Proof From Readers That PPC Arbitrage Is Paying Off Nicely
Figured I’d blog about something that made me feel all warm and nice inside. I’ve been getting lots of IM’s and emails from readers and members of WickedFire about how they read what I wrote on PPC Arbitrage, and how instead of just sitting around reading, they put it into play. Not only has it been paying off, nicely too, but it’s actually helping all of these smaller and medium sized webmasters get over the hurdle of “I want to make at least $2k a month on auto-pilot”. I promise, this is not a pitch for an ebook or some killer system to wealth and riches. This is actual stuff that is working. I have never charged a dime for any of the information either, and don’t plan on it!
How much is needed to be successful at PPC Arbitrage? Not a lot. Most of the guys doing it have created their site with AdSense or YPN, which took them a few hours, which is expected with your first site/page, because you’re not used to it just yet. But even so, a few hours of making a few pages on some information topic they don’t really know all that much about, slapping the contextual ads on there, and then driving traffic to it. So, aside for the work amount, the cost is so basic too. All you need to do is just prove it to yourself that at it works before you allocate a larger budget to the project. Typically, people will invest about $100 to maybe $300 at most. It’s up to you if you want to burn through that budget in a few hours, a few days, or a month. Most people let it run for about a week, and almost everyone sees results immediately. Sure, you may have to wait on a net 30 basis to get your check, but when you compare it to anything else, it overrides it so quickly.
Just to prove how goddamn easy and quick the ROI took, a friend of mine tested a small site for some weight loss drug called Hoodia. Put up the content, slapped the ads onto it, put some links to affiliate products as well, and that was it. He had already cleared $50 in profit within the first 20 minutes. He used some Tier 2 PPC traffic, which comes pretty quickly, especially for a topic like that. The positioning of ads was very creative, but everything stayed within the rules of Adsense. Again, he wasn’t doing this as a form of making cash for himself, it was strictly as a test to prove that what I said works, and does so very well.
Here’s another example. A friend of mine who happens to own a very large ad network, obviously doesn’t need to money, but likes to dabble in all sorts of interesting and creative ways to make money, put up an information site on mortgages and loans. Very popular and expensive topic, no need to tell you guys that. Typically clicks for it will cost about $9 on Adwords for almost every major keyword on the topic. He took traffic from one of the 2nd tier engines, Searchfeed I believe, pushed some traffic to it, and now, in month 2, he’s averaging $5k a month. Not bad at all. I think his total investment was a little over $2k for both months combined!
In the second example, my friend used a practice that I mentioned a few times to other people as a way to make even more money, or maybe convert the non-clickers of your ads into clickers, because again, that’s all you want them to do. You aren’t building it to make them come back time after time for updated information, because there will be none. All you want them to do is clickthrough to the advertiser who can either supply them with better, more accurate information, or a product/service that they are already looking for. So back on topic, using different forms of contextual based advertising and maybe tossing in some affiliate links on the sides is a good way to go. This way, if the user has no interest in your ads that they can tell are from Google (which aside for people within our industry don’t really notice this stuff like we do), they may click on something else. Perhaps you should add some Adbrite ads, or maybe something like Intellitxt or Kontera. Even Chitika ads can do well if it’s targeted to something in the shopping or consumer electronics area.
My point is, just because you’re making a site for something like arbitrage, doesn’t mean it has to look like it’s a MFA page (MFA - Made For Adsense). Spruce it up a bit with more ways to make cash, things to compliment the ads in ways that may not look like blatant ads, but can still drum up lots of clicks. Alright, you may not make $1 a click from it, but I’d rather make $0.15 a click instead of zero. You’ll see, it will hike up your profit margins.
In closing, I’m really glad people are using the advice I give, and not just making assumptions about it, or bashing it without trying it. I will always catch shit from people who disagree, and that’s fine, but 99% of those people who usually disagreed, never even tried it. Of all of the people who have tried it and failed, it was a minor failure and they usually go over where they failed and how, fix their mistakes, and poof, back on the horse they go, and into the ranks of success stories. So if you hit a snag, keep trying. We aren’t talking about investing a ton of cash here or something that you can lose your shirt over. It’s simple trial and error. Pick a topic, make a page/site, slap some ads onto it, spend $100 or so on some cheap 2nd tier traffic, and watch it go.
Want to pay me back for the advice? Just link to my blog with the anchor text “affiliate marketing blog”. That’s all I ask in return. Also, it would be nice to see or hear about more success stories, and even failures that became successes. If you find that you’re in a rut and can’t break into profitability, join WickedFire and post your problems. There are SO many people there that were new like you just a few months ago that are no doing this as a form of generating cash for other projects, or even as their primary income source. It may sound rude, but please don’t email or IM me looking for advice, because I’ll delete and ignore it.
With that said, goodluck everyone!
Hey Jon,
Nice article, I always enjoy reading your down to earth but informative style. I’ve been checking in here and on your forum since you started it, but this is the first time I’ve rally wanted to pick your brain. I ‘ve done arbitrage in the past and the results have been mediocre for me. That might be because all my sites are content sites and not necessarily designed to push sales. Anyway, you mentioned your friend used SearchFeed. I was wondering what networks you think might be standouts for delivering arbitrage traffic. If you’re not interested in commenting on this, I guess I’ll just continue down my list.
Thanks!
There are tons of 2nd and 3rd tier engines to use. Neither of them has better traffic than the other. Some people prefer 7search when using adsense, because the traffic has a lot of non-us visitors and adsense is able to automatically geo-ip target the ads, whereas others prefer Searchfeed or Enhance. Either way, the traffic is pretty bad nonetheless and they all pretty much get it from the same source (empty domainer traffic), so in the end, it doesn’t matter. It just comes down to how much you are willing to spend per click, and how much your niche pays out per click.
There are tons of threads on Wickedfire.com about it, so have a look there and see what you can come up with.
Thanks for the quick response Jon. I’ve been digging through Wickedfire since I posted. Great info as always.
I read a few blogs with similar themes and this is, by far, the best.
Thanks, Jon, for your no-BS approach and willingness to share.
It’s so cool to have discovered WickedFire and your blog (by way of Shoemoney’s show, BTW) where the really good stuff is.
Most of the stuff I have been exposed to up until this point has been of the “ebook” variety. Man, was I getting sick of that crap!
Thanks again, Jon, and keep up the good work. A link or two to this blog is in the works.
Great Post! You provided a lot of helpful, practical info that I can immediately try out. You mentioned a few examples with ways of generating traffic to your site. I’m back here after doing a quick search on those examples with a question. For those of us starting out with little capital, what’s the best way of generating traffic. SearchFeed appears to offer a great service but it’s not cheap!
Yo Jon, I posted over at WF, but I’ll reiterate here: The information that’s at your forum and here at your blog has me earning around 4 times my investment doing arbitrage.
No bullshit here, I’ve learned it all from your blog and forum. No crap ebooks involved and no prior knowledge. Just good ‘ole down-to-earth information has allowed me to earn a nice profit from arbi.
Everybody reading this blog - pay attention to everything that’s posted at the blog and forum and take notes. Sure, they’re not going to come out and tell you step by step how to make a profit online, and they’re not going to reveal their niches. Find your own damn niches.
Read between the lines and really analyze the information that’s presented and I promise that you’ll make a profit. Remember, it’s trial and error. Keep trying shit until you get it.
If I can do it, anybody can…and it’s all because of this blog and the WF forums that really showed me that I had the balls to do it.
Fuck yeah! I appreciate the success stories and comments, makes me feel all warm and mushy inside, haha! But seriously, it’s definitely a good feeling when you see people using what you speak about, and finding out that they are doing pretty damn well with it too. Take note all of you ebook idiots, this shit is free and probably makes people more cash than any ebook on how to blog for a billion dollars. Booyah!
Hey Jon, can you link some examples you have of some successful smaller niche sites like you explain please
Hey Jon,
Fantastic post! I signed up for Google Adwords today and have my monthly limit at $30 for now (+$10 activation fee). I’m really excited about trying PPC Arbitrage out!
A quick question about running Adsense with other ad agencies. Is is against Google Policy to run Adsense and IntelliTxt simultaneously on the same page?
Thanks,
Waraas.. sorry, can’t give you everything. Do some work on your own.
Aojon,
I have found a lot. But they are all really crappy made and look terrible. So I was just thinking you knew of some examples. But that’s ok
Thanks for the article
Aojon,
Gotta say you rock. Very nice post. I imagine the only hard part left is finding the right niches. Did some PPC marketing for a development company so I have a lot of ideas =). Do you find it makes a big difference depending on how “quality” the page itself is? Can I put together a 20 min shill blog and have it pay off decently or should I spend more time and make it look more authentic?
I tried out PPC arbitrage with 3 pages (small text, 2 images, and 3 ad units). Made $5.10 in my first day.
Now planning to create many more pages and start few PPC campaigns on adbrite or similar networks. i am targeting european niches.
Hey Aojon, In your post you mentioned “2nd tier traffic” can you please elaborate more on this? What sort of networks classify as 2nd tier? Ad Centre? YPN? I know G-Adsense doesn’t work well with Adwords anymore (sorry for sounding naive, im new to this game)
I think he means second tier search engines such as “Searchfeed”, “Miva” ect.
I tried ask.com because it has a lot of traffic, but it seems to have too high bids and another quality based minimum bid like adwords has.