If so then here is a quick checklist for you.

• Is your ad or product link featured prominently ?
• Is your ad / affiliate link getting clicks ? (Use a tracking system such as Google Analytics )
• Try to improve and optimize your website so that you get more click thrus and sales.  ( Use split testing software )

Here is a run down of some of the best split testing software out there.

1. Google Website Optimizer – In first place and also free, we have GWO or Google Website Optimizer.  GWO is not easy to use but, once installed, it does function well. I could explain it here but really Google does a much better job  – so check out GWO here.  Google Website Optimizer is free however you will need a Google Adwords account to get signed up. ($5 one time charge). One negative about GWO, is that it mangles your HTML code a bit.
2. Splitgenie - In second place, and almost free ($27) we have splitgenie - I like this software because it is EASY to use and install.  Its a one time payment and as the picture shows here it’s easy to install just edit a little php code on the page to test and the thank you page and you are done.  Here is what it looks like when you are finished .
3. Splitest Accelerator -  For advanced affiliate marketers, there is splittest accelerator -  I haven’t tested this myself but at a $900 price and looking at the documentation (it looks complex) I think its better to start off with GWO and Splitgenie.

Check Out Split Genie or Check Out Gooogle Analytics

Another interesting blog post — that I found out in my research was on how to split test wordpress themes to see which theme will get an improved meaning lesser bounce rate –  http://www.leewillis.co.uk/how-to-split-test-wordpress-themes/ -  how to split test wordpress themes – something I have been waiting for myself !

One final suggested practice is to name all off your outgoing links similarly and set a goal in Google Analytics for all simliarly named link as I have explained here — http://fieldsmarshall.com/8-tips-for-tracking-with-google/ – and then either use the gocodes plugin or the pretty link plugin for wordpress – to track clickthrus.

Check Out Split Genie or Check Out Gooogle Analytics

http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/video-how-to-link-directly-to-a-clickbank-product-order-page/

Some nice tools per setting cookies when visitors land on your page

http://smugmarketing.com/tools/cookie.html

http://tools.marketingbully.com/covert-cookie/

For those of you who dont know what WinnerAlert does – Its simple – it send you an email when you have a winning adgroup.  They have recently added additional functionality so that you can test which adgroup converts to sales better instead of testing click thrus.

Here is a screenshot of my personal adwords account:

Yes I know the red indicates I haven’t setup my adwords account correctly on my first campaign. Its on my todo list .

Anyways, Why would you need this ?

If you are have a large adwords account or managing other google adwords you want to be notified when there is a winning ad so you can write another one.

This way you keep making continual improvements. They offer a free trial here.

If you signup through my link – I get a small comission – let me know and I will take a quick look at your adwords account to see if its setup correctly.

Im using it myself and finding it helpful in keeping me organized with my adwords campaigns.

It also works with Yahoo and MSN

WinnerAlert – Worth Checking Out.

This is good news! I didn’t think google would do this actually but this helps the advertiser / PPC marketer out.

How to remove your Domain Ads from the Content Network

• http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/03/category-exclusion-for-content-network.html
• http://www.komarketingassociates.com/blog/google-adwords-parked-domains-and-error-page-ads/
• http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628755

For the Google Search network, how you rank on a page is determined by your Adrank. You can refer to Google for the answer here ( http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hlrm=en&answer=6111 )

But briefly Adrank is a number that is determined by your minimum bid times your quality score.

Google mentions that The Quality Score for Ad Rank on the search network is determined by:

* The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the ad and of the matched keyword on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered
* The relevance of the keyword and ad to the search query
* Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
* Other relevance factors

Aside from keeping your ad relevant to your keyword and keeping your page relevant to your ad, you need time and clicks to establish a good CTR for your ad.

If you are competing for someone against the same display URL then you will need to bid more initially until you establish account history. Also *very important* start split testing 2 ads against each other right away so you can establish work on a good CTR right away so that with a good CTR and ad history you can start dropping your bids.

I believe Adrank is new as of 2007 – before your position was determined by your bid times your CTR ( Click Thru Rate).

Regardless the Google Quality score is here to stay as they focus more on the user experience. So remember to start split testing ads against each other right away and keep your ads relevant to your keywords and landing pages.

There is another model called CPM (Pay per every 1000 ad impressions) but this model is related to buying advertising on other websites and not keyword based.

There is no flat rate – Google and everyone else wants to get as much money as possible so prices are based on market rates set by bidding with your competitors and also influenced by the quality and relevance of you ads. If your products are specialized enough then you may have very few competitors – this maybe enable you to buy traffic cheap.

You can get an idea of where bidding begins buy using their external keyword tool.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Amit Mehta gives some good tips on how to begin bidding and points out that  your  CTR is  normalized to your ad position . So dont assume that by bidding more google will  reward you  for a better CTR history because of your  ad position  – http://www.superaffiliatemindset.com/hot-tips-from-the-ppc-summit-day-2/

You set the maximum you are willing to pay per click and based on the quality of your ads and the relevance of your website to the keyword – your ad is ranked accordingly on the right hand side of search results.

To make sure you don’t spend too much initially, you set a daily budget to limit your expenses while you are evaluating traffic.

Adrian from softwareprojects.com does a great post about pay per click basics and addresses quickly the rules of the game when making money with PPC.

http://www.softwareprojects.com/resources/conversion-traffic-to-cash/t-pay-per-click-basics-1500.html 

As an example, say you are selling “power transformers” and are bidding on the keyword “transformers”. In this case, you will be getting lots of matches for people doing searches for the toy robots.

Therefore you will want to use a negative match keyword such as “toys”, “robots” and “games” , etc.

Developing a negative match keyword list will have a positive effect on your click thru rates, google will make more money and they will reward you with lower bid prices.

Google uses the example of tennis shoes here:

If your keyword is tennis shoes and you add the negative keyword -red, your ad will not appear when a user searches on red tennis shoes. Negative keywords are especially useful if your account contains lots of broad-matched keywords. It’s a good idea to add any irrelevant keyword variations you see in a Search Query Performance Report or the Keyword Tool as a negative keyword.

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6100

One strategy is to put negative match keywords into an adgroup and split test the adgroup against a similar one without the negative matching thereby verifying if CTR has been improved.

Improving your CTR or Click Through Rate is essential part of lower your bid price and keeping your Return On Investment high.

Redfly Marketing has a great post about how to find negative keywords
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/how-to-build-a-negative-keyword-list/

SoftwareProjects.com had a good post about negative keywords http://www.softwareprojects.com/resources/traffic-attract-customers/t-ppc-negative-keywords-1496.html

Google explains it here:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6635

as does Lorelle Smith
http://www.keywordsmith.com/seo-articles/adwords-matching.htm

And another link from Jennifer Slegg
http://www.jenniferslegg.com/2008/02/18/building-your-list-of-cheap-and-free-negative-keywords/

They sent me three strategies they had outlined :

1. Buy specific keywords for autos : such as 350, 307, etc and send the traffic to their website called daves-used-autoparts.com (name changed)
2. Instead of buying keywords: We want to create several websites such as usedchevyautoparts.com , usedfordautoparts.com,  then optimize them  for natural search engine traffic and wait for natural traffic.
3. A combination of the strategy 1 and 2 – both buying and optimizing smaller websites for search engine traffic and buying appropriate keywords to drive traffic

Furthermore they had a few questions about how much does it cost to buy 150 keywords for specific autopart names.

My reply would be option number 3.

Daves Used Auto Parts ( again the name has been changed ) although not the direct manufacturers of the autoparts are  nonetheless in control of their own product. Daves Used Auto Parts set their own prices and profit margins and when a sale is made on their website – they know or they should know how much profit is made.

Knowing how much profit you make from a specific sale is very important when buying pay per click traffic because ALL pay per click prices are set by your market and your competitors. Pay per click prices start at 1 cent per click  ( The lowest I have seen personally has been 2 cents) and then just keep going up. The highest I have personally seen in my own campaigns has been $3 per click.

Returning to the point that you must know your profit margins because you want to buy all the traffic that you can provided that it is profitable.  Normally buying very specific keywords such as “305″ , “307 engine”, “used small block chevy 350″ is always a good idea but again you need to know your  profit margins because undoubtedly you will have competitor bidding against you.

Daves Used Auto Parts might be able to buy traffic for keywords such as “used chevy parts” and if they are able to buy them cheaply then they maybe able to make a profit of buying this keyword.  Repeating myself again – you have to know the value of your webtraffic (tracked by actually sales on the Internet) to know whether buying more generic keywords will offer a good return on your investement.

Normally more generic traffic equals more traffic but less sales – however it might be profitable if you can get the traffic cheaply enough.

So the answer to how much does it cost to buy 150 keywords is that it depends on the market. Obviously there are lots of startegies that you can do to make traffic buying profitable (thats a new subject I could address later) but generally the overall price range is set by your competitors and your specific market.

To address the strategy of creating several smaller websites usedchevyautoparts.com , usedfordautoparts.com, etc and then optimizing them for search engine traffic as opposed to sending them all to a generic sounding daves-used-autoparts.com.

From a traffic buying point of view,  it is always better to have a more specific sounding URL such as usedchevyautoparts.com as opposed to a more generic dave used autoparts. Users are more inclined to click on an ad that they feel is specific and relevant.

Having an ad that has a high clickthrough is VERY important to google and your ads can become disabled and bid prices go up if your ad is not clicked on often enough.  Google makes more money when you click more which they like and also they think that your ad is more relevant and not spam if your ad receives more clicks.

From a search engine optimization point of view having a topic specific domain name is helpful as most links to your website will  contain the keyword that you want to optimize your website for.

In summary,  buy all the profitable traffic you can – more specific keywords are normally more profitable but you need to test out and track profit margins. Finally creating smaller more topically related websites can improve both your search rankings and pay per click campaigns.

In this article we take a look at three ways to keep tabs on your google adwords campaigns when they are outside of your personal geographic location:

• Google Ads Diagnostic Tool
• Redfly Marketing’s Google Adwords Extension For Firefox
• Proxy Server in your desired Geographical Location

The first option would be the google ads diagnostic tool which is found under the campaign management tool. The ads diagnostic tool has a nice interface which can help you figure out why your searches may not be working.

Ads Diagnostic Tool

Adwords Extension For Firefox

Second as mentioned we have Redflymarketing’s extension for Firefox that can enable you to view your search results from any geographical location. This is highly recommended if you are serious about PPC in other parts of the world.

More Information : Google Adwords Firefox Extension or just the download here.

Proxy Server For Seeing Google Adwords

These first two tools will give you a lot of information about campaigns running remotely but really nothing can be better than a proxy server in terms of final accuracy.

I have tried a lot of proxy servers and proxy software but for affiliates I would recommend Hide The Ip – Download A Trial Version Here. The good thing about Hide The Ip is that you can choose the select the country that you want to be in and it will find a proxy server in that country.

Sure you find proxy servers manually by searching list but Hide The Ip saves you A LOT of time and I mean a LOT you can waste hours trying to find good proxy servers.

Finally, in addition to hide the ip, we have pickaproxy.com. Pickaproxy.com uses the tor network and select an exit network in a specified geographical location. This is a very new service but worth checking out.

Any comments or questions let me know.

Typically its is either one of two scenarios either you ads are not running or you need your account limits raised.

If you are having problems with your ads then before you call google you might want to try the ads diagnostic tool found under the campaign management tool. The ads diagnostic tool has a nice interface which can help you figure out why your searches may not be working.

In addition to the keyword diagnostic tool from google I would recommend Redflymarketing’s extension for Firefox that can enable you to view your search results from any geographical location.

Highly Recommended : Google Adwords Firefox Extension or just the download here.

Finally if you really can’t sort out why your ads aren’t running — maybe they don’t like the kind of ads your are running – aka ringtones/mobile subscription services, etc. They have a list of ads the google doesn’t like – check it out.

Anyways, if you can’t figure out whats going on with your ads then by all means give google adwords customer support a call.

How to Contact Google Adwords details:

To speak with an AdWords Specialist:

1. Call 1-866-2-Google (1-866-246-6453) and press 2 to access AdWords.

2. To expedite your call, press 1 to enter your Customer ID. This number
is located at the top of every page in your AdWords account, next to your
name and email address.

3. Press 2 if you don’t have your Customer ID available and you’ll be
transferred to the next available AdWords Specialist.

4. Press 3 if you’d like to start an AdWords account or want to learn more
about the AdWords program.

AdWords Specialists are available by phone Monday – Thursday, from 7 a.m.
to 7 p.m. PST (U.S.), or on Friday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST (U.S.).

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
https://adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently
asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at
http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that
cover the scope of AdWords.

That was cut and pasted from an email that they sent me.

Hope this article helped someone out, if so let me know and be sure to install that extension from Redfly Marketing.

Here is the link again Google Adwords Firefox Extension or just the download here.