Buying your way to the top

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

As you go through message boards, resource sites, tutorials, etc. There are people always talking to newbies how to increase their traffic, make sales, etc, with link lists, tgp, blogs, etc....

The more time you put in though, you start to see that most of that really isn't worth the time of just purchasing a good deal of your traffic. I've noticed this is where most people end up at, though it is the least talked about (openly anyway) aspect of this business.

Does anyone still think there are ways out there to make a good income at this (by good, I mean at least 80-100k a year) via traditional means as a single person operation?

I doubt it more everyday, your thoughts?

...............and if that is the case, is all this chatter just a way to placate the newbies, keep them supplying new content for established sites, purchasing content they will never make a return on, and feed that end of the adult webmaster market, and to give newbie oriented webmaster boards a stream of eyes to see sponsor ads?

[wankmaster]

I never bought google adwords so I may be talking out of my hat here.

For example a signup is worth $50 say, $25 to the affiliate and $25 to the sponsor. The affiliate pays out for adwords and that lowers his profit to $10 but he's happy becuase he just buys more adwords and gets more signups. He'll bid up to a price where it is not worth it. Other affilates do the same. End of the day it's $25 to the sponsor, $5 to the affiliate and $20 to google.

The sponsor can always outbid the affiliate, cos he has $50 margin to play with, so why they need the affiliate in this scenario, I don't understand, but as I said I never bought adwords. If my understanding is correct then it's google and the affilaites who use adwords that are "ruining the industry". Tho I don't subscribe to the premise that anyone has a right to a business, you just get in there and fight for your share, or get out and buy a pub.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

I think your logic is spot on.

[rogue]

i tried google adword and got mildly burnt, where would you suggest i invest my cash Shift?

[refund]

End of the day it's $25 to the sponsor, $5 to the affiliate and $20 to google.
I must be missing something here. How do you figure its 25 bucks to the sponsor?

[wankmaster]

Just for sake of argument the signup is worth $50, then if google make $20 the affilaite makes $5 ( cos he paid out some to google ) then there's $25 left.

Figures only to illustrate the point that google eats into the cake.

[refund]

Just for sake of argument the signup is worth $50, then if google make $20 the affilaite makes $5 ( cos he paid out some to google ) then there's $25 left.

Figures only to illustrate the point that google eats into the cake.
OK, I sort of get it. What you are illustrating is advertising costs of the affiliate. Because the sponsor only wishes he could pocket the full $25.00.

[wankmaster]

The sponsor would like to pocket the full $50 in this illustration. If he say paid $40 to google then he ( the sponsor ) woud still make $10. The affiliate could not afford to compete.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

i tried google adword and got mildly burnt, where would you suggest i invest my cash Shift?

I probably wouldn't be the best person to ask, as I'm still testing the waters :)

I dabble in google, and some of the smaller ppc engines, I've also contacted a few niche oriented forums and got my links into rotation, that seemed to work halfway decent if you can find a good enough price, and they don't give away torrent links or anything like that.

[refund]

The sponsor would like to pocket the full $50 in this illustration. If he say paid $40 to google then he ( the sponsor ) woud still make $10. The affiliate could not afford to compete.
But the sponsor has a lot of expenses that the affiliate does not have. So no matter what, those amounts are not available to the sponsor for advertising.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

But the sponsor has a lot of expenses that the affiliate does not have. So no matter what, those amounts are not available to the sponsor for advertising.

But still, just by the fact that the sponsor can pay out 50% that implies they have more of the money available out of the 100% payout than an affiliate ever will, therefore can spend more out of that percentage on purchasing google clicks (or otherwise)....say after expenses they make 80%........still leaves more leeway.

[wankmaster]

But the sponsor has a lot of expenses that the affiliate does not have. So no matter what, those amounts are not available to the sponsor for advertising.

Everyone's expenses are irrelevant, in my illustration I'm taking about net profit after expenses, the actual figures don't matter.

As a seprate point, it really depends how you allocate your expenses, there are many ways to do this, anyone who ever got involved in factory cost accounting will tell you it's not an exact science. For the sponsor "cut"
you're operating almost a fixed cost busines, the cost of serving another member of your website is small, basically it's the bandwidth plus any customer support costs.

[refund]

But still, just by the fact that the sponsor can pay out 50% that implies they have more of the money available out of the 100% payout than an affiliate ever will, therefore can spend more out of that percentage on purchasing google clicks (or otherwise)....say after expenses they make 80%........still leaves more leeway.

Lets think about that. Sign up is fifty bucks. The sponsor buys a sign up for 25 dollars. Then he pays 15% to the billing company, say $7.50, another 4 dollars for content, 1 dollar for bandwidth and then say $2.00 for paper clips etc. That leaves about ten bucks (some of these figures are guesswork) to the sponsor.

[wankmaster]

No, the profit is $50 after the sponsor has paid for his paperclips and toilet roll etc.

The figures don't matter, make it $40, $30 to affiliate if you like. These are not real figures.

[refund]

No, the profit is $50 after the sponsor has paid for his paperclips and toilet roll etc.

The figures don't matter, make it $40, $30 to affiliate if you like. These are not real figures.
sorry I wrote my last post after I saw you posted "net" profit.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Lets think about that. Sign up is fifty bucks. The sponsor buys a sign up for 25 dollars. Then he pays 15% to the billing company, say $7.50, another 4 dollars for content, 1 dollar for bandwidth and then say $2.00 for paper clips etc. That leaves about ten bucks (some of these figures are guesswork) to the sponsor.

He was already allocating that 25 to go to an affiliate anyway, does it really matter if he spends that 25 on advertising, or he lets an affiliate get the signup anyway he sees fit? either way it costs him 25 for the signup.

Either way, he still has the billing company, etc expenses..........somewhere in that additional 25 bucks, there is some profit, else it would be pointless to have affiliates.

[Paul Markham]

If it were as easy as buying Adwords on Google all the sponsors would be doing it themselves. Why pay someone 50% of your TURNOVER to do something as easy as buy Adwords that cost -for instance- 35% of your turnover.

Same goes for any other traffic generation method. If it's that easy the sponsors would all be doing it themselves.

Truth is it's not and that's why everyone has affiliates, rather than employ people in house to do it.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Sponsors DO buy adwords.

Some even steal your keywords from you if you don't do something to protect which keywords are used to go to their tour :)

[Cardinal_Sin]

If it were as easy as buying Adwords on Google all the sponsors would be doing it themselves. Why pay someone 50% of your TURNOVER to do something as easy as buy Adwords that cost -for instance- 35% of your turnover.

Same goes for any other traffic generation method. If it's that easy the sponsors would all be doing it themselves.

Truth is it's not and that's why everyone has affiliates, rather than employ people in house to do it.

Many sponsors buy adwords - I have been doing this for a long time.

It is, at the end of the day, down to the cost of the join/sale -
The lower that cost becomes, the higher the profit margins.

I do not agree, tho, with sponsors that steal keywords by advertising against affiliates who have earned those keywords - This is plainly wrong.

[SGS]

We don't buy any adwords at all as we know that several affiliates have run adwords campaigns and the last thing we want to do is end up taking away *any* sales from affiliates.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

We don't buy any adwords at all as we know that several affiliates have run adwords campaigns and the last thing we want to do is end up taking away *any* sales from affiliates.

Awesome, upstanding, sponsor policy.

Bravo.

[SGS]

Awesome, upstanding, sponsor policy.

Bravo.

It just always made business sense to us to not conflict with affiliates in any way. We have a lot of awesome affiliates that make a lot of sales with us so we give them the tools to do that and then give them all the help that they need to make as many sales as possible.

A conversation about submitting galleries last week had me thinking actually. I did some digging around in some old back-ups and found that we haven’t submitted a single gallery here since about 2001 either. :)

[Paul Markham]

Sponsors DO buy adwords.

Some even steal your keywords from you if you don't do something to protect which keywords are used to go to their tour :)
That is plain wrong. I would imagine a large cost of Adwords is finding the ones that work best, for a sponsor to just start using yours and out bidding is ethically wrong.

Never tried them, but I do know people who swear by them. Not sure if they would work for a general teens site.

[mOBSCENE]

I triple my money every day using Adwords. But it took a long time to learn how to get things right.

It's not always the best idea to send an Adwords ad straight to a sponsor. Turns out the surfer doesn't want that site, you've lost the click - send it to a page of your own, and you can filter the traffic further, and do other things with it.

I apologise if I am ruining the industry :)

Having said that, I didn't get my google Christmas present, so in the New Year they can get stuffed :(

[Paul Markham]

I triple my money every day using Adwords. But it took a long time to learn how to get things right.

It's not always the best idea to send an Adwords ad straight to a sponsor. Turns out the surfer doesn't want that site, you've lost the click - send it to a page of your own, and you can filter the traffic further, and do other things with it.

I apologise if I am ruining the industry :)

Having said that, I didn't get my google Christmas present, so in the New Year they can get stuffed :(
In my very limited knowledge I would say anyone sending traffic, he truly owns, straight to a sponsor is doing it wrong or not thinking too deep. Send it to a site, blog, review site where you can qualify, sort and upsell him. The losses will be out weighed by the gains.

IMO too many send the surfer straight to the sponsor and wonder why they lose him. Give him something to come back to. Of course if you are relying on free content, free hosting, free banners, free galleries, then it's not 100% your traffic.

[ciggiez]

I think that anyone using AdWords for adult needs to be very careful in how they use them.

I think that they will only work for very tightly defined niches where free content is not so easy to find through all of the TGP's, etc.

It is also vital not to make the offer sound too attractive. Put the price on there, i.e. $29.95 per month. In this way, most of the freebie hunters should waste someone else's marketing bucks.

I also don't know why everyone is desperate to bid for the top spot. As long as you are on the first page, this is all you need as the surfer will probably check out several links before he finds what he's looking for.

[wankmaster]

I'm understanding a bit more how this adword malarky works then.

I can see that sending it to an affiliate page for filtering can make sense.
In the days before google adwords the "cake" was shared between sponsor and affiliate, now google had its nose in the trough, without producing any extra signups.

Mobscene: Nice to see someone stepping up to the plate to shoulder the guilt for "runining the industry" the lads will be around with a rope and a stepladder later.

[Merlin]

I've posted this before on here but Adwords have never worked for me. Only some of the hits actually came from google and most were from two-bit sites with little relevance to what I'd been selling. I suspect they used bots to increase their click ratios too. Adwords have been discussed on this board before, and on other boards of course, and although I might be wrong my impression is that considerably more than 50% of people make a loss and only a few people seem to get them to work for them.

[Cardinal_Sin]

I've posted this before on here but Adwords have never worked for me. Only some of the hits actually came from google and most were from two-bit sites with little relevance to what I'd been selling. I suspect they used bots to increase their click ratios too. Adwords have been discussed on this board before, and on other boards of course, and although I might be wrong my impression is that considerably more than 50% of people make a loss and only a few people seem to get them to work for them.

As has already been stated - Using a drop page is vital as you need to get the most out of your outlay.
I only use avnads and the traffic goes to said drop page - From there, the traffic is filtered to a few of my sites and a few sites I am an affiliate of.
I also display avn ads there, too.
So 2 of the 4 ways the ads work for me are selling memberships and by surfers hopefully clicking on the ads -
I also make by sending some of the traffic back to some of my sites which are similar in make up - (With galleries for helping to push a sale), again, more avn ads on these sites.
The final plus comes from having backlinks to my drop site on over 500 other sites - This helps with gaining search engine traffic - The se traffic is free, of course, but in reality, it is paid for with the advertising - However, it is one of the cheapest ways to gain sales - It in no way interferres with my affiliates because this is more site marketing rather than the google type of adwords - And, should my affiliate do this form of marketing, it is totally up to them how they would describe the site they are using as a drop site. (in other words, as I previously stated - I am not over-writing or stealing keywords from partners - This is paid advertising across hundreds of sites that accept cash for hard links with a decent description.

[Merlin]

As has already been stated - Using a drop page is vital as you need to get the most out of your outlay.

I take your point. Ads are bound to work better for webmasters with lots of sites because once you've got the surfer into your network he bounces around a few times before he gets out so more chance of him buying.

[Paul Markham]

I take your point. Ads are bound to work better for webmasters with lots of sites because once you've got the surfer into your network he bounces around a few times before he gets out so more chance of him buying.
That network could be sites you don't own. It could be a network of sponsors sites with a write up or selection of galleries or just some samples. It does not need to be a network of sites you own.

[cock-a-leekie]

He was already allocating that 25 to go to an affiliate anyway, does it really matter if he spends that 25 on advertising, or he lets an affiliate get the signup anyway he sees fit? either way it costs him 25 for the signup.

Either way, he still has the billing company, etc expenses..........somewhere in that additional 25 bucks, there is some profit, else it would be pointless to have affiliates.

Doesn't work like that. No sponsor wants to pay 50% but once one starts to pay that out, everyone else MUST follow suit, after all would you be tempted to join a program that pays out 25%?

So why have affiliates? To get exposure. Having 100 webmasters promoting your content on forums, blogs, tgps, niche sites etc. is the best form of exposure you can get. OK so you don't earn anything from their sign-ups, but if it covers your expenses it's FREE marketing.

The money does come though. What happens to all those hits that don't join? That traffic can still be of use, and what about the punters that have a good look but don't join there and then? They'll be back sometime and the sponsor could be in for the full 100%. Once they've joined a sponsor has GOLD traffic that he knows will pay, he can upsell to them. And then there's the main earner (repeat custom) the punters that cancelled after a month and then re-join 3 or four months later, once there's a bit more content on offer. They nearlly always re-join at the main domain, giving the sponsor 100% again.

The bottom line is that even if a sponsor isn't initially making money from your link, his site will still grow from the exposure provided by his affiliates. Given a bit of time this will make him money one way or another.

[Paul Markham]

What cock-a-leekie said.

The site owners not going for the rejoins are missing out on a lot of money. Assuming they know how to get a client to come back.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Doesn't work like that. No sponsor wants to pay 50% but once one starts to pay that out, everyone else MUST follow suit, after all would you be tempted to join a program that pays out 25%?

So why have affiliates? To get exposure. Having 100 webmasters promoting your content on forums, blogs, tgps, niche sites etc. is the best form of exposure you can get. OK so you don't earn anything from their sign-ups, but if it covers your expenses it's FREE marketing.

The money does come though. What happens to all those hits that don't join? That traffic can still be of use, and what about the punters that have a good look but don't join there and then? They'll be back sometime and the sponsor could be in for the full 100%. Once they've joined a sponsor has GOLD traffic that he knows will pay, he can upsell to them. And then there's the main earner (repeat custom) the punters that cancelled after a month and then re-join 3 or four months later, once there's a bit more content on offer. They nearlly always re-join at the main domain, giving the sponsor 100% again.

The bottom line is that even if a sponsor isn't initially making money from your link, his site will still grow from the exposure provided by his affiliates. Given a bit of time this will make him money one way or another.


Yeah, I get where you are coming from. There are lots of ways they are making money. member area upsells, etc. Was just using the 50 as a generic number as it was used before.

Every paysite is going to have a different number as to which a signed up surfer is worth to them. Guess that is how some start offering those crazy payout days.

[Paul Markham]

Guess that is how some start offering those crazy payout days.
They do those days because 100 affiliates sign up and send traffic that will never sign up on the day needed to make the bonus.

Thought about doing it, but it's dishonest IMO.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

They do those days because 100 affiliates sign up and send traffic that will never sign up on the day needed to make the bonus.

Thought about doing it, but it's dishonest IMO.

It's fairly shady, plus everyone suspects heavy shaving from the programs anyway, because ratios are usually horrible on those days because everyone and their grandmothers is pushing the program.

[Paul Markham]

It's fairly shady, plus everyone suspects heavy shaving from the programs anyway, because ratios are usually horrible on those days because everyone and their grandmothers is pushing the program.
Well you know what to do don't you. Avoid those programs like the plague.

We made the decision very early we would never go that route. We upped payouts to 75% and kept them at that rate for months. We could afford it because everything the paysite makes is profit after the affiliates and CCBILL is paid. Plus rejoins are worth a lot of money.

However after talking to some experienced webmasters they said we could not afford it without shaving so they did not join. :banghead:

[Kinky John]

Same goes for any other traffic generation method. If it's that easy the sponsors would all be doing it themselves.

Truth is it's not and that's why everyone has affiliates, rather than employ people in house to do it.

utter crap . . take a look at the larger US programs

loads of them have in-house submitters, SEO & traffic people now

[Paul Markham]

utter crap . . take a look at the larger US programs

loads of them have in-house submitters, SEO & traffic people now
Sorry I meant rely on it totally, we have a girl who does a bit and looking for another.

[Jel]

As you go through message boards, resource sites, tutorials, etc. There are people always talking to newbies how to increase their traffic, make sales, etc, with link lists, tgp, blogs, etc....

The more time you put in though, you start to see that most of that really isn't worth the time of just purchasing a good deal of your traffic. I've noticed this is where most people end up at, though it is the least talked about (openly anyway) aspect of this business.

Does anyone still think there are ways out there to make a good income at this (by good, I mean at least 80-100k a year) via traditional means as a single person operation?

I doubt it more everyday, your thoughts?

...............and if that is the case, is all this chatter just a way to placate the newbies, keep them supplying new content for established sites, purchasing content they will never make a return on, and feed that end of the adult webmaster market, and to give newbie oriented webmaster boards a stream of eyes to see sponsor ads?

Hmm. Yes, you can earn 80-100k per year as a single operation purely as an affiliate via traditional methods. How long that would take a complete newbie starting today I couldn't answer, nor could anyone really, except a person who sees this thread today and starts out, then comes back when they are at that level.

I delved a bit into adwords earlier this year, until they introduced their quality rating system or whatever the correct name is, and I was fairly lucky with it for a short time, but I don't use it now, more through ignorance of knowing the intricacies and not wanting to get burned more than anything else.

Tried Choker and traffic-out also earlier in the year, more for funneling traffic to other sources which in turn would create a longer term return in a different way to direct sales. Not good enough at analysis to work out whether that really paid off.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Hmm. Yes, you can earn 80-100k per year as a single operation purely as an affiliate via traditional methods. How long that would take a complete newbie starting today I couldn't answer, nor could anyone really, except a person who sees this thread today and starts out, then comes back when they are at that level.

I delved a bit into adwords earlier this year, until they introduced their quality rating system or whatever the correct name is, and I was fairly lucky with it for a short time, but I don't use it now, more through ignorance of knowing the intricacies and not wanting to get burned more than anything else.

Tried Choker and traffic-out also earlier in the year, more for funneling traffic to other sources which in turn would create a longer term return in a different way to direct sales. Not good enough at analysis to work out whether that really paid off.

That quality score thing, although I know it is a failsafe for them, really makes things rough on webmasters.

Not sure what the reasoning is behind some of the scores, or how they calculate them. I'd like an explanation of how they come to the conclusion, but I think they must just use another algo they came up with to determine it.

[Jel]

Another annoying thing is when you get an ad(s) disapproved, and they give you that standard link to 'unnacceptable content' which makes it as clear as mud what the specific problem is. Takes about 4 emails of saying 'what is the exact problem so I can correct it' to find out.

[Krusty]

They do those days because 100 affiliates sign up and send traffic that will never sign up on the day needed to make the bonus.

Thought about doing it, but it's dishonest IMO.
so you're accusing sponsors like PC of being dishonest?????

they actually give some warning so that affiliates have TIME to set up a decent traffic flow. There's no guarantee that ANYONE will make a sale in any case unless you yourself actually flip out the CC and sign up.. if they're a webmaster with good sales skills, i think they'd have a fair chance.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Another annoying thing is when you get an ad(s) disapproved, and they give you that standard link to 'unnacceptable content' which makes it as clear as mud what the specific problem is. Takes about 4 emails of saying 'what is the exact problem so I can correct it' to find out.

Google is the fucking worst at that shit. My theory is that their ad approval department is outsourced to Bangladesh, and then the Indians outsource that out to helper monkeys at the zoo.

I feel like encyclopedia brown when I make an attempt at deciphering their cryptic emails.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

so you're accusing sponsors like PC of being dishonest?????

they actually give some warning so that affiliates have TIME to set up a decent traffic flow. There's no guarantee that ANYONE will make a sale in any case unless you yourself actually flip out the CC and sign up.. if they're a webmaster with good sales skills, i think they'd have a fair chance.

I think it is more a case of the sponsor being everywhere that day because more people are pushing them, .404ing direct, etc, so the surfer is seeing the hell out of them. There probably is a bit of shaving as well from some sponsors (not pointing any fingers anywhere, just saying).

I've noticed huge shifts in signups during those days, matter of fact I'd rather they give away a trip or some shit, because for the amount of traffic I send, I could have made more if ratios stayed exactly the same, and I got paid the regular amount.

Meh, Meh x 2.

[Redhotca]

One of the things I will be trying is some ppc adds in the next few days, but i have a couple questions. On the landing page should I only use one sponsor or a few different sponsors promoting the same niche? Or should I make it multiple pages with some filtering for serious buyers send them to a sponsor tour and the surfers looking for free porn to say a top list? any thoughts on this are much welcomed tia.....Redhotca

[_LB_]

Well you know what to do don't you. Avoid those programs like the plague.

We made the decision very early we would never go that route. We upped payouts to 75% and kept them at that rate for months. We could afford it because everything the paysite makes is profit after the affiliates and CCBILL is paid. Plus rejoins are worth a lot of money.

However after talking to some experienced webmasters they said we could not afford it without shaving so they did not join. :banghead:


..... and enter the SPAM. Usually you hit us with spam by your 2nd post, hats off you waited a little this time :)


Anyhow paul addressing your earlier post, most smart sponsors do buy Adwords and traffic in general. I know you don't realise it but there is a very very large world outside the relatively small TGP pond.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

One of the things I will be trying is some ppc adds in the next few days, but i have a couple questions. On the landing page should I only use one sponsor or a few different sponsors promoting the same niche? Or should I make it multiple pages with some filtering for serious buyers send them to a sponsor tour and the surfers looking for free porn to say a top list? any thoughts on this are much welcomed tia.....Redhotca

I've been having better luck offering a couple options, if the terms you are buying are broad enough. If it is something like black lesbians or something, and you can only find one site, then a fake warning page direct to the site is probably the way to go.

On this type of traffic, I wouldn't try to send them to a multipage site, unless it is something you are trying to brand, or unless you have sent traffic through this portal and have seen that conversions are very good. Others may have a different opinion though.

also make sure you minus out words like free, password, gallery, etc. so you minimize paying for freeloaders on your campaigns.

[Jel]

Do you guys state the price in your ads, when sending directly to 1 sponsor?

[_LB_]

Do you guys state the price in your ads, when sending directly to 1 sponsor?

Adwords typically no. Depends on whether its a heavily contested keyword or not. A boost in ctr can mean you pay 4c a click instead of 7c, which really makes a difference... much more than mentioning the price.

There are so many variables its hard to give a rule of thumb for landing page, number of sponsors or things like mentioning price.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Adwords typically no. Depends on whether its a heavily contested keyword or not. A boost in ctr can mean you pay 4c a click instead of 7c, which really makes a difference... much more than mentioning the price.

There are so many variables its hard to give a rule of thumb for landing page, number of sponsors or things like mentioning price.

Hm, never thought of it that way about dropping the per click price like that. Gotta rework a few things.

Landing pages are rough, I hate that whole quality score bs, because usually the pages that score ok, are pages that don't make any money, and vice verse. Meh, what can you do.

[_LB_]

Hm, never thought of it that way about dropping the per click price like that. Gotta rework a few things.

Landing pages are rough, I hate that whole quality score bs, because usually the pages that score ok, are pages that don't make any money, and vice verse. Meh, what can you do.

Tweak and tweak and tweak.

There are a few factors in landing page score that aren't too well known. Hit me up sometime mate and I will run you through them :)

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

Tweak and tweak and tweak.

There are a few factors in landing page score that aren't too well known. Hit me up sometime mate and I will run you through them :)

Gracias my man, Gracias.

[Jel]

Adwords typically no. Depends on whether its a heavily contested keyword or not. A boost in ctr can mean you pay 4c a click instead of 7c, which really makes a difference... much more than mentioning the price.

There are so many variables its hard to give a rule of thumb for landing page, number of sponsors or things like mentioning price.

That's a good point. I wonder if it'd be considered cheating to click on your own ads that do display a price to get the cost down and the position moved up? Any thoughts on that?

[Sexvilly]

I follow LB's earlier advice and put the price in each AdCopy.

cost per click start to go down when CTR reaches 20%+ (you AdCopy goes on top of all the results). sometimes you can start with 0.05 and over the time (several months) it drops by itself to 0.01-0.02. I do not normally bid over 0.05, LB's advice again. only in rare cases if minimum is few cents higher, but then it stills go down below 0.05 in a short period of time.

and I send hits directly to the sponsor. (try warning/tour/updates/whatever/join page and you might get totally different results.

and try Yahoo PPC too, heard in several places of its better quality traffic than AdWords. minium CPC is 0.10 though.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

I follow LB's earlier advice and put the price in each AdCopy.

cost per click start to go down when CTR reaches 20%+ (you AdCopy goes on top of all the results). sometimes you can start with 0.05 and over the time (several months) it drops by itself to 0.01-0.02. I do not normally bid over 0.05, LB's advice again. only in rare cases if minimum is few cents higher, but then it stills go down below 0.05 in a short period of time.

and I send hits directly to the sponsor. (try warning/tour/updates/whatever/join page and you might get totally different results.

and try Yahoo PPC too, heard in several places of its better quality traffic than AdWords. minium CPC is 0.10 though.

Just be careful who you are sending direct to, as they may snatch your keywords away from you and use them for themselves.

Not sure if it was a typeo, but LB said not to put the price of the thing in the ad.

[Jel]

I tried yahoo earlier in the year, and though I can't remember the details, the upshot was that no ads were ever shown, and it was so much aggro (most likely my own fault) that I ended up just asking for my money back.

[Nottslad]

I tried yahoo earlier in the year, and though I can't remember the details, the upshot was that no ads were ever shown, and it was so much aggro (most likely my own fault) that I ended up just asking for my money back.

I had the same experience, a sponsor offered a promo $100 overture credit to promote their site. I tried and tried with my ads but could never got any approved. In the end I gave up and still have the $100 credit sitting there which I feel a little guilty about.

[TheShiftyEyedBastard]

I had the same experience, a sponsor offered a promo $100 overture credit to promote their site. I tried and tried with my ads but could never got any approved. In the end I gave up and still have the $100 credit sitting there which I feel a little guilty about.

Yeah, I hear overture is a real bitch to get ads accepted.

Also, don't they have a .10 min on clicks? Kind of steep for some keywords.