November 26, 2007
Filed Under Interwebs |  

Trying my hand at affiliate marketing: Part 1

After spending the last few weeks reading about affiliate marketing, I decided to do what the rest of the Internet is doing and give it a shot.  After signing up with an affiliate program that doesn’t require a phone interview, I picked a couple of offers and started doing some research.  Instead of going the typical Google Adsense route, I decided to use Facebook ads as a test bed.  For this experiment, I chose two ad programs:  Body building supplements and a diet program.

Round 1

Threw up my first ad and waited.  I guess I bid too low because I never got any impressions and Facebook pulled my ad a few hours later because I CAPITALIZED AN ENTIRE WORD.  Winner:  Facebook.

Round 2

Set a higher bid and targeted certain age groups and interests.  Still no hits.  Pulled the ad myself.  Winner:  Affiliate marketers who can afford to bid high.

Round 3

Set an even higher bid and waited.  Removed overly-specific targeting and set it to all males over the age of 18.  Eventually, the hits started coming in.  Nearly 6,000 hits (or about half an hour) later, traffic stopped and I pulled the ad.  0 clicks again.  Winner:  Impatience.

Round 4

Tried the diet program ad targeted to all women above 18 years of age.  Apparently I bid too low again, and Facebook pulled the ad because I stuck a bikini model in the ad picture.  Re-read the advertising guidelines.  Winner: Facebook.

Conclusions

1.  Bid prices are higher than I had expected on Facebook’s ad network.

2.  Facebook takes between 3 and 5 hours to pull ads that violate their terms of use.

Costs incurred so far: $0

Profits so far: $0

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7 comments

  1. Adam wrote on 26 November 2007, 1:52 am

    So wait, after all of thsoe impressions you didn’t have to pay anything? Do you only have to pay per click?

  2. Alex wrote on 26 November 2007, 11:23 am

    Yep, you only pay for clicks.

  3. Ryan wrote on 26 November 2007, 12:09 pm

    I still don’t get how this works. You pay them if/when people click on the ads…but that’s losing you money, right? I guess you could make it back if the clicks led to ads, but then the company that has the product makes the money, not you. Unless you’re a company and I don’t know it?

  4. Alex wrote on 26 November 2007, 12:10 pm

    The company pays me a percentage of every sale.

  5. Tim Spangler wrote on 27 November 2007, 12:43 am

    I have a stack of $50 AdWords certificates that I got at a conference if you’re interested.

    IM me @ aimknight for more infos.

  6. Alex wrote on 27 November 2007, 11:57 am

    I’d love one, but I already signed up for an account :(

  7. Tim Spangler wrote on 29 November 2007, 2:19 am

    You can still redeem it for 2 or so weeks after you enable AdWords on a G account. Msg me. :p

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