5 Bucks a Day

I wrote about it in 5 Bucks a Day, and have been asked on numerous occasions to explain what Campaign Blasting is.

In a nutshell, “campaign blasting” is a technique used to quickly and efficiently set up Google AdWords campaigns.

Before I learned the technique, I used to spend weeks trying to get a campaign to work. In fact I gave up on AdWords as a way to generate income. Everything I tried failed. I had read how others had made a killing, but I couldn’t get my head around it.

Then I joined a paid membership site called Web Profit School, and one of the items that was available free to members was a report called Campaign Blast Guide by Matt Levenhagen. In it Matt explained a simple, yet genius, way to succeed with AdWords.

It was in the guide that I learned that failing with AdWords was to be expected at least 90% of the time. It was there that I learned that failure is my friend. It was there that I learned that I could make a fortune by succeeding only 10% of the time, or even less if necessary.

I wrote recently the formula that explains how you can make huge profits while failing 90% or more of the time, basically 9 failures x 2 days losses = 18 days losses, 1 success x forever = forever profits, go back in the archives if you missed it.

Simply put, blasting is the technique of:

a. find a merchant you like (could be on Clickbank, CJ, Linkshare, ShareaSale, wherever).

b. pick “action keywords” which are indicative that a searcher is in a buying mood (or whatever mood you want him or her to be in, such as subscribing to an opt in form).
c. put up a set number of adgroups that Matt defines as ideal with headline and text tightly related to the action keywords. For example, if you picked buy green widgets, purchase green widgets, green widget review, best green widget as your keywords, you might have 4 different adgroups so that you could get as many words bolded on the search page, by putting the exact search phrase in the description and/or heading.

d. start your campaign.  Matt then reveals principles he uses that will help prevent wasting time on campaigns that haven’t proven themselves to be winners yet.  He then has a specific point that he recommends as far as determining losers and cutting the loser loose, so to speak.  On winners, he tells you how to expand it  for maximum profits when you’re ready to go to the next profit phase.
That’s what blasting is in a nutshell. It was largely the key to my early success, and I still use the techniques to this day when doing new AdWords campaigns.

When you get used to Campaign Blasting, you can put up a campaign in less than an hour, so you can easily do 10 or 15 campaigns a week even after spending some time on researching the niches you want to be in. Getting a success a week is what the 5 bucks a day strategy is all about, so it all ties together perfectly.

Plus, if you’re really hungry, you can do 25 to 40 campaigns in a week, a long hard week to be sure, but you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labors for many years after blasting at that rate for a couple months.

Honestly, it helped me identify early on what I was good at, what merchants converted well, what niches were good for me. Now, due to what I learned by blasting early on, and the confidence it instilled in me, my failure rate is much, much less than 90% because I don’t waste time on campaigns that I don’t have a good gut feel about.

If you’re just getting started in AdWords marketing, you’re better off investing in purchasing and reading (2, 3, maybe 4 or 5 times) the Campaign Blast Guide, rather than wasting hundreds of dollars on Google ads that you would learn how to do better with in the book.

And the big news is that Matt has just expanded the book to around 160 pages! Yeah, I gave it to you in a nutshell, but just think how much better you’ll understand the whole approach if you read the full book a few times. You’ll certainly be more of an expert than you are now, and if you understand the concept of investing money vs. throwing it away, you’ll do well to look closer at the Campaign Blast Guide.

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I was checking my stats this morning, and saw a Clickbank sale that I didn’t expect. I’ve been promoting a certain merchant for a while, and actually use the product every day, specifically it’s the Affiliates Alert tool.

I had noticed it before, when it shows up in my stats, it has a merchant code of XXXXXXXX which I never realized the pure ingenuity the owner of that account has. Most affiliates have an abbreviation for their name, like JJBROWN or their site name like XYZVIDEO or something (I just made those up, I don’t know if they exist or not, like they say in the movies, any resemblance to anyone living or deceased is purely coincidental).

Anyway, today it struck me. Just about every merchant, when they give out suggested linking code for their sites, they say something like, if you want to link to us, here’s the link you need:

http://XXXXXXXX.5buckguy.hop.clickbank.net/

and assume that you’ll replace the XXXXXXXX with the person’s own affiliate code.

I wonder how many people just copy and paste and forget to fill in their own code. I wonder how many free commissions Mr. XXXXXXXX gets a month.

Hmm. Where else can this technique be used?

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I purchased a product yesterday, I’ll keep the name of it private, it doesn’t really matter anyway.  It was recommended by a guy whose list I’m on, though I’m sure it was just recommended because he got a commission for doing so.  That doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that it was something that is really useful, and I’ll make money by using it on some of my niche sites.

At the time of purchase, the sales letter went to a one time offer, where I was offered the chance to purchase resell rights for about 4 times the cost of the product itself.  I didn’t purchase the OTO, figuring I could negotiate it later if in fact the product worked.

So, today, I tried it out.  It worked OK, the documentation wasn’t superb, but I was able to figure it out, and it did what I wanted it to do.  So far so good.

I decided to contact the author/vendor and ask some questions regarding the resell rights, and to suggest some changes to the product that were a bit cumbersome.

I looked at the email I received after purchase, it said to contact them if there was any problem.  However, the reply address on the email address was one of those no-reply@hisdomain.com addresses, obviously not an address that’s read by anyone, or at least it would seem to any reasonable person to be so.

So, I decided I would go to the product web site.  No contact information there.

So, I decided I would go back to the download page, surely there would be some email address there if there was a question.  The download link had expired, and there was no contact address to go to support, it just referred me back to the email that I received that was from no-reply.

So, I decided to send an email to support@hisdomain.com and see if it would go through.  I’m still waiting, only four hours, so there’s still hope there.

The point I’m making is, if you’re in business, you sure as heck want your customers to be able to contact you.  It appears this person wants to discourage support questions.  Ah, what wasted opportunities.  Those who ask questions often become the best affiliates, I’ve found, if you give good support.

Would I still want to give this guy another $150 or so for resell rights?  I’m not as keen on it now as I was last night.  Too bad for him.

A lesson to be learned for us all, for sure.

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If I said this before, it bears repeating, because new readers are coming here all the time, and old readers forget things.

I was responding to a forum posting today, and a person brought up the fact he had made his first AdWords sale, and he was surprised because it was a competitive market.

I don’t let competitive markets scare me away. In fact I love them. If there’s no competition, there’s probably no profits available.

People get discouraged because they put up an ad and lose money. That’s not exactly a good thing, but that’s also not a bad thing. Here’s why:

In PPC, you’ll fail more often than you succeed, if you’re an affiliate. If you’re advertising your own products, that’s another matter for a different discussion, because much different tactics are in play there. But let’s say you’re an affiliate marketer like I am. So, you put up a campaign with a handful of adgroups, and you either don’t get a lot of impressions or clicks, or you do and they don’t convert to sales. Loser, right? Right.

So what do you do then? Do you chase it? Do you raise your bid prices to get a higher position? Do you quit trying to make money with PPC? Or what?

Well, you might chase it if you haven’t gotten enough clicks yet to reach a decision as to whether it will be profitable or not. But at some point, if you’ve thrown enough money at the campaign and it didn’t produce profits, you scrap it. Pause it. Delete it. Whatever.

And you try another campaign. You don’t quit, for crying out loud, what’s just happened to you is happening to every successful AdWords marketer on the planet. They identified a loser.

In some markets, like Clickbank downloadable eBooks, probably 1 out of 10 campaigns will be a success. Yes, 9 out of 10 will be losers. If you’re a baseball player, or an NFL quarterback, you’re history, go home, my friend. If you’re an affiliate marketer, 1 out of 10 makes you rich. Here’s why:

9 failures X 2 days worth of losses = 18 days worth of losses
1 success X forever worth of profits = $$$$$

Bottom line: you’re on a roll, my friend. Do another 10, and whiff on 9 of them. I love it when that happens.

It takes failures (sometimes a lot of failures) to find just a few successes. It’s worth it. Failure is your friend. I wouldn’t say seek it, but at least embrace it for what it is, a way to find your next success.

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I just noticed, and am happy to see, that Google AdWords is now allowing publishers to individually pause serving of specific keywords, or specific ads, while allowing the others in the campaign to run full throttle.

This is a very welcome change, as far as I’m concerned.  You can read more about the new changes in the AdWords blog which if you aren’t already, you should be reading on a regular basis.

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If you’re involved in internet marketing at all, for more than a little while, you’ve probably heard of the phrase “Bum Marketing”. It was coined by Travis Sago, and refers to the fact that he could teach a bum off the street how to make money doing affiliate marketing.

Or that’s how I understand the story.

Anyway, Travis actually was one of the early purchasers of “5 Bucks a Day”, and I saw him pop in over at our forum today, so I took the opportunity to send him a PM with a question I’ve had.

See, Travis has always been known as Mr. Bum Marketing. He has this email course he gives away for free for some reason. In it he gives more value than some of the $97 eBooks that have come out lately. In fact, before I forget, if you haven’t taken advantage of it, go get it and then come back. I’ll wait. Go sign up for Bum Marketing eCourse.

OK, here’s the deal. I heard a while ago that Travis, who’s made a fortune with his Bum Marketing techniques, is now spending a lot of his time marketing with AdWords instead. So I wanted to get the scoop. I asked him how he determined when to write his articles, and when to do PPC campaigns.

The reason I wanted to know is, personally, I’ve been doing a lot of AdWords. I don’t seem to have the patience to write an article or 10 or 50, submit them to article directories, and wait weeks, months, for them to percolate and start bringing in traffic and income. Plus what if they don’t work? You can’t really change them. So I like the immediate gratification of AdWords. I pick some keywords. I write a short ad or two. I pay my nickel or dime or quarter per click. And I see if it works. I can start seeing results or failures in hours instead of weeks or months.

I’ve always believed in failing quickly, and often say “failure is your friend’.

So, I asked Travis why he’s doing AdWords now instead of, or in addition to, Bum Marketing. Folks, his answer hit me on the side of the head like a 2×4 swung by Barry Bonds.

His theory is first of all is basically that he does AdWords for the same reasons that a lot of us do. Easy, fast, immediate feedback, leads itself to split testing. All that good stuff.

As far as the Bum Marketing aspect, here’s where it gets good. When he finds a little mini niche that makes money … when he identifies keywords that get clicks … when he hits on a product or merchant that converts … then he writes, or has written for him, articles that exploit those long tail keyword phrases that he knows will land him on the first page of search results.

So now, he’s taken just a little time and a little money to test a market with AdWords. He’s found a successful campaign. He’s making a profit. And he can spend some money (if he gets the articles written for him), or he can spend some time (if he feels like saving money), and produces some appropriate articles.

Once those articles are indexed in the search engines, each time they’re clicked on is free traffic. So, let’s say he’s found a niche where clicks are going for .50 or $1.00. If he has an article written for maybe $10.00, all he needs to see is 10 or 20 clicks out of that article and it’s completely paid him back by giving him free clicks.

What he hasn’t done is waste time or money writing articles for niches that aren’t profitable. He’s thrown a little money at them to test the waters, some will work, some won’t.

I’m actually paraphrasing Travis’ answer to a large extent, but that’s it in a nutshell. An aha moment for me, and I hope for you. Personally, I really believe if I take action and use this plan myself, I could make an extra $50,000 to $100,000 profit in the next 12 months.

Think about it. Now you can afford to be much more competitive in determining profitable markets. If you know that you can make money bidding .50 a click, you have a huge incentive to write articles that will get you those clicks for free. Suddenly you have a huge competitive advantage on everyone in your market. A regular listing in the first 5 spots on the left hand side of the Google search page, where the regular listings are, will outpull a listing in the right hand column, where the paid results are, by a huge margin. You could be in both places.

The beauty of this system is that you don’t waste your time writing articles for keywords that don’t bring results. The beauty of this system is that once the articles are indexed, you can pause your AdWords ads. If you want to. But why if they’re profitable? Why not get greedy. If you’re making $1.00 on average every time you get a click, whether it’s on your ad, or whether it’s on your article, why not pay .50 to Google to get you that dollar? I’ll do that all day long, even in my sleep. It’s a beautiful thing. Not quite as beautiful as getting the free click. But still, it’s a beautiful thing.

Talk about market domination. Whew.

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I have a background in starting businesses. After working for a couple different employers, I decided to start my own company.

My first entrepreneurial venture was as a computer software consultant/trainer/developer, and I guess you could say I did pretty well at that while it was fun.

After a while, the travel and long hours was no longer fun, so I decided to try retail, a complete career change going from high tech to selling baseball cards. I guess you could say I did pretty well at that also, while it lasted.

Most recently I’ve been immersed in internet marketing. And I can’t complain about how I’m doing there either.

I’m not saying all this to impress anyone, just to make note of the fact that I don’t believe that opportunity only knocks once.

Opportunities are all around us. With the options you have available to you online, you can start a business quickly. Today even. Cheaply.

When I started my retail business I needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars before I opened the door for the first time, and continued to pour money into the business regularly, risking ruin if I made poor inventory decisions.

Online, that isn’t necessarily the case. For example, if you’re an affiliate, you have no inventory to stock. You don’t have to rent office space, pay security deposits, put up signs, get permits, etc. You fire up your computer in a spare room in your house if you like.  Presto, you’re in business.
Additionally, your business can be run as a part time venture. You don’t have to quit your job until you’re ready.

This is the greatest time possible for those that want to start their own business.

Opportunity is out there, you no longer have to wait for it to knock. Go seek it out.

Lacking skills? There are plenty of free sources online. If you want to learn how to put up web sites, just do a search for things like html tutorials, read and experiment. It costs almost (not quite) nothing to purchase a domain name, and very little monthly to get a reliable host. Yes, less than $10 a month to have a spot in cyberspace for your business, compared to thousands a month in rent and utilities to lease a brick and mortar spot in your town (I’m talking U.S. prices here).

Opportunity is waiting to be found. The biggest cost is the cost of lost opportunity. What is lost opportunity worth? Let me give an example.

In my book, “5 Bucks a Day” which you can get for as little as $7.77 if you purchase the junior version, you see how easy it is to develop income streams that pay you $5 a day on a recurring basis. I, and many who are following the strategy, are adding $5 a day to their income every week. After a year and a half of doing this, I’ve built up a nice cash flow.

What if you had an idea and said to yourself that it sounds good but you’ll wait until you were a little smarter about a subject, or until next week when domain names will be 2 dollars cheaper, or next month when you’ve maybe found a better web host?

Has the opportunity gone away? Probably not. But what has the delay cost you?

I like to think in terms of the fact that I can normally add $5 to my daily income every week if I take action. Doesn’t sound like much, but $5 a day is $1825 a year.

So if I procrastinate a couple weeks in starting something because I don’t feel like it, it cost me $3650.

Or if I wait month because I want to find free information instead of buying an eBook that will teach me the tricks of setting up a good looking blog, for example, 4 weeks delay will cost me $7300.

Or I could have bought that book for $27 or $47 or $97 or $7.77 and gotten going.

Are you losing your opportunities by being thrifty? Think about it. Like your auto mechanic might tell you, you really could change your oil every 4 months instead of every 3 months, but do you want to take the chance that saving a few bucks might cost you thousands?

Think about it. I’ve always had a philosophy that I don’t mind investing in my education. If I spend $100 on a book or course, and I get just 1 little hint of an idea out of it that can either make me a profit, or make me more productive or smarter, it’s like buying $20 bills for $2. I’ll do that all day long.

Think about it.

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