Jerry, one of our members, has been busy working on his site since he got back home from our Chicago “Tell Your Boss to Shove it Seminar“.

He is getting plenty of traffic but no sales. I reviewed his site and
adwords campaign and gave him my suggestions. I copied the email
string below:

Hey Ben,

I know you said I could call you anytime during business hours but I
wanted to give you a heads up so I can make the most of your time.
I’ve been working several hours every day on my campaigns in addition
to my new corporate job, to keep educating myself and increasing my
knowledge of this industry.

After returning home from Chicago, I started a google adwords
campaign, implemented negative keywords, am running separate parallel
campaigns for content network and search and have been split testing
ads. I have a $20 daily advertising budget ($10 search / $10 content).
I have approximately 140,000 impressions, but only 300 clicks.

Once on my site, I had 1200 impressions and only 34 click throughs to
merchant sites and no sales to date.

I need some guidance here. I have a Siberian Husky website and my
keywords are focused on that subject. My affiliate programs range from
pet medication to pet friendly hotels and everything in between.

Can you take a look at my website www. and give
me your input? I’d be happy to provide log in info for CJ, Google
adwords acct, etc. I have some theories but need some confirmation. I
need to make this website work or set this one aside and try another
project. Is my niche too narrow? Does it not generate enough traffic?

I really need your help. If you need me on the phone, if you want to
take a look first yourself, whatever it takes. I’m committed to making
this work. Please take a look and give me your input and let me know
what you need me to do.

Hi Jerry,

I spent some time reviewing your website, Google adwords account, and
ran a few reports – which you can find in the “Reporting” section of
your website. A couple observations/comments/suggestions for you:

1. First, the good news is that you know how to operate Google Adwords
pretty well. Your campaigns are set up just the way I would set up a
campaign. It’s not that easy to operate a decent adwords account so
congrats on that step.

Accordingly, you are getting some good relatively inexpensive traffic.
Your keyword search and content campaigns are both getting traction on
clicks that will not break the bank.

Your ad copy is pretty good with a decent click through rate. It could
be better but it’s a good start and it is nice to see that you are
split-testing ads. In sum, Traffic looks steady so now we have to look
at the conversion side of things.

2. Second, with respect to affiliate website conversion, I looked at the message to
offer match. In other words, what do the keywords tell us the person
is looking for AND, are you giving them what they want with your
landing page.

This is critical.

I ran a keyword report to see exactly what people searched for when
they landed on your website. Since you are bidding on the broad match
version of your words, you are getting all types of searches relating
to “siberian husky”.

The report is there for you to review, but my point is that with the
broad match enabled on the keyword “siberian husky”, you could get the
following searches on your ad:

- “buy a siberian husky”

- “siberian husky breeder rochester ny”

- “sell siberian huskies”

- “siberian husky diet”

Do you see how each of these people would want/need something TOTALLY
different?

With that being said, it seems like the main message of your landing
page is about giving advice on getting a siberian husky for new
siberian husky dog owners, correct?

Assuming that’s the case, that is totally ok. There are probably lots
of people looking for the great information you are offering. However,
that doesn’t make for a good match to the affiliate offer on your
landing page. The offer is probably better suited for CURRENT owners
who are looking for a discount on ped meds.

If I owned your website, I would do the following:

(a) figure out exactly WHY people are coming to your site. Obviously
this is a hungry market because you can easily get hundreds of
visitors per day, which is very exciting. You just need to find out
WHY/WHAT information they are looking for, etc.

(b) let’s assume they are looking for info on getting a siberian
husky. You may consider doing your own ebook and offering that for
sale INSTEAD of affiliate links – unless you can find an existing
ebook for sale that you can promote as an affiliate.

You could produce a great ebook probably within an afternoon. You’d
have your own product and could make money on the ebook, develop/
cultivate a list of avid siberian husky owners which you could later
market to – via autoresponders, etc.

Those are my initial thoughts in a nutshell.

A few other random notes – I created a content report for you in your
adwords account. You can see which urls displayed your ads. Google is
showing your own ads on your own website – oops!

In other words, you
are paying for clicks on your site for people to go for your site – or
paying google double for the same person. I would exclude your site
from your content placements. Also, review the list of sites and see
what else is irrelevant that snuck into your ad serving.