) I will try and ask a question on each post.  Find some posts that you know the answer for, and answer it with the best of your knowledge! It will not only provide the readers some more information about the topic, but also will give you a start on getting your link love, because although it is a no-follow, other commenter will click on your comment, and diggalive.com loves comments!  

If you notice, on every page of my site, I have the Top Commenter Plug-in installed, what exactly is this?  It’s only the coolest plug-in ever, besides that, it will display the top 10 commenter for the current month.
How does this help you?  It gives you a link on every single one of my pages and posts.

I’ll introduce some more ways later, anything to help you guys out.

Hopefully soon there will be a Google page rank update, and it will be more beneficial to us all!

Update: Looks like yahoo has caught on to this ..scroll down to bottom, and read comments for details…

I’m going to start out this post by saying, I did not originally come up with this idea. This is one of the many reasons I stay active in the community of Internet, and Affiliate Marketers, and why you should too.

Originally I had asked the man Ruck, over at Convert2Media what some good ways to promote my offer with some organic traffic, besides PPC.  The answer was short and simple, Yahoo Answers.  I actually did not pursue this at first, because I felt it would take to long for the traffic to hit, if any at all, and it would be hard to convert that traffic.  I was wrong on one thing already, and that was the amount of time it will take for you to get traffic after you answer the question. The first time I answered a question, with relevant information, and a good answer, I was reward quickly with traffic.  If this remains true, think about all the niches that are out there, and how many categories there are on Yahoo Answer. Don’t sound like Spam, and if you actually answer some of the questions with the correct answers, you might be rewarded for it.

To get you guys thinking, what if you were to do this for every offer Convert2Media had to offer? With some time on your hands, and some relevant good content, your bound to get some conversions.

1. Sign up for a network:
(Watch out shameless affiliate plug coming in)
Convert2Media
Ads4Dough

2. Sign up for Yahoo Answers:
Yahoo Answers

3. Answer some Questions.
4. Get Paid!

Pretty simple concept. This is just the beginning of the idea, but throw your own spin in there to get even more nuggets.

Oops

Your account has been suspended.

If you feel there has been a mistake, please contact us through Customer Care.

Most likely, your account was suspended in violation of Yahoo! Answers community guidelines. Click here to read the full guidelines

In the meantime, feel free to browse Yahoo! Answers

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Okay, looks like I caught on to this idea too late, and Yahoo has caught on.  There may be other question sites out there that you can look for.  I’d like to hear if anyone finds any, for now this looks like a did.

This post is going to be short and simple.   Last night I was up late as usual working on my campaigns, and today I checked my account, and the hard work paid off.  I had 4 clicks to the offer itself from the landing page, and 2 conversions.  It is way to early in the game to draw any conclusions, but a good start, and I thought i would share some tips on being profitable with your campaigns.  Here is what I did, and will post the outcome once I throw some big nuggets into the campaign.

1. Purchased Content from a great content writer, Cracka|Content from #cakes IRC
   This is a Review Type Blog/Landing page , with 2 offers listed. The content is a big part. I have had campaigns fail miserably because of sub-par content.
2. Set up my Campaigns. I used Convert2Media for my offers.  I offered screen shots of the offer page, with my affiliate links.
3. Used Google Search Based Keyword Tool to find Long tails, however ONLY advertised on Microsoft Adcenter only.
4. I added keywords with 3 or more words, from .50 – 1.50 from that Google Tool,
   added them to MSN.  There is a tool to update all your keywords so they get you at #1 spot. I took about %30 off of that…and used the result as my bid, if they were ridiculously high, removed them.
5. Monitored the campaign, watched for converting keywords, and raised the bids if average spot is less than 4.00.

 I also used a laser targeted landing page that I generated for a few of the keywords, however, that is not the ones that converted. I will be posting how to create a Laser Targeted Landing Page shortly.

This is a very low sample size. I will need at least 100 clicks to see if this is campaign will be worth keeping, but it is a good start.  This is all about getting data. I am using Prosper202 for tracking, so it keeps track of everything, if you set it up correctly.

I will have more detailed posts later,  but I wanted to get this out there. This should be enough to get you started.  Good luck

Adcenter seams to give me better conversions, and is less costly than Google’s Adwords.  What are your experiences with MSN and the new Search Based Keyword Tool ?

I am active in Affiliate Marketing blogs and forums. If you have one, chances are I’ve been on it, and if I haven’t, please leave a comment so I can. Saying this, being active makes it a lot easier to promote yourself, and your site.

What are some benefits in doing this?

Well, to start, you are contributing on a site that may help you, or has helped you in the past. Contributing, develops a communication between you and the site owner. The site owner is always checking comments, believe me, and if you say something informative, or useful, he may check out your site, and if he likes it, write a post about it. You are also getting a link on there site. If it is a no follow, who cares, you still have a backlink, and they may have Top Commenter plug-in installed, which leads me to my next one.

Top Commenter can get you hundreds of backlinks fast. If you find a blog that has the top commenter plug-in installed, you can gain a link on everyone of there pages. Just don’t go on and spam there site with your comments. Keep them relevant to the post, and they will reward you with a link, abuse it, and they’ll just remove you from top comments, and also the page itself!

Another way, similar to commenting, is taking part in forums. Placing your link in your signature is a great way to get your site out there. That is another way you may have been brought to this page.

If you don’t believe the power of signature and comments, check out how many backlinks Diggalive has in yahoo, and it has been live for 2 weeks:

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fdiggalive.com&bwm=i&bwmf=u&bwms=p&fr=yfp-t-105&fr2=seo-rd-se

What are your experiences with comments? Does it bring traffic to your site?