Nerdy Affiliate Adventures In Affiliate Marketing Land

Calculating CPM vs CPC (Great for Facebook CPM ads!)

Posted by JasperP on May 27th, 2009

On facebook, you have the option of choosing CPC or CPM for your ads and you should always test your text ads with CPC first.  But when do you turn them into CPM ads?

To answer this question, you need to collect some data from your ads and determine the maximum CPM you can pay based on the clickthrough rates and CPC for your ads.

maximum CPM = CPC * CTR * 1000

For example, if you are paying 0.30 CPC and getting a CTR of 0.25% then your maximum CPM that you should pay should be:

maximum CPM = $0.30 * 0.0025 * 1000 = $0.75

Now, I like to think in terms of CPC, so I can change the CPMs to see the different CPC costs I would be paying.  The magic formula for that is:

CPC = [ CPM / (CTR * 1000) ]

Using the same example as above with the 0.25% CTR,  I can plug in different CPM of $0.70, $0.50, $0.30 to see the different CPC costs:

CPC = [ 0.70 / (0.0025 * 1000) ] = $0.28
CPC = [ 0.50 / (0.0025 * 1000) ] = $0.20
CPC = [ 0.30 / (0.0025 * 1000) ] = $0.12
CPC = [ 0.20 / (0.0025 * 1000) ] = $0.08
CPC = [ 0.10 / (0.0025 * 1000) ] = $0.04

So you can see the potential of using CPM to lower your costs.  By writing compelling ad copy and images that grab attention, you can lower your CPC costs dramatically.

Traffic University Exposed and Media Buying

Posted by JasperP on September 30th, 2008

I recently watched the Traffic University Exposed seminar and it was exciting to be able to talk to Carlos and Lupe live!  It was exciting to be able to pick their brain on their techniques on Internet Marketing.  It was also a bit entertaining too! – (Carlos is one freaky cat.. lol).  They have big hearts and it was a pleasure just chatting with them.

If you’ve never heard of Traffic Tactics, the basic idea is that they use media buying to generate tons of traffic online.  According to them, banner advertising is NOT dead.  In fact, media buying is done by big name companies all the time (You’ve probably seen the NetFlix banner all over the place).

They focus more on banner advertising rather than the usual PPC marketing that we see from other Internet Marketers.  The cool thing about banner advertising is that you can virtually get an unlimited amount of traffic directly from web sites or through ad networks like Casale Media, Tribal Fusion, etc.

Now, I almost was able to ask a question on the phone, but they had to cut it short because the seminar was getting pretty lengthy.  I wanted to ask them about my own experience with buying media.  About a month or two ago, I experimented with AdBrite, which is a self-serve ad network.  You can buy media at a CPC or CPM basis which is pretty cool.  I noticed they mentioned it in the “Media Buying Secrets” guide (which is free when you sign up for their free newsletter) and I decided to try it out.  I basically wanted to find out what I was doing wrong. I think I have a better idea with it now, so I guess I’ll give it a try again later on.

Listening to the seminar tonight, I realized that I think I was optimizing for the wrong criteria.  I was optimizing for which ads had a higher CTR when I should’ve been optimizing for higher CONVERSION RATES.  If a particular ad converts better, but has a lower CTR, that would be the winner right?

Another interesting point they made tonight is the emphasis of SPLIT-TESTING.  They split test so much that they even split-test PEOPLE.  Sounds odd, but one of the questions that was asked tonight was about where to find a good designer.  Lupe says to split-test designers and see which one does a better job.

Come to think of it, imagine if the working world was like that… each company hires 2 people for the same position and will keep the better one – hmmm, I wonder if they do that already.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts about them.  If you want to learn more about media buying and banner advertising, sign up for their free newsletter and you can get access to their free guide and hours of free video seminars.

Check it out now!

http://www.traffictactics.com
http://www.traffictacticsblog.com

Project Yahoo: YSM -> CPA Networks

Posted by JasperP on July 22nd, 2008

I just started working on a new project which involves working with Yahoo Search Marketing and CPA Offers.  I’m not going to state what niches I’m working on, but I’m going to share some of my experiences with it to see if I can make a profit from it.

I’m sharing this info with the guys in the ClickConsultants Forum.  So if you want more information on this project, you can follow along with me in more detail in the forum.  I haven’t made a profit with this project yet, so I’ll keep updating this blog and in the forums in the meantime.

Here are the project guidelines:

• Pick 2 Offers from the CPA Networks.  The network I’m working with is AzoogleAds and maybe NeverBlueAds.
• Generate a huge list of keywords: (at least 10k+ keywords)
• Group keywords with a common keywords 1-3 words long.  For example, if my keywords were “blue dog collars”, “red dog collars”, “black dog collars”.  Then my common keyword is “dog collars”
• Write at least 2 ads per ad group.  Use the common keyword for each ad group name and try to use it in the text ads.
• Upload to Yahoo Search Marketing and optimize campaign everyday.
• Write down impressions, clicks, CTR, # of Leads on daily performance.

Niche #1 Updates:

• 15,257 Keywords
• 36 Ad Groups
• 14 Ads per Ad Group
• CPC: 0.15 (now 0.25 after today)
• Daily Budget: $5.00

Niche #1 just became live today. I uploaded it on Saturday, July 19 and it barely just got approved today.  I guess they don’t approve anything on the weekends.

More updates soon!