Making money online is more than just signing up for affiliate programs like PepperJam Network and slapping up some ad spots on your blog.
To really make the big bucks you have to explore PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns and yes, it is going to cost you some money. You can however mitigate the amount of money you are spending by focusing on a niche product and finding the right keywords for that product.
You should know that AdWords isn’t the only game in town. In fact, I have had some pretty bad experiences with AdWords and Miva as well. At times it feels like your campaigns are just sucking your funds away and not producing anything. You can avoid spending tons of money on wasted clicks by doing a few simple things with your ads which I will talk about in a moment.
If you really want to find a targeted niche, one of the best places you can look is Facebook. Facebook is the fastest growing social network on the web. It’s already surpassed MySpace and has been valued at several billion in US dollars. With their Ad platform you can create targeted niche campaigns and make some serious money.
First things first. In order to use Facebook for marketing a product, you need something to sell. The best way to do this is to sign up with an affiliate partner like PepperJam Network.
PepperJam Network Blogger Incentive Program
There are numerous affiliate programs out there and I belong to several because no one affiliate has all the products you might want to promote. Here’s a few reasons to sign up with PepperJam.
- You get a $10 bonus just for signing up.
- You can earn $50 a month writing about their Blogger Incentive Program ($10 per post, maximum of 5 per month)
- Earn $7 on every referral to PepperJam
- They have a great selection of advertisers to choose from
Those should all be reason enough to sign up with PepperJam. Sign up today and get your $10 new affiliate bonus. Oh yeah, there’s one other thing. I’m giving away a Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black) to the new affiliate that signs up using my PepperJam Network link and makes the most money. I’m even giving away a mint copy of Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas issue 2 to the first affiliate that earns just $20 in sales.
With the Blogger Incentive Program you can earn $60 in your first month just for signing up. These bonuses won’t help you win my contest, but you’ll be $60 wealthier than you were when you started reading this article.
Once you’ve signed up with PepperJam you are ready to begin your PPC campaign.
You’ll need a Facebook account to use their ad system, just like you would need an AdWords account with Google. Facebook is free and you can keep up with what your friends and family or business contacts are doing.
The real benefit here is the ability to reach over 60 million eyeballs. Your ad of course is only going to be targeted at a specific portion of that 60 million but it gives you limitless possibilities. Once you have your account set up, click on Ads Manager to get started and follow these steps.
- Click Create an Ad
- Put in the URL of the product you are trying to sell. This is where you are going to have to do some research into what niche you want to promote. You also need to follow the guidelines set forth by the affiliate you are promoting as some don’t allow certain kinds of promotions.
- Add a Title, ad copy (text) and most importantly a picture. The picture should represent accurately what you are selling. Your ad copy should also have a negative qualifier, for example showing the price of the product. This weeds out anyone not serious about buying it.
- Now you want to target your audience. Choose the demographic your product is aimed at and put in your keywords of choice. Keywords are important because you want the ad to show to the right people, and only the people that would be interested in the product.
- Now you have a choice. You can pay per click(PPC) or you can pay per thousand impressions(CPM).
Deciding on how you want to pay is really the hardest thing about advertising like this. PPC campaigns can quickly get out of hand if you don’t word your ad right and include a negative qualifier like I mentioned above. You are going to be paying for every single click someone makes on your ad so you want to be sure it is reaching not only the right people, but only people who are also likely to buy the product or service you are advertising.
In a CPM campaign you are simply paying per thousand impressions. So if your target audience is in the millions of viewers…you could end up paying a huge amount of money for that exposure. Generally I stick to PPC campaigns.
After that you have a chance to go over your ad and make sure it reads the way you want it to. Once submitted, it goes into a queue for approval. If disapproved, you will get a message about why and you can try again after making the needed changes.
Once approved you can track your stats in near real time. What you want to make sure is that your ad is performing as well as you expected. If you are getting a ton of clicks but no sales, adjust the wording or add more negative qualifiers. Make the ad evoke emotion and a cause to action on the viewer’s part. If you do it right, you should start seeing sales almost immediately.
For more information, check out squidoo. There’s a great lens there explaining facebook ads in detail.
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