Google Cash method  was first published online by Chris Carpenter in 2003 and revised 4 times thus far. The original Google Cash method was focusing on direct linking through PPC advertising. However, the latest revision focuses on landing page techniques as well.

Suzanne, the Affiliate Manager from NetPicks contacted me early last month about the launching of UST-Forex Edition.

Due to my active promotion on another product launched on early June, I did not want to promote another product within such a short period to my targeted email lists. Hence, I decided to try direct linking with Google Search as well as its Content Network.

Here was the launch schedule for UST Forex Edition that I received from Suzanne:

6/22 – JV email #1 with first pre-launch content

6/24 – JV email #2 with second pre-launch content (Link to the blog) + blog contest

6/26 – JV follow up webinar announcement, and blog contest reminder

6/28 – JV follow up email with webinar reminder and blog contest reminder (optional)

6/29 – Launch Webinar and Blog Contest Winner Announced – JV email early morning reminder (optional)

6/30 – JV email #3 with launch opening announcement

7/2 – JV email #4 with third piece of launch content with launch close warning

7/3 – Launch Close

7/6-7/8 – 2nd Chance Order Page Re-Open (optional – probably 2 emails)

Based on my experience, I knew it is going to do well with this proper launching formula.

Social proof, reciprocity, credibility, urgency and scarcity are the techniques that have been tested many times and it works in a product launch processes.

I have participated with several high-ticket Forex product launches with similar launching formula. These products were converted well through my targeted email lists but I have not test it with direct linking through PPC advertising.

Hence, I decided to give it a try.

My idea of direct linking was about sending the visitors to their opt-in page to download the free trade management software. With this plan, my advertising campaign only scheduled to run for 7 days, from 22^nd until 28^th June. Then, I let NetPicks to follow up with the leads referred through my PPC traffic.

Here was the nice design sales page that went live on the launch day:

The result? You guess…

I generated 6 sales on the launch day (29^th June) but 1 sale was refunded a week later.

Excluding the refunded amount, my total commissions earned was US$869.75. Here are the sales screenshot:

You will be amazed knowing that I only spent US$66.04 on Google Search and Content Network!

This means that I spent $1 to make almost $13 in return

The following screenshots were my 5 ad groups for my Google AdWords campaign:

Ad Group #1

Ad Group #2

Ad Group #3

Ad Group #4

Ad Group #5

Total advertising cost was only US$66.04.

It generated 37 leads according to the NetPicks’ affiliate report as shown below:

Within these 37 leads, 5 of them were converted into sales. This was 13.5% conversion rate – extremely good conversion for a US$500 product.

Well, this case study is merely just a case study!

The aim is to show that the direct linking method still works under certain conditions.

I do not recommend to apply it especially on Clickbank products where there is fierce competition unless you are very creative on your keyword research.

I have to be honest that direct linking is not my cup of tea.

In fact, it is not a viable long term strategy!

To be successful in PPC affiliate marketing, you need to be clear that there are certain aspects of the sales funnel that you have control over but not all.

You have no influence over what your visitors see once you direct them to a merchant website.

I always prefer to drive traffic directly to my landing page where I have certain control on the visitors such as pre-sell the recommended product as well as entice them to opt-in for free report, and etc.

My advice is to stop thinking affiliate marketing as a money making tactics. Always think long term instead of just generating instant income.

List Building is the KEY!

With the correct mindset, you will always find a cost-effective way to build targeted lists – an ASSET…

I started promoting FAPTurbo since it was newly launched on 25th November 2008. This is an automated Forex trading tool with no prior Forex knowledge required. Most of the buyers are novice traders.

Forex is my target niche and it has contributed significant income to my affiliate business. I have the first mover advantage together with other affiliates under their JV list.

This product had quickly become the most popular product in Clickbank. At one time, this product even had a “gravity” of 900+. “Gravity” is the weighted sum for the distinct of affiliates who earned a referral commission for the product. This is the extremely popular product among affiliates and this also means fierce competition.

From the affiliate competition few months ago, I was ranked one of the top 10 affiliate for this product and awarded US$1K prize.

Here is the screenshot of my commission between 25th November 2008 until 31st March 2009:

… and the refunds at the same period:

In summary:

Total Commission: US$43,369.55 (565 sales)
Total Refund: US$6,688.49 (87 sales)
Refund Rate: 15.4%

Landing Page

In order to have a better feel of the product, I have purchased it and performed the demo trade by myself. After doing some research of the product, I put up the landing page that designed using XSitePro.

I’m not a good copywriter. At first, I created a draft copy from what I’ve learned from my research and then paid the ghostwriter at Elance to rewrite it to a better copy with more enticing tone.

Since the developer started the support forum, I have amended the copy several times . This is a very active forum where users share their experiences and results. I gathered lot of useful information with regards to the pros and cons of the product, all from the perspective of large group of users.

I target two types of landing page: pre-sell page and review page.

What are the differences between pre-sell and review page?

Pre-sell is a highly effective tactic that uses to warm the prospect into purchasing a product. It focuses on a single product only.

For a review page, we usually position yourself as an expert by comparing a number of different products that the prospect may be interested in and then concluding with some sort of judgment as to which is the best one. I usually target 3-4 products.

Here is the screenshot of my pre-sell page:

… and review page:

I will not disclose the url here as there are just too many copycats. Some of them even copy 80% from my copy.

You should write the product pre-sell and review with integrity. Do not ever mislead your prospect with the product you market. Nowadays, 99% of info products provide at least 30 days money back guarantee. You will be punished with the high refund rate if you do so. I always like to provide a balanced review with neutral conclusion and stated the pros and cons clearly. I also mention about the money back guarantee policy.

Keyword Research

In this case, I focus on the brand name keywords and closely related terms.

Here are my keywords lists:

fapturbo
fap turbo
fapturbo review
fapturbo scam
fapturbo robot
fap turbo review
fap turbo scam
fap turbo robot
www.fapturbo.com
fapturbo.com
fapturbo com

forex robot
forex robots
forex trading robot
forex robot trading
forex robot review

“Brand name” keywords are working well for NEW Clickbank product. This is no longer a secret for most Clickbank’s affiliates. Once the product becomes popular, most affiliates will bid at the same keywords which would inflate the bidding cost. Hence, you need to expand your keyword research into other related terms. Those affiliates with some creativity will have a nice ROI.

By copying my keyword list blindly is not going to work for you because these keywords are too expensive now. You need to bid more than US$1.00 in order to appear in the first page in Google. This is excluding my campaign history and quality score which usually pay less than you in overall.

Google Adwords & Campaign

I run the campaign in two different Google Adwords accounts, target two different landing pages. I started my 2^nd campaign after 1 month of the product launched for my review page. When you know certain products work well, you may consider creating competition for yourself and determine a winner among these two campaigns. By running ads at two accounts, I will have an edge over other affiliates because I can run two ads at the same time.

However, be careful when you are doing this because Google will not allow you to create two accounts with the same registered name. You need to be smart here and make sure your landing pages are on different url.

Here are my campaign performance for presell page:

and for review page:

Total advertising cost incurred is US$20,349.98.

There are few important settings that I applied to all my Campaigns:

Targeting Audience
I only target English speaking countries. USA is the mainstream market. Besides I also include Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Search Network Only
I always keep Search and Content networks separate. And, only enable Search Network only.

I am testing Content networks on other products after ignoring them for sometimes. I got to know of several products that don’t perform well on the search network that do quite well on the content network. If you want to advertise on the content network, create a NEW separate campaign and name it “XXX – Content” so you can distinguish it easily.

Position Preference

I enabled the position preference in my Campaign and always target a position range of 3-7 or sometimes 2-8 for all my keywords. This means they only display when a ’slot’ is available in the specified position range.

I just don’t like my ad to show at No.1 position due to “happy clickers” that tend to click on the first thing they see. Besides, Click-Through-Rate (CTR) will be improved by displaying the ads in the tight range. This is going to improve the Quality Score and will be rewarded with low Cost-Per-Click (CPC) in long run.

Keyword Match
I only focus on “exact match” and “phrase match” only.  See below setting:

Please note also the 3 to 7 of position preference setting.

Negative Keyword
I always include “negative match” phrases. These are words that I do not want my ad to appear for when included with my search phrase. Here is the list of negative keywords I used for this campaign:

Ad Writing

CTR is key here. It’s very important. By writing an catchy ad, you can earn a great CTR and get your bids lower.

Here are the sample ad that I used for my campaign:

FapTurbo Scam?
Don’t Buy FapTurbo Robot Now!
Discover The Truth Behind The Hype.
www.FapTurboXxx.com

Please note the keyword in the Headline, Description and Display URL.

When there is a search for the term ‘fapturbo’, the word will be bolded and my advert will stand out. So the ad and the website appear to be 100% relevant, and will help improve my CTR!”

Injecting scarcity, urgency and fear into PPC text ads is an effective way to improve CTR. However, it is meaningless to have a killer click through rate if you don’t sell anything.

I have reduced using fear factors like “is it scam?” and do not recommend you to use it too.

“X” explained this very well in the Affiliate Black Book:

Whenever you ask a question – ANY QUESTION – you put people in state. They go into their head, and they start drudging up all kinds of experiences and scenarios that help evaluate the association they have with the word “scam”.

Then when they arrive at the site, with the FEELINGS associated with scam, someone has to overcome that.

It’s like eating a handful of cow dung followed by a piece of apple pie, and then being asked if you want to buy the whole pie.

Here is another good sample ad from an affiliate:

This guy is No.1 super affiliate for this product. He did very well in SEO as well as PPC. I’ve been spying on his website for sometimes

NOTE: Catchy ad is important to improve CTR. I always aim for above 2%. However, we also need to understand that clicks without conversion mean nothing. Hence, the real measure should be cost per conversion.

Optimizing & Improvement…

I am still running the campaign until now but have tweaked and made several adjustments to the landing page and remove lot of unconverted keywords. I have expanded keyword list into more related terms and started tracking individual keywords using Affiliate Prophet.

I have to agree that there is fierce competition for FAPTurbo now. It becomes mass marketed with 40,000 users. Keywords are getting very expensive and conversion is dropping as well. The “gravity” of this product has dropped from 900+ to 400+.  However, I am still making sales regularly from this product. I have few websites promoting this product now and has put some effort on SEO and article marketing but PPC is still my primary marketing method!

I hope you find this simple case study helpful. Stay tune for the coming case study and how I promote high ticket items that is sold for US$2,000 per item.