So, you’ve signed up to an Affiliate Network and joined an Advertising Program. You’ve also started your first campaign, hopefully selling something interesting. Now its time to optimize your campaign!

In this tutorial, we’ll assume you are using Google Adwords, but these techniques will work with any Advertising Program.

Bumping up your clickthrough-rate (CTR)

What’s my CTR? A clickthrough-rate is the ratio of how many people click your ad after viewing it. If 100 people view your ad, and 5 click it, you have a CTR of 5%. One of the easiest ways to get a higher CTR, is through proper wording of your ad. You’re trying to grab attention, so make your ad exciting — appeal to peoples needs, desires and fears.

Higher CTR through A-B Split Testing

A-B Split testing involves creating 2 ads with different wording but the same parameters (keyword, bid, url, etc.). Which ever ad does better stays, and the other ad is paused/deleted. Then create a new ad with fresh wording and the same parameters. Run both ads against each other, always eliminating the worst performer, and creating a new ad in its place.

Lower you Costs

Most Advertising Programs offer some kind of keyword tool. By using their tools, you can find keywords that are still performing well in terms of volume, yet have little competition. These ads cost less per click, however still get the necessary volume to attract enough clicks.

Another way to lower you costs is to choose only keywords that are very specific and targeted to what you are advertising. For example, if you are advertising credit cards, choosing keywords as broad as credit cards, credit card information, etc. will be very expensive and perhaps drive people who are looking for something other than applying for a credit card . Whereas, using keywords such as get a new credit card, apply for credit card, credit card application, etc will be less expensive and will drive people who are looking for specific information in regards to what you are advertising.

Getting Help

There are quite a few online forums with people willing to help you with your journey in the Affiliate Marketing world. Be patient, respectful, and you should be able to get some great tips! Check out the following forums for some friendly advice: WickedFire.com, DigitalPoint.com, ABestWeb.com and EWealth.com.

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PPC, or Pay per Click, is a popular method of advertising on the Internet. The three most popular PPC providers are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter. Advertising costs are incurred only when Internet users click on an ad. Advertisers sometimes bid for the use of keywords, with the most popular keywords commanding higher prices per click. In some instances, the host charges a set price for every ad click. PPC tools are available to help advertisers increase the effectiveness of their PPC advertising.

Start to Finish Guidance

The three big PPC providers have guides to help you create, maintain, and manage your PPC advertising. Google users can check out the Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool and the Google AdWords Learning Center. For Yahoo! advertisers, there is the Yahoo! Search Marketing Workbook and Microsoft users can find information at MSN AdCenter Labs.

Budget Estimation

Before you head out with your keywords and create an online ad, you’ll want to know how much all of this is going to cost. You can determine how well your selected keywords will generate traffic by testing them on Google’s Traffic Estimator. This will help you avoid sinking money into ads that won’t get much attention. SEO Tools offers two calculators that will help you stay within your advertising budget. The first is a Return on Investment Calculator, and the second is a Return on Ad Spend Calculator.

Editing Your Advertisements

You’ll want to edit your Internet advertisements to bring in the most traffic and clicks, resulting in higher sales. Google offers the Google AdWords Editor to help you create revenue-generating advertisements for Google AdWords. It provides editing tools, and you can let other AdWords Editor users view your ads and give you feedback. SEO Tools has several editing tools. Refine your keyword lists with a list generator and a keyword list cleaner. Learn which keywords are commonly misspelled and use this to your advantage by checking out SEOBook’s Typo Generator. If you want to construct advertisements for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, take a look at The Big 3 Generator.

Managing Your PPC Bids

Managing and maintaining your PPC bids can take more time than you have to spare. Luckily, there are several good bid management tools that can help you through this aspect of PPC advertising. Google AdWords offers a free conversion optimizer. Yahoo! Search Marketing users will find this search engine’s index tools bid management site helpful. Several other tools can be used with Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter, as well as with other PPC providers. Some of these tools are Bid Rank, Click Tracks, Bix Max and Keyword Max.

Research Tools for Heavier Competition

For the more serious Internet advertiser, analytical research tools to help control your PPC advertising are available. Compete.com offers a comprehensive analytical tool at http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referrals/. Keep track of keywords your competitors are using with Key Complete and Keyword Spy.

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