Ad HustlerConfessions Of A Serial Internet Entrepreneur

You may have heard a lot of big names in this industry say that payout of an offer doesn’t matter, EPC is all that matters.  It’s human nature to think that the offer with the bigger payout will make you more money.  Duh, seems like common sense right?  Unfortunately, common sense doesn’t always prevail in affiliate marketing.

What is EPC?
Earnings Per Click.

How is EPC determined?
Take the total amount you made on an offer and divide it by the amount of clicks it took to make that much money.  For instance let’s say you run an offer that pays out $10. Let’s also assume you convert 1 in 50 clicks to a lead.  Your EPC will be 20 cents ($10 divided by 50 clicks = 0.20). Pretty simple math and most networks do this for you automatically in their reporting interfaces.

So now that we are all on the same page about what EPC is and how to calculate it, here’s the question.  Let’s say you run the exact same offer at 2 different networks with the exact same payout.  Will the EPC be the same?  Technically it should be, but in practice, is it really?

I decided to do a small case study to find out:

12/19/08
Network A: 0.12 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.07 Cents EPC

12/20/08
Network A: 0.13 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.08 Cents EPC

12/21/08
Network A: 0.14 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.10 Cents EPC

12/22/08
Network A: 0.14 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.09 Cents EPC

12/23/08
Network A: 0.12 Cents EPC
Network B: 0.08 Cents EPC

Consistently, the offer on Network A performed better then the offer on Network B.  Keep in mind, same offer, same payout.  It sounds weird, but this can happen with any offer on any network.  A 4-5 cent difference in EPC can add up big time if you are sending tons of traffic to the offer.  At 5,000 clicks per day you can make an additional $200-$250 per day on the offer just by running it at the network with the better EPC.  Just because Network A performed better on this test, DOES NOT mean that every offer of theirs will perform better split tested against Network B.  There are tons of variables that can effect the performance of an offer on a network.

The lesson learned should be pretty simple.  Always split test the offer you are running with the same offer on other networks.  You could be leaving a lot of money on the table by running an offer that is underperforming the same offer on another network.

Ad Hustler

Last night I went down to Carolines Comedy Club in NYC to see some radio personalities that I enjoy from The Howard Stern Show.  I went with my dad who is a fan of these comedians as well.  After the show my dad kept talking about how he wanted to show me a bathroom he found and thought I would like.  Weird.  So we walk a couple of blocks and I see this:

It’s a restroom sponsored by Charmin.  When you enter, they have all the walls wallpapered with the Charmin bears and take you up an escalator into a disco like area.  There is a DJ who is way too happy, pimping out Charmin toilet paper.  As you get towards the DJ booth, he is talking and asking people if they need to take a number 1 or a number 2 and then directs you towards a bathroom.  Each bathroom has an attendant.  When you enter the bathroom its basically a DJ booth with a toilet and sink.  When your done, an attendant runs in and cleans the bathroom making it ready for the next person.  The DJ also asks everyone if they washed their hands.  It’s all pretty weird.  The next room has different areas that you can take pictures with teh Charmin Bears and learn the Charmin Toilet Paper dance:

As you leave they have samples of Charmin products for you to try and take with you.

My point to telling this story is that advertising is not all direct response.  For Charmin to rent a building in Times Square, NY to carry on these shenanigans does not create direct response results.  What it does is expose masses of people to the brand by having them try it first hand.  It creates a top of mind awareness so that when people go shopping for their home essentials, they hopefully choose Charmin.  Although a lot of what we do in affiliate marketing is all about direct response, don’t forget the branding element when creating websites.

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Courtesy of PPC.Bz

Ad Hustler

There are a lot of people that want to get into affiliate marketing.  They read all of the forums and the blogs and envy those people speaking about how they make money online.  Some of these people go as far as going to conferences or meetups to discusss affiliate marketing but have still not launched a campaign.  My advice:

Launch a Friggen Campaign Already.

Just do SOMETHING!  Stop reasearching cool tools.  Stop talking to people on AIM trying to get them to give you the secret bullet.  The secret bullet is work.  Once you do the work, you will probably fail.  You then learn from that failure and launch another campaign that does a little better.  You will keep failing and tweaking and eventually succeed.  I would imagine most people having success at affiliate marketing are the people putting in the work, rinsing and repeating.

Want my advice?  Just do it!

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I just updated the blog to WordPress 2.7.  Very weird on the backend.  Will take some getting used to.

Anyone that has a blog: What do you think of WordPress 2.7?

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