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Ask DLS: Is affiliate marketing via Google AdWords a scam?
I had gotten some very well-informed and interesting replies when I asked you guys about the stock market, so I figured I would try my luck again with something at least as shady, scammy and rife with get-rich-quick artists: Google AdWords affiliate marketing.
The basic idea, to those of you unfamiliar with the concept: Company A offers its product for sale (say, an anti-virus). If I get them a paying customer, they give me a cut of the deal (percent or a set cash amount). In this setup, I'm called an affiliate, and It's up to me to drive them traffic. One of the most common ways for an affiliate to get traffic is by using AdWords: I pay Google, and if enough people buy the product, company A pays me back and I cash in. This is in theory.
In looking into the subject recently, I was unsurprised to find that it is full of some of the most shoddy and untrustworthy materials. In fact, it is so full of crap, I had a hard time finding anything valuable. So I ask you: are there any valuable resources here? Or is it totally "trial and error"? Do you know anyone who actually made money with this, or is it mainly a losing proposition?
NOTE: Needless to say, any affiliate links in the comments (even valuable comments) will get the comments deleted, and if severe, may get you banned. This is a strictly non-commercial avenue. If you reply, reply because you want to help the other readers, not because you're trying to market something. I will be checking every link.
Comments
16
Subscribe to commentsCharliMar 11th 2010 1:27PM
i call BS on the whole thing. I know 5 very good friends that have sites that were approved for Google's ad thing for words and banners. And as soon as they started to make some real money they were all suddenly banned. One friend had gotten $95 dollars in his first month and was about to get his first payout and blam. Cut and no money for you. Why? Some claim of being bad for "publishers" with no details, no contact to get details and no appeal. Another friend has a site that is updated daily and gets daily hits from a group of about 1000 people. He racked up over $100 in the first two weeks and was cut before he got his check, same game.
And so on. And I've heard similar tales all over the place. It's like Google is cutting anyone that might really make some money off of them.
DiRTMar 11th 2010 3:45PM
Yeah, but what were they advertising? Buying babies on the black market? I think Google should shut them down.
CharliMar 11th 2010 6:51PM
actually Dirt they weren't advertising anything but what Google gave to them. They were all blogs, no porn, just movie and music stuff and one guy that does a computer tip of the day (all legal stuff) blog.
DavidinOKCMar 11th 2010 1:32PM
People selling books, articles, ebooks, video lessons etc.. generally are selling mostly useless information. As for Google AdWords Affiliate sales, I've been doing it for almost 3 years and I've been profitable. I don't work very hard on it, maybe 30 minutes a week and I make around $1,000 a month from it. I consider it passive income, which as a stay-at-home dad is pretty nice to have. It can be done, yes. Do I recommend it? No. Profitable programs are few and far between and you will most likely lose money.
Erez ZukermanMar 11th 2010 4:44PM
Hi David!
First of all, as someone who says he's making money off it, I want to thank you for not posting any links. I really do appreciate it, because it means now I can talk to you some more. :)
I wanted to ask: On the one hand, you say "you will lose money". On the other hand, you say you put in 30 minutes a week and get $1000/month (profits, btw? Or before expenses?). So... what you're saying is that most people lose?
How long did it take you to reach that level? Did you lose a lot of money in the process (how much)?
Did you learn all by yourself or did you read a lot? (Again, no affiliate links please...)
DavidinOKCMar 11th 2010 5:05PM
Erez, I can tell you that anyone who has to post spammy links in forums is going for quantity and not quality. They are working REALLY hard, following one of those expensive How-To books and most likely not making very much money.
As for my back story, I was introduced to the idea after working with AdSense for a while and some associates of mine let me in on a few affiliate sources. I'll be honest, it was a little shady to start out. They walked me through getting started and I did lose money, several thousand, before finally figuring out my personal niche. When you are buying clicks through AdWords you have to be very cautious and set very strict limits or you can blow through your whole account balance in a couple of hours. As an example I once showed a friend the scale of the internet by letting a single keyword run wide open for 3 hours on a Tuesday night, from about 9pm to midnight CST. There were 40,000 impressions and about 1000 clicks at 30-40 cents a click. Do the math, it gets expensive very quickly. The keyword? Shower Curtains. That story usually scares off anyone who isn't to sure about this whole 'internet thing'.
I appologize if I sound preachy I just hate being responsible for enticing others into failure. As in many endeavors it requires patience, knowledge, and hard work. It took over six months before I figured out how to be consistantly profitable. I used to make more than I do now but my niche has grown smaller over the last year. At my peak I was clearing about 4,000 a month.
These days I see it as more risk than reward and so I do not search out new programs. I datrade the FOREX market instead. And THAT is a whole other article. If you have any specific questions and/or links for reliable information let me know and I'll email you.
BrianMar 11th 2010 1:31PM
We no longer pay affiliates after a large chargeback fraud a few years ago, it was also quite easy to see who was selling via what keywords and just either ban then (because we came up in the search top) or buy ourselves.
Erez ZukermanMar 11th 2010 4:38PM
That's really interesting, Brian! How can there be clickback fraud on something like that? Didn't you pay out commission based on actual sales?
BrianMar 11th 2010 6:21PM
You get lots of sales, then pay out commission then several months later all the sales request a chargeback. We suspect a ring but the company we used would not do anything about it and while they paid us back they really just wanted to sweep it under the carpet.
GeorgeMar 11th 2010 1:44PM
I tried Adwords but till now it just costed money.
Adsence on the other hand creates a steady flow of income although it is much lower now then a couple of years ago.
For me it work best to write posts about a product with an affiliate link in it to there product page, this way i make most of my web income and pages will rank in the search engines so could make a steady flow of money.
MxxConMar 11th 2010 1:54PM
wouldn't you have to advertise specific product names? and those are probably copyrighted to which you most likely don't have permission. so i guess that would be against google ads terms.
Bret DugmoreMar 11th 2010 2:02PM
Is it actually legal market affiliate products via adwords?
Say you were to market something from Clickbank, wouldn't it be against the Clickbank and Adwords terms and conditions?
t3yf5gMar 11th 2010 4:00PM
My company uses commission junction for afilliate network. We had a kid (19 or so) sign up and placed our ads on his blog. it had so much google juice cause it was a niche blog and he new how to optimize his content. his site alone sent 25K a week in sales. our CJ commissions go from 3% up to 8%. So you can do the math and see how you can sit back and write an article few times a day and make nice money. Or just have a community site where people talk in a forum. The whole key is getting traffic to your site and you do whatever you can do to get them there.
NonprofitTechMar 11th 2010 10:39PM
I've long wondered the same thing. I have a blog that gets some traffic, has lots of content, and is related to an industry with lots of affiliate programs. Heck if I can figure out a way to "monetize" it via affiliate links.
Whenever I look into these things I see lots of hype, and lots of people giving very very vague (almost secretive) examples of "niche" sites. I have yet to actually SEE one of them. I think that would really be the only way I'd lose some of my skepticism... if someone could point me to a step by step example of how someone actually made money doing this. Show me one of these "niche" sites that is generating enough traffic and sending enough referrals to make money like this.
highgrade00Mar 13th 2010 2:19PM
Virtually any large deals, coupon, loyalty, comparison shopping sites... just to name a few. The scene is filled with a lot of noise, but for those who do it well it can be very profitable. I manage a few large affiliate programs--I've seen the data first hand. Heck, if you use Citi Bank, you may notice random deals that pop up in your account overview. Those are affiliate links. Large companies become affiliates too.
I've never been on the other side of the table as a publisher, so I can't speak much on the whole AdWords topic, but I do know of some affiliates that seem to use it effectively. And FYI, yes, in many cases it will be against the merchant/advertisers Ts&Cs to bid on select keywords. It varies from merchant to merchant.
JamesMar 21st 2010 8:27AM
Affiliate marketing does work, I have been doing it for a little over a year, like any business some projects i lose money and other i dont. overall
My Number one Tip is do testing, a lot of people that try and market product go and get an adwords account wack every keyword known to man in and then make10% of what they out layed .
I use tracking on every keyword i put every keyword in and with in a couple of days i will be down $500 however at this point i will know which keywords are making me money and which ones are costing me
So i kill of all the bad ones and i am left with a list of say 20 or so profitable terms i then fine tunes these .. change the headline etc see what helps conversions within a week i have normally recovered my start of loss.
This is in my blood i love internet marketing i get so excited when things work.. work is more fun than fun ( a quote i like) but i am not afraid to make mistakes or lose at the start.