I have been working on small projects/campaigns on 7search for about 3 weeks now and have found quite a few interesting details that I would like to share and discuss.
Since cpafix has become a go to place for 7search/cpa , as it ranks highly for related terms in Google, I felt that giving out some of this info might benefit a few of the members here.
7search is a good place to get your feet wet, and in a few cases I can see how it could be scaled to make decent money, but there are also some situations that can throw off newer IMs.
As I come across more aspects of dealing with 7search, i'll try to update this thread with those notes.
1. Ranking 1,2,3(7s) at the same time can still lead to no clicks:
This is odd and rather discouraging. Changing the copy up does not change this outcome for me, which brings me to my next point.
2. Views or Impressions(Imp) do not reflect your actual impressions:
3. Results with DEAD domains:
There are a quite a few of results(campaigns) that lead to domains that are not active or even expired.
That means the 7s advertiser just paid for a click that lead to nowhere.
I have even see this for competitive terms and it is another discouraging aspect of using 7s.
Seeing so many advertisers who don't even really care about their 7s campaigns makes you wonder.
5. Smart Bids and Top bids:
I did a campaign that was based in Australia, so that is the country that I chose in the campaign set up. However, if you are bidding for just the US market, my bid for the Australian market will be reflected as the top bid for that kw, even though I am only bidding in Australia.
On this particular campaign/kw I bid the Smart Bid price of 36 cents(pretty high and just testing), two days later someone is out bidding me (37cents).
Most likely we are not even bidding for the same country, so our 2 "competing" ads will NEVER be shown together.
But he probably thinks that he still needs to outbid me since the bid prices do not differentiate between countries.
*** Side note: the 7search top bid for this keyword is actually around 10cents(without our two bids).
6. Evergreen Markets have volume:
The normal evergreen markets do have volume on 7s. If you are willing to compete with others in these, then you'll have to spend a good amount of money, as they are competitive.
But, a lot of guys are not actually promoting offers initially, they are list building. Which means there is no money upfront-the money comes on the backend**hint, hint...
7. Other Markets:
I have tested several CPA offers and have only come up with one winner.
So far a lot of email submits just do not convert for me.
The one offer that I do have converting( 60cents/conversion) I consider a winner because it is actually profitable, but only for about a dollar a day.
On the other hand, if the offer paid more along the lines of the industry standard( $1.20+ ), I would be making $10+ profit a day, which gives me hope.
All I need to do is find 3 or 4 offers that are similar to this one( which pay between 1-3 dollars) and I can add to my income another $1000 a month.
Add 10-20 offers and I am off to the races...
Ok - enough for now, if I come up with more, i'll just add to this post.
I know the 7searchguys are on the forum, so if there is any SOLID advice they would like to give about any of this, I am sure the community would love to hear their perspective.
Since cpafix has become a go to place for 7search/cpa , as it ranks highly for related terms in Google, I felt that giving out some of this info might benefit a few of the members here.
7search is a good place to get your feet wet, and in a few cases I can see how it could be scaled to make decent money, but there are also some situations that can throw off newer IMs.
As I come across more aspects of dealing with 7search, i'll try to update this thread with those notes.
1. Ranking 1,2,3(7s) at the same time can still lead to no clicks:
This is odd and rather discouraging. Changing the copy up does not change this outcome for me, which brings me to my next point.
2. Views or Impressions(Imp) do not reflect your actual impressions:
A keyword can have 1000 impressions, but it does not mean that your ad was ever shown at all
In a lot of cases, to get your ad shown(so that you can actually test), you need to up the bid quite a bit(Smart Bid), as your ad can actually be competing against a variety of non-7search 3rd tier results; IMO these are networks/partners that are working underneath 7search
Many of my clicks are not coming from 7search, but through 7search, as the partner's network/platform actually hosts the initial click.
I am not going to go into this, as you can just check your referrers in your tracking logs and look at your ad on this referring site to see the initial redirect link.
Example:
--1) Referring publisher site shows your add
--2) Click goes through a platform similar to 7search
--3) User is then sent through 7search and lands on your site
--4) I suspect this is why so many people are reporting many clicks coming from the same subid(###AFFID###)
Smart Bid- can be quite high; in some cases 30-40cents and for extremely competitive kws a dollar or more
A kw can be the only bid and still not get clicks, even though it is a high impression kw
This needs to be carefully tested though, because different referrers have a variety of ways of showing your ad ( in content or search results )
However, you can still get 1 cent clicks, but it is hard for me to say whether these are legit or not.
On that note, there is a very well known ppc pro who has a video out about 7s/ppc, in which he states that you should start low (1-5cents).
His advice is that if you are getting imp. but no clicks, then you need to change your ad copy and if you are not getting impressions at all then you need to up your bid by a penny a day.
But I tend to disagree, because my tests have shown that the ad is probably not even showing in the first place because the bids are too low
AND even if there are impressions(which might not be your actual impressions), it would be a waste of time changing the copy, because again, the bids are too low. my 2c
How did I test this:
--1) I went to a variety of referring domains and kept changing my bid prices, waited a few minutes and then saw where I was placed.
--2) I have the ability to bid on millions of keywords(though I only chose a few) and show targeted landing pages(just think products), so I was able to test kws out in a variety of niches.
3. Results with DEAD domains:
There are a quite a few of results(campaigns) that lead to domains that are not active or even expired.
That means the 7s advertiser just paid for a click that lead to nowhere.
I have even see this for competitive terms and it is another discouraging aspect of using 7s.
Seeing so many advertisers who don't even really care about their 7s campaigns makes you wonder.
5. Smart Bids and Top bids:
I did a campaign that was based in Australia, so that is the country that I chose in the campaign set up. However, if you are bidding for just the US market, my bid for the Australian market will be reflected as the top bid for that kw, even though I am only bidding in Australia.
On this particular campaign/kw I bid the Smart Bid price of 36 cents(pretty high and just testing), two days later someone is out bidding me (37cents).
Most likely we are not even bidding for the same country, so our 2 "competing" ads will NEVER be shown together.
But he probably thinks that he still needs to outbid me since the bid prices do not differentiate between countries.
*** Side note: the 7search top bid for this keyword is actually around 10cents(without our two bids).
6. Evergreen Markets have volume:
The normal evergreen markets do have volume on 7s. If you are willing to compete with others in these, then you'll have to spend a good amount of money, as they are competitive.
But, a lot of guys are not actually promoting offers initially, they are list building. Which means there is no money upfront-the money comes on the backend**hint, hint...
7. Other Markets:
I have tested several CPA offers and have only come up with one winner.
So far a lot of email submits just do not convert for me.
The one offer that I do have converting( 60cents/conversion) I consider a winner because it is actually profitable, but only for about a dollar a day.
On the other hand, if the offer paid more along the lines of the industry standard( $1.20+ ), I would be making $10+ profit a day, which gives me hope.
All I need to do is find 3 or 4 offers that are similar to this one( which pay between 1-3 dollars) and I can add to my income another $1000 a month.
Add 10-20 offers and I am off to the races...
Test,test,test...but don't break the bank!
Ok - enough for now, if I come up with more, i'll just add to this post.
I know the 7searchguys are on the forum, so if there is any SOLID advice they would like to give about any of this, I am sure the community would love to hear their perspective.
