Afternoon from the UK!

[barney2k]

Hey everyone!

My name is Barney, 22 year old from the UK!

I've been doing IM on and off for a number of years. Only just started to take things a bit more seriously.

Have had a tiny amount of success with Amazon stores in the past few months using purely SEO.

My strength is in SEO and Social Media. My full time job is as a community and SEO manager for a domain name registrar. It really is a full time job and I work incredibly hard. It's given me so much extra knowledge to use in my IM too!

Starting CPA marketing is something I have been wanting to do for quite some time but am only really getting around to now. I've been saving a small amount of cash over the last few months to build up a small pot of funds to start with some paid traffic.

As it's not something I've used much before I plan to start with just $300 and use extremely low value, long tail keywords to generate a few conversions. As I've been learning, CPA marketing is very much a test and refine form of marketing. So I don't want to blow my cash on super competetive keywords. I'll be using Google Adwords and maybe 7Search as people seem to be getting some reasonable results!

I'll be promoting an offer in the running/health niche to start off with, as I already have a domain name and small WordPress site set up which I have been using in conjunction with Amazon affiliates for a while.

I'm adding more content and the site has started ranking for some long tail keywords.

Still not sure how this site is going to help me but at least I have a domain to base my first campaign around. Will supplement these with social media activities and active SEO to ensure the site stays well ranked.

Next step is to look for some campaigns to promote. I have a MaxBounty account that was created some years ago for a test I was performing at the time and I logged in today to find my account is still active and I still have an AM attached to the account, which is really good to see!

I'm currently working my way through the 411 so thanks to K for that!

In case anyone is interested my barebones timeline and targets are as follows:

Week 1 - 6th August 2012: Research and Identify 5 potential offers to promote
Week 2 - 13th August 2012: Pick 2 campaigns that I will target, based on ease of promotion and current competition.
Week 3 - 20th August 2012: Keyword Research for the two campaigns, evaluating both competition and conversion potential.
Week 4 - 27th August 2012: Create 2 articles for each campaign that are SEO targeted around the keywords chosen in Week 3.
Week 5 - 3rd September 2012: Create 2 sub domains on my main domain name, one targeted to each campaign. Ensure pages are targeted to the offer, well designed, contain good content and are fully SEO friendly.
Week 6 - 10th September 2012: Start promoting both offers. The maximum amount spending in week 1 will be $75. Identify which keywords are performing well and remove those that are not performing well. Add synonyms of the well performing keywords to campaign. Target - $40 CPA Revenue
Week 7 - 17th September 2012: Similar to Week 6, refine the keywords judging by click to conversion ratio and add further synonyms for the best performing keywords. Maximum spending in Week 7 will be $100. Target - $100 CPA revenue
Week 8 - 24th September 2012: The final week of my inital plan. Ensure keywords are the best they can be and remove any that have not been successful. Total spend will be $125. Target - $150 CPA revenue. Perform a full analysis, what went well? Were my keywords any good? How did the offers perform? Approach AM with the results and ask for advice.

This is how I plan on starting out with my first 8 weeks in CPA.

I've got so many ideas in my head for ways to promote things. With SEO being my strength I am going to try and use that to my advantage. Ranking articles for long tail keywords is my speciality. I'm hoping I'll be able to generate some organic traffic to my campaigns too. However, my priority will be the paid traffic and refining my technique there.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this long thread.

And before anyone says the word ACTION! - Which I know is important - I'm a planner and I like to set myself decent targets. I'm typically quite a meandering sort of person, so I lay a plan out for myself to keep focused, otherwise I'm too easily distracted!

Hopefully I will get to talk to a lot of you on the forums and learn something from a lot of you!

Any advice you can give me would be great! Specifically how do you think my targets are looking? Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough? What am I missing from my plan for the first 8 weeks? Am I being a total noob and missing stuff completely?

Thanks everyone!
Barney

 

[xapuc]

Welcome man Nice to have someone from Domains industry.

 

[barney2k]

Welcome man Nice to have someone from Domains industry.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[swecoder]

Looks very interesting! Would love to read a Case Study during your journey. If you're anything like me, documenting your progress will further help you actually do stuff. I'm also a planner first, and a doer second.

 

[barney2k]

Looks very interesting! Would love to read a Case Study during your journey. If you're anything like me, documenting your progress will further help you actually do stuff. I'm also a planner first, and a doer second.

I'll definitely be doing a case study thread.

Maybe someone can learn something with me but also as you said it'll be great for tracking my own progress!

That's why I've written a quite detailed plan for the first 8 weeks to make sure I keep on track!

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[K]

Welcome, your plan looks great and your already onto a winner because your not expecting to make millions in your first week like most!

Where abouts in the UK are you?

 

[barney2k]

Welcome, your plan looks great and your already onto a winner because your not expecting to make millions in your first week like most!

Where abouts in the UK are you?

I'm in Newcastle. Great city to be in!

Thanks for the kind words. After being in IM for a while and doing SEO professionally, nothing comes easy. Measurement and enhancement looks like its going to be key in CPA and I'm fully aware its a long term project.

Do you think my initial targets are realistic K?

Thanks for the 411 by the way. I've read through it twice and I've had lots of ideas.

Cheers for the welcome! Hope I can learn something from your success!

 

[Andy Haskins]

Welcome to the forum, I reckon you will be right at home here!

It's great to see that you have a plan and a goal, it is something that with the right balance will help you to hit your goals 10-fold. As you said just make sure you work on implementing the plan and you will be well on your way.

As stated before I would love to see a case study of your progress and how things are coming along. It's a great industry with many different variables so it would be interesting to see if you need to deviate in any way depending on performance.

Good luck, here's to a successful future!

 

[barney2k]

Welcome to the forum, I reckon you will be right at home here!

It's great to see that you have a plan and a goal, it is something that with the right balance will help you to hit your goals 10-fold. As you said just make sure you work on implementing the plan and you will be well on your way.

As stated before I would love to see a case study of your progress and how things are coming along. It's a great industry with many different variables so it would be interesting to see if you need to deviate in any way depending on performance.

Good luck, here's to a successful future!

Thanks very much Dru

I'm pretty excited about it! I've started looking at offers to promote and there doesn't seem to be anything based around my specific niche, running, but lots in my vertical, fitness.

There's so much to think about and I'm going to try and document it all in a thread starting in the middle of next week.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[K]

I'm in Newcastle. Great city to be in!

Thanks for the kind words. After being in IM for a while and doing SEO professionally, nothing comes easy. Measurement and enhancement looks like its going to be key in CPA and I'm fully aware its a long term project.

Do you think my initial targets are realistic K?

Thanks for the 411 by the way. I've read through it twice and I've had lots of ideas.

Cheers for the welcome! Hope I can learn something from your success!

For sure yes, however wait for the Newbie 411 relaunch

 

[Angelman]

Hi Barney and welcome. I'm not so far from you, just south of Durham!

Sounds like you have a good plan of action and I'm really keen to hear how you progress.

Cheers!

 

[barney2k]

Hi Barney and welcome. I'm not so far from you, just south of Durham!

Sounds like you have a good plan of action and I'm really keen to hear how you progress.

Cheers!

Thanks Angelman

We're certainly close! Have you already started CPA? Or are you a newbie like me?

I'm gonna delay my plan for a week because I'm off on holiday for a week next week but I'll start my case study thread as soon as I get back. Hopefully after reading the 411 v2 a few times.

Thanks for the welcome!

 

[Angelman]

I guess I am a newbie in that I've not thrown a great deal of cash at it yet, but I do have some paid search campaigns up and running. Still trying to work out which traffic methods suit me and my way of working and also utilise my skillset the best. My intro to PPC has been via 7search which is a strange beast and I'm not 100% sure that PPC via search traffic is gonna be my weapon of choice, but the only way to work that out is to give it a good try.

I started my search campaigns then went on holiday for a week which wasn't the greatest idea I've ever had! Although I was able to keep an eye on them, internet access (and time) was limited, so I don't blame you for holding off until you get back from your holiday.