An Affiliate Marketer from the Ground Up

I remember my first few PPC campaigns. They were, for the most part complete failures. I say 'for the most part' because if you're learning then there's something good happening...and did I learn!!

When I opened my Adwords, Adcenter and Yahoo accounts, I found some online vouchers from all three and got some 'free' money to start with. I did have to put up some of my own money of course, but what I was 'learning' with, for the most part, was not out of my pocket. The downside to this was I didn't really study

enough before I launched my campaigns because I knew I had very little to lose.

Although I did have some conversions, I lost big time. One of my many mistakes was trying to compete in a very heavily saturated market...ringtones. I did learn a lot though, and I haven't done a lot of PPC up to this point, but I did find a way to make a few bucks without risking a lot.

Most affiliate networks that you have (or will) sign up with will have 'FREEBIE' offers. These, obviously, are merchant offers of something free. It can vary greatly as to what the customer will receive. It could be a software download, maybe a toolbar or something to that effect.

My most recent campaign was a freebie offer and I'm actually in the black on this one. I was able to make some money and I wasn't having to take much of any risk at all. If your ad(s) are fairly straightforward then the customer is probably ready to give an email or zip to get the product that's being advertised.

As you might expect, the lead payout is generally very small, maybe just a dollar or so, but again, you're really not risking much. If you can write a few good ads and can get a lot of clicks, there's some money to be made. You'll at least get some experience writing ads and also the feeling of self-confidence that comes with running a productive campaign.

So if you haven't yet, sign up with a network or two and try a freebie offer and get some experience.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Pay Per Click Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.