Increase Profits By Using Negative Keywords

I have been testing several campaigns on the Big Three PPC networks over the past few months. The competition has become tougher and it requires high bids to show our ads on the first page. In general, my success ratio for campaigns fall under the 80/20 rule where only 20% of the campaigns are profitable.

I have wondered what could be the benchmark for a good ROI (Return On Investment) and after several inquiries with experts, I have figured that – between 80% and 100% – is a good ROI for affiliate marketers in PPC campaigns. For example, you spend $100 for ppc ads and your revenue on that campaign is between $180 and $200, then you are running a good profitable campaign. Some campaigns may have extremely higher levels of ROI, but for a benchmark – to evaluate a campaign for its success would be 80% to 100% ROI.

A few days back, I tested a campaign for one week and I glanced the analytical data. The campaign was producing an ROI of 65%. According to my ROI benchmark, it was down by at least 15% – but, I was unable to trash the campaign as a failed one because it was on the profitable side. I was looking for ways to increase my ROI at least to the 80% level.

The options before me were

1. Write a better PPC Ad, get a better CTR and reduce the PPC Cost
2. Create a better Landing Page to increase conversions

I did both of the above and after four days – I was able to push up the ROI, but only upto 70%. I was too confused whether to continue the campaign or just junk it. I browsed all the analytical data I had on this campaign and one spark of an idea struck me when I was looking at the keyword stats.

I was using all three variations – exact, phrase and broad matches – for every keyword on this campaign. The phrase match & broad match keywords were producing low conversions. I figured out and listed all the words that were in addition to my keyword in those matches that were producing low conversions or nil conversions. I entered all these words – 12 in number – into my negative keyword list on the ppc campaign.

What a dramatic turn?!

After four days, my ROI reached 100%. Although the impressions reduced, the clicks and CTR was up for the campaign. It was a dream come true for me on this particular campaign and I am happy that I have discovered a new technique to increase profits by using negative keywords effectively. This was possible only because I had an analytical system to track all data related to the campaigns.

If you are an affiliate marketer, I strongly suggest you to keep an analytical system in place and am sure that – it could give you new ideas to increase your profits by cutting unproductive costs.

Stop Losing Money With PPC!

I have been doing PPC advertising on the Big 3 Networks (Google, MSN & Yahoo) for over a year now. On an average I have spent $10,000 per month in PPC and have tested several campaigns but only 1 out of 10 have been converting to profitable ones.

I had developed a cumbersome process to track and evaluate my campaigns, adgroups, keywords, referrers & conversions on MS Excel sheets. Most of the time, I was not able to get the statistics right since I had to work manually to figure out and it takes time to do that. I usually review my statistics once a week and stop the campaigns that are in negative without investigating deeper on keyword levels.

I know that this is not the best practice and that the real goldmine lies inside my keyword list. There is a 20/80 rule in PPC – 20% of your keywords bring in 80% of traffic & conversions. If tested & tracked correctly, we can weed out the non performing keywords & bid higher on performing keywords to make any campaign – even more successful. But, all through – I have been viewing my campaigns in macro level and have decided to scrap the campaigns which were in negative, on the whole. With little more research on my keywords, I could have stopped losing money with the non performing keywords and made it a successful campaign by running it with the performing keywords.

What was stopping me from doing my keyword study?

The poor tracking and the poor analytical system I had in place to find the ROI for my campaigns was the major hurdle that prevented me from making my campaigns, into super profitable ones.

For quite sometime, I have been exploring the options to create an automated application to track my ROI drilling down to the levels of keyword & refferer from campaign level – by which I can take my PPC marketing efforts to the next level of profitability. It would help me in analyzing my data instantly and with minimal manual work from my side.

At this juncture, I have come across a PPC affiliate tracking solution and it’s called – Prosper202.

Prosper202 is a self hosted application from the stable of 202 group. It seems to be an excellent tracking tool for affiliate marketers since it will enable marketers to view performance of campaigns, keywords & ads – all in real time!

Prosper202 calculates & displays EPC values instantly for campaigns, keywords, ads & referrers. This information will be a boon to any affiliate marketer, since he will have a bird’s view of the essential statistics to stop non performers and give a boost to performers. I have decided to give it a try and test the application at once. I will post a review on the product, after giving it a good run.

And, do you know how much it costs? It’s absolutely free!

As always, your comments are appreciated on this subject and if, you too – are looking to stop losing money with PPC, it makes sense to try Prosper202, because it has already helped stop losing money by providing the application for $0!