PPC Challenge Update – Week 4

It’s now been 4 weeks since the beginning of the PPC challenge, and the end is in sight. While the month is almost over, the challenge will go on for another week.

Let’s see: blasting new campaigns is not hard, but finding the time to sit down and do it, is another matter.

Last week I said I was going for 15 new blasts, and I ended up doing 7. My total count as of now is

- 2 to  landing pages

- 12 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 9 direct to merchants on SAS

And here are my stats:

Impressions: 72,301
Clicks: 631
CTR: 0.87% (it  went up a little more again. BTW, some of my ad groups are getting as high as 4.85$, but some are not getting any clicks))
Cost: $129.90
Commission: $115.82
Profit: - $14.08 I am still in deficit, but I am confident that once the blasting phase is over, and I go into the account and remove those keywords and phrases taht are getting lots of clicks and no sales, I will be in profit.

I made a total of 6 sales from 4 campaigns, and that is pretty good.

This week I went back and got reacquainted with the AdWords Editor, which I’ve used a lot in the past, but forgot how to use it, since I haven’t done much PPC in the past year or so.

My FaceBook campaign is also getting some action, after I increased my bid amount. No sales yet, but I am seeing clicks from there.

Nest week I’ll wrap up this challenge, and will probably give a follow up update in a month or two.

Do you need help stating new campaigns? Do you have questions? Post below and I’ll be happy to help you. Here is to PPC success!

PPC Challenge: How Am I Doing After 3 Weeks?

It’s time for another update on my PPC challenge. Last week I was on vacation in Jamaica, so no I made no progress in adding more campaigns, but my existing campaigns continued to run.

So, let’s see how I am doing.

So far, I started 15 campaigns

- 1 to  a landing page

- 8 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 6 direct to merchants on SAS

Here are my starts as of now:

Impressions: 56,342
Clicks: 435
CTR: 0.77% (this went up a little bit since my first week, but it’s still to low)
Cost: $99.68
Commission: $72.34
Profit: - $27.37 Yep! I am in the red, but that’s normal during the blasting. As I learn more about what my market is looking for, I’ll add more negative keywords, remove key phrases that are not performing, etc.

What is important is that out of 15 campaigns, I had 4 sales: 2 from the same campaigns, and one each from two other campaigns. this means I have 3 winning campaigns, which I can tweak and improve once my blasting is done.

My 3 FaceBook ads are yet to get a click, but I received an email from them, with suggestions for improvement. I didn’t have time to apply their suggestions yet, but it’s on my list for this week.

Also for this week: I need to step up my blasting, or I won’t be able to do 50 campaigns. I am going to try 15 campaigns this week, and I’ll be back next Monday with another update.

If you’d like to learn how to successfully learn PPC marketing, check out Matt’s Campaigns blast report.

PPC Challenge Update – Second Week

The View From Our Room

This will be a quick post, as I am in Jamaica for a short vacation with the family.

This past week I started a few more AdWords campaigns (I think 7), and tried FaceBook advertising (I did 3 campaigns there). So far, I didn’t even get a click from my FB advertising, so I need to work on that.

I had one more sale with a commission of $7.57 and overall, I am about break even between spending and commissions made. I’ll have a much better update next week,when I can actually check all my stats and get a better picture as of how I am doing.

That’s all for today, as you can probably tell I am quite distracted: I am off to  get a fruit smoothie.

PPC Challenge Update

As promised in my original post about this PPC challenge, this is an update on what I’ve been doing to meet my challenge goals.

Just as  a reminder, I am shooting for 50 PPC campaigns before March is over: that means 2 campaigns a day, 5 days a week, and this past week, I haven’t met that goal. I did 7 campaigns:

- 1 to  a landing page (I purchased some domains a while ago for specific products, and never did anything with them, so built one small site and I am directing some traffic to it with PPC). This page is monetized with a specific product from Amazon.com

- 1 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 5 direct to merchants on SAS

My ads are getting too many impressions, and not so many clicks, which makes for a very low CTR (see image above). That’s not good, and it means I probably have to tweak my ads.

Here are my starts as of now:

Impressions: 19,427
Clicks: 96
CTR: 0.49%
Cost: $34.52
Commission: $61.18
Profit: $26.66

This week, I need to get more serious, and start even more campaigns, as next Sunday I’ll be heading to Jamaica for a few days, and the following week I won’t be adding any campaigns.

I’ll let you know how I am doing next week.

If you’d like to join me and others in this challenge, there is still time: check out Matt’s Campaigns blast report before you get started: it will save you from making many mistakes.

February Challenge – Did I Meet It?

At the beginning of this month I challenged myself publicly to increase traffic to this site by 75%, and to accomplish that, I was going to do several things.

First, I was going got post at least 5 times a week, and since the day of the challenge (February 7th) I posted 19 posts, so I met that challenge.

Second, I was going to submit one article a week to a few article directories, and only submitted one, so I fell short on that one.

Third, I was going to guest post at least once, and I did 5 guest posts, so I exceeded that.

So, did all that help me increase my visitors 75%? Unfortunately, no. I fell short by a couple of hundred visitors. Here is a snapshot of my February visitors.

What I learned form this month’s challenge? I can guest post! And if I can, so can anyone else. Yes, it takes me a long time to come up with a good guest post, but the rewards are incredible!

Here are my guest posts for February:

Keyword Research with Shopping.com

How to Select Keywords for a Pay Per Click Campaign

5 Online Business Models You Can Start Right Now

Follow Me Buttons on Sidebar

How To Do Keyword Research With EBay

I also learned that posting daily on my blog is too much for me: I’d rather write quality content than try to push lots of content that doesn’t meet my quality standards.

In the end, I am happy with what I accomplished this past month, and I will continue to come up with monthly challenges to grow my business.

How about you?

Edited to add: I actually did one more guest post, so a total of 6. Not sure how I forgot it. Here it is: Plus Size Wedding Dress Niche, a guest post similar to my own free niche research.