Stats #11 - I need to start pushing!

I need to start pushing! The foundation is set and I just need to push my campaigns harder. My goal is to always gain more money than the previous month(which I have been doing), but I really want to just explode this month. To do that I just need to increase my daily spending limit and expand to more SE’s. This is the time to do it because this will be the last month of summer. I already bought a laptop to prepare for school and affiliate marketing away from my desktop. Everything should be set.
Wisdom Teeth

Tomorrow(Aug 1st) is the day I get my wisdom teeth pulled out. Hopefully everything goes well and I have no complications. Because of this I will prob be out a few days from anything. I know I will be sleeping most of the day tomorrow and more than usual the day after. I really need to get some stuff done tonight to prepare for my absence the next few days.

Stats

This is for the month of July. Stats could be better, but meh… better than last month.

Spent: $976.06
Gross: $1790.05
Net: $813.99

Stats #10 - Ginormous Post

Since I have been posting really slacking on my post content I thought I would make a ginormous post today. Sorry for being late on the stats, but I have a reason for that(which I will explain below).

Hooks

First, lets see how I decide which keywords to use/stay with. When I first start a campaign I like to just throw everything up to test. Any keywords that I think are relevant are used. Of course I don’t just shove all these keywords into the same ad group. I like to organize my ad groups per base keywords. Example:

ad group1: delicious apples
green delicious apples
blue delicious apples
red delicious apples

ad group2: yummy apples
green yummy apples
blue yummy apples
red yummy apples

You see? delicious and yummy are the base keywords. I do that to all the keywords and just test them. While testing I look for what converts.. or as I like to call them, “hooks”. If yummy apples converts and delicious apples doesn’t, then the term “yummy apples” is the hook. I then make sure I use this base keyword for any other keyword that it’s relevant with. Some people like to organize their keywords by using the adwords keyword grouper, but I like my method a little better. The google keyword grouper does save a lot of time though.

Promote my Blog:
Now that I’m finally getting settled into AM, I’m trying to promote my blog a lot more. It’s great to see people reading my blog and actually gain something from it. Whether it be AM knowledge or motivation, I will continue to write to help not only myself, but the readers.

To promote my blog I plan to comment on other blogs. I experimented with comments before and saw amazing results. I used to get a steady flow of 20+ readers when I commented regularly, but now that number has dropped to >10. I will post my blog stats along with my earnings starting next week.

Late Post:

I usually post around sunday or monday, but I had something really fucked up happen to me yesterday. A doctor recommended that I use an over the counter ear wax removal solution b/c I have really bad ear wax. I bought some yesterday and used it hoping it will help me… WRONG! I’m pretty sure the stuff does work, but I had no idea how to use it. The directions are very vague and don’t explain wtf you’re supposed to do after applying into the ear. Anyways, I made the problem worse and ended up sealing the entire ear hole up with ear wax. I could not hear from my right ear at all. I was pretty freaked out and depressed at the same time so I chose not to post :p yea.. I’m a pussy.

To top it off I had to goto the doc this morning to get it fixed. I’m not mad at the fact of going to the doc, but paying for it really hurt me. My health insurance ended a few days ago and even if I did have my old insurance I would have to drive a long ways just to get to the doc. Instead, I went to a local physician/doc and had to self pay which was around $140. Yea.. $100 for seeing the doc and $40 to get the ear wax out. I can’t wait to get health insurance from my school. If it costs me that much money to see the doc for a simple procedure, I don’t know how other uninsured people do it. I can’t wait to get the insurance provided by my school. /rant

Stats:

These stats are for July 1 - 21. Am I happy about them? hell yea!

Spent: $583.25
Gross: $1104.25
Net: $521

I really need to expand…

I really need to expand and vary my campaigns. I feel like most of my success is riding on one campaign and that has gotten me scared. I have 2 other campaigns which are doing alright, but not enough to be happy about. In fact, I only have 1 decent campaign and the rest are very unstable. One day I can earn $40+ a day, but the next it will be zero. I am however going to work on these campaigns until they are stable again. It sucks to have my campaigns like this, but it’s better than nothing. This is my focus for the next few weeks. To expand to multiple stable campaigns.

To even further expand on this point, I plan to start content sites with adsense to gain a different type of income stream. I initially started with adsense before AM so I am not a total noob. Hopefully it will work out for me because I have never successfully run a site with much luck using adsense. This won’t come until some time though.

Anyways, this is a very short update I know. Not much to talk about. cya until next time.

Stats #9 - Sometimes you just need to increase the bids

Here we are again with another update. Recently, I had discovered that a campaigns true potential may not be fully met if bids are not set correctly. I like to start my campaigns at a very low CPC to test the waters(a little backwards I know). If I see potential I just start expanding with the current CPC. Eventually, I just forget about the low cpc all together and move on. Well, while tweaking a campaign earlier this week I had remembered about this and increased the cpc on all the keywords by $0.10. Doing so dramatically helped the campaign. At first I thought it would equal out earnings vs cpc cost, but I actually earned a lot more than I have payed. There are so many things to tweak in a campaign. If you make changes that has a positive impact on your campaigns, you may end up sitting on an even bigger gold mine.

Stats:

These are the stats for July 1 - 14th.

Spent: $323.97
Gross: $669.25
Net: $345.28

A scary realization

After countless hours of work put into AM it finally feels as though I am gaining ground. It’s awesome that I’m making money off AM, but I have come to a scary realization. If I continue on the path I’m currently on, I will be on my own when it comes to paying for college. At the moment my tuition fee is mainly payed by loans and grants. If I report that I have earned $x amount of money for the year of 2007-2008, I may not get any grants or loans(not nearly as much anyway). Then again I may just be thinking too deep into this. Also, I have to keep in mind that my earnings may be far greater than I could ever get from loans or grants combined. I would love to be independent, but I don’t want to be worried about expenses if it comes to the point where I’m not doing as well in AM as I am now.

Enough with that.. time for some campaign updates!

Campaign 1:

I havn’t talked much about campaign 1 and there is a reason for that. Because it has been stable for such a long time there has not been a reason to make changes.. therefore no updates. I’ve talked to my affiliate manager recently and he suggested some changes which drastically improved this campaign by 100%. There’s still some stuff I can work on with this campaign, but it’s not my main focus atm.

Campaign 2:

As some of you may remember, this campaign has been causing some problems in the past few weeks. I’ve been working on changing this and turning it into a money maker. I’m slowly getting back into the groove with this campaign. It makes far less than campaign one, but has the potential to become something bigger. I would be happy if I’m able to make $40 a day off this offer.

Everything Else…

Campaign 3 and 4 are complete shit. The competition is just too great. I already deleted campaign 4 and I might do the same for 3. We shall see…

I hope to have stats by sunday night or monday morning. I know that’s all some of you care about

Stats #8 How much do you like AM?

What makes a great marketer is their ability to push through any and all adversity. Making money online in the comfort of ones home is a dream for many. Although the opportunities are abundant within the realm of AM alone, many people don’t capitalize on this opportunity. If you goto any AM forum, there will always be new guys wanting to learn how to make mega bucks off what I and many others do. Unfortunately, many of these new guys often fail miserably. Why? AM is such a simple concept, why isn’t everyone succeeding at it? Simply put, they don’t like it enough.

There are people who love what they do and there are people who think they love what they do. The group who loves their job does it well no matter the outcome - good or bad. The group who think they like what they do are living a life of missed opportunities. These people have not found a profession that truly meets their interests. These are the people who don’t overcome adversity and will slowly disappear off into the void.

Where do I stand? Honestly, I love AM, but need a kick in the ass a few times to get going. This such kick in the ass came from my dad earlier this week. I was at this italian place eating breakfast with my parents when the issue of my future career was brought up. Of course they were asking about what profession I was looking into etc. Long story short I mentioned computer science/programming/web development and my dad basically disagreed with me. After some scuffle(we didn’t really have a full blown argument) I felt the need to succeed in AM more than ever. If I ever come into my own and become a true success, the feeling of “I told you so” would be greater than ever.

Sorry no real updates on my campaigns for this post. I will save that for later.

Stats July 1 - 7

Worked on my campaigns a little before the beginning of the month and so far so good.

Spent: $135.14
Gross: $283
Net: $147.86

Balance is key

Balancing activities is key to good work habits and I’m learning that the hard way. Recently, I’ve discovered that I’m a very motivated person that requires a “buffer”. What do I mean by a buffer? Simply put… I need free time in between my activities. I like to get things done in segments and spread them out throughout the day. The longer I work the more buffer I need between each activity. Because I have a real job now, the rest of my time has been going to anything but AM. I work 8 hours a day and come home around 10PM… that doesn’t leave much time for me to work and still have my “buffer”. Yes I do work on my online stuff before and after work, but not as productively as if I had the full day to work on it.

Anyways, I need to work out a system that allows me to work and have a buffer time. To do this I will probably dedicate my off days to AM and nothing else. Lately, I’ve been doing anything but AM and I’m kicking myself for it. Summer is almost over and I need to make the most of it before I leave for college.

Speaking of college, I just went to orientation for transfer students on the 5th(left on the 4th). I got accepted to the University of Texas at Austin That school is massive and has a good vibe to it. If anyone around campus wants to get together to talk AM stuff I’ll be more than happy to meet up with you. I’m currently registered as a comp sci major. I was totally unsure of my major until I gave it some thought this morning.

Although I don’t see myself coding programs for a living, I do see myself coding PHP web applications. I can’t believe I never considered this path to begin with. I actually discovered this career path on accident when surfing for jobs as a computer science major. A php job was listed and after searching “php”, I found many jobs for php programmers. Most of them have a requirement such as knowledge in html, css, db’s, graphic design, etc… I meet all of them!!!! Don’t get me wrong, I would love to do AM full time but it’s nice to have a stable job to fall back on if AM fails for me. Not to mention my parents will freak if I tell them I want to throw away the education they helped pay for to pursue moneys on the interwebs

Stats #7 Finally

Yes sorry again for my laziness. I guess that week off wasn’t enough. I don’t know why, but I’ve lost a lot of drive that I once had. The main problem is probably because the repetition is getting to me. I’ve made a post about always staying busy. With that in mind I’ve started a new campaign while working on my old ones too. Yes, it’s also in a really competitive niche. Similar to campaign 3(which I only made around $40 in 2 weeks :().

Now I will have 4 campaigns!

New Challenge:

I need something fresh to work with so I’m going to test search engines other than google, yahoo, and msn. I know most other ppc engines suck, but one of them has to be decent… we shall see.

Stats:

Stats are really fucking horrible… I blame it on campaign 2 which absolutely bombed. It still currently sucks. still workin on it

Spent: $853.77
Gross: $1213.30
Net: $359.53

Stats #6 and Updates

Sorry for not posting throughout the week, I didn’t feel like working on my campaigns so I just took a break. Now that I feel revitalized, I want to head AM straight on once again. So far, I’ve signed up for hydra media. That makes my AM network count to 4. Azoogle, copeac, maxbounty, and hydra. I’m expanding simply to get more offers. Hopefully hydra is as good as people say.

Campaign 2:

As some of you may know, my campaign 2 has been shitty these past few weeks. After finally finding an offer I liked, it was pulled once again. Because of that I just stopped the campaign. I was going to give up on it until I realized that I updated the landing page and that I needed to retest everything(well.. the offers that I liked anyways). I previously learned that different elements on a landing page can affect leads. Every time I make a drastic change on a landing page I try to retest it with the old offers. We’ll see how it goes.

Campaign 3:

My third campaign is a little tough. I mentioned that it was very competitive and it remains true. My ratio is pretty good so far at 1:3. I’ve gotten triple returns on my money spent. Too bad it’s only like 3 leads. I think I just need to up the bids and I will do fine.

Stats:

Looks like I will beat the gross of my previous month.. not sure about the net. I hate failed campaigns

Spent: $731.51
Gross: $971.70
Net: $240.19

stats #5 and updates

Sorry for the wait. I simply lost track of time. Been working on my second and third campaign a lot throughout this week. And now for the updates!

Campaign 2:

As I stated earlier, I’ve been working on the landing page for this campaign to boost leads and I think I have finally settled on a version I like. I’ve also switched the offer yet again(turns out my 2 successful days were a fluke) and moved them over to copeac. Initially, I didn’t want to move until I made a certain amount on a single network, but I threw that idea out the window once I found out none of the offers azoogle had for that niche worked for me. Copeac’s offer on the other hand has converted quite well with my traffic We’ll see how it does throughout the week.

Campaign 3:

Campaign 3 has been a real challenge. One, it is in one of the most competitive niche’s on the market. two, I’m getting very little ppc traffic and therefore can’t get any info out of it. I was feeling like quiting on this niche until I looked in my stats again and it said I had another lead! Now I have 2! I’m still at $0.80 ecpc too. So far it has been 1 lead every other day(I haven’t really checked the past couple of days). I’ve also decided to reorganize the ppc campaign so I deleted all the adgroups a moment ago and will start over from scratch. I got most of the main ones reuploaded, but I still have a ways to go.

Should I start a new campaign?

I’m thinking about starting another campaign again. Not sure if this is a good idea since it will take time away from my current campaigns which still hasn’t reached their potential. I mean, I already have the niche category picked out, just need some thoughts. What do you guys think?

Contacts!

Yea I got contacts today. It took me FOREVER to get them on. My eyes hurt like a bitch now from me poking at it all day. I just took them out and it didn’t take nearly as long, but it was still scary to think that I may not be able to take em out. After putting them on I have realized that I have been missing out on the world. Everything is so much clearer now. I feel like just walking around outside with em on to stare at stuff. Yes, I did have glasses before, but I only wore them during class lol.

Stats:

Still horrendous. Next week should be better now all the smoke has cleared from the destruction of campaign 2. These stats are only for June 1 - 16.

Spent: $544.19
Gross: $713.90
Net: $169.71