DPR Affiliate Marketing Blog

I use Adwords to promote affiliate programs. It’s not all I use though. By using SEO first, I get an idea of what will work for advertising and then I attack. Because rank via SEO is harder to keep than rank that I paid for. But rank via SEO is cheaper and gives you an idea of what keywords are valuable to you.

But when you use advertising, you have time and you have credit limits. And your credit limit is your bankroll, stealing a term from poker which I used to be interested in but found the process too slow for making real money and keeping me interested.

But you also have time. And although you can almost consistently make money through researched PPC campaigns, it is not printing money.

Adwords charges your account once you have used $500 worth of clicks. If the card you are using to pay for ads has a credit limit of $2000, you can be charged 4 times before you have to pay it off. But in order to pay that off, you need your profits. And when you get your profits is determined by how soon your affiliate program pays you for your current work.

So here is a basic formula: The Amount Of Money You Can Make Via Ads = Your ROI Threshold * Credit Limit / Affiliate Program Payment Schedule.

Where “Your ROI Threshold” is the minimum amount of return on investment you will settle for. In other words, where you either shut off a campaign or modify it until it’s ROI is back where you want it.

Let’s say your ROI Threshold is 100%. In other words, you want to make a buck for every buck you put in. Let’s say your credit limit is $2000 and your affiliate company pays you a month after you make a sale. And now, let’s put those numbers in the formula:

1*$2000/Month = $2000/Month

For Clickbank, the turn around is two weeks. So make it $4000.

And there are only a few ways to change this number:

• Get more credit. Works for some. May not work for others.
• Settle only for a higher ROI. Drop campaigns that don’t product well for those that do better. Add negative keywords when needed. Use more phrase matched and exact matched terms rather than broad ones.
• Find an affiliate program that pays more quickly. With some, it’s two months before you can reap the profit. That would drop the number above to $1000.

And once you get to a profit you can spend, don’t spend it. This may be the hardest part. Put enough in the bank so you don’t have to rely on credit. This will be your true bankroll. The advantage to this is that the amount you make back is now limited by your bankroll + your credit.

Of course, if you have unlimited credit, this does not apply. Don’t worry about the bankroll.

And there can be some advantages to consistently running up and paying off a card that has miles or some sort of rewards. Free things are always good and it can also feel good to get money back from the credit card companies for a change.

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