This is a guest post by Ryan Gray, a veteran affiliate marketer that along with his two business partners (John Kirkpatrick and identical twin Brother Richard Gray) make upwards of $600,000+ a month using various marketing techniques. You can read more about pay-per-click affiliate marketing and how to make money online at their blog located at SuperAffiliateTwins.com.
Recently I was asked how to scale a campaign on Google’s Content Network. For many, this can be a very challenging, daunting task. For me, this is one of my favorite pay-per-click platforms to promote affiliate offers. Let me explain.
Google’s Content Network is an extension of their Adwords advertising. Using the Content Network you can target your advertisements via site placements (URLs) or by keywords. You then have the option to either bid CPC (cost-per-click) or CPM (cost per one-thousand impressions). The Content Network is very different than placing advertisements on their Search platform. In this post, I’m going to explain how use Google’s Content Network to promote your affiliate offers and how to dominate your competition. In the coming weeks, I’m also going to hold a real-life case study using this manual on my blog.
Before we jump right into things, there are a few things you’re going to need. First and most important is a budget. You’re going to need some money that you’re willing to invest to test out your campaigns. Recently, I wrote a guide on “PPC Marketing 101.” In that guide, I explained how investing in your campaigns a lot like getting an education is. You have to spend some money to learn, before you can make money. So for that matter, I suggest starting with $5,000 a month dedicated just to Google’s Content Network. This should be plenty of money for you to learn the ins and outs of the platform and more-than-likely begin profiting. Please don’t get yourself into credit card debt or spend money you don’t have. Don’t try to take on this task until you have the money to invest!
Once you have your money set aside, you’re ready to begin. You’ll also need to have an account at your favorite affiliate network or program that you want to promote (I recommend Copeac). The key to being successful on the Content Network is finding traffic that is cheap, yet effective. For many this is also the most challenging task, but it is possible. Also, a lot of people try to setup their Content Network campaign the same way they do their search campaign. This is the WORST mistake. Even though they are both on Adwords, the internal structure to each campaign is very different. Personally I recommend having one Adwords account dedicated to search and another one dedicated to content.
When your account is ready, you can begin creating your campaigns. When you’re targeting someone on search they are actively searching for your product or service. With this, you’re able to laser target the traffic to your offer. The content network on the other hand is different. Those ads are placed on websites all around the Internet. Therefore, your objective is to interrupt the reader and have them click your advertisement to eventually convert. “I Lost 59 LBS” – This is an example of a headline that you could use. You want to make the visitor notice your advertisement and follow through to complete your offer.
Getting traffic on the content network can also be challenging. Given that you’re not targeting someone who is actively searching for a product; your traffic quality is going to be lower. That is why I like to go after the cheap traffic. To find cheap traffic on Google’s Content Network, you need to use keywords that are of popular news items. An example of this would be “swine flu” or “h1n1”. Websites all across the Internet report daily on new outbreaks, prevention tips, vaccines, etc. Therefore it is very beneficial to use this story to your advantage to getting cheap traffic.
When setting up your Content Network campaign it is important to note that your ad groups are used to describe what you’re targeting. Google only looks at the first 50 keywords in each ad group to determine where to place your advertisement. Therefore one of your ad groups could look like this:
Keywords:
There is no need to copy this word-for-word as I just used Google’s Free Keyword Generator to make this list. You would then want to create an ad copy to go along with this ad group. An example may look like this:
“The Swine Flu Kills”
Prevent the Swine Flu with the all new XYZ Multi-Vitamin.
Notice how the headline is designed to get the attention of the reader while the ad description goes on to explain more what you’re trying to promote. You could then direct traffic to a website that promotes multi-vitamins.
Please note: The above is just an example; I’ve never created a campaign based around the Swine Flu.
By using “popular news stories” to generate your Content Network campaigns, you’re able to find a lot of cheap traffic with large amounts of volume. If you’re creative you can make a lot of money while the topic is hot. The possibilities are endless with this method as long as you’re willing to take a risk and think outside the box.
Last of all I always want to remind people of one thing. There is NO substitute for hard work. This blog post, a PPC coaching site, etc. is NO magic pill or formula. Successful Affiliates are successful because they’re willing to be dedicated and work harder than everyone else. You have to be willing to make sacrifices and put the effort into this, if you’re ever going to be a Super Affiliate! Good luck!
To learn more about how to make money online, check out Ryan’s blog at SuperAffiliateTwins.com.
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