There are numerous ways to make money in the world of affiliate marketing, and one of the most common ways is the use of paid ads like Google ads to promote affiliate links. Running Google ads campaigns costs money and it does not guarantee a successful affiliate marketing campaign; however, it increases our chances of running a successful campaign if we can keep the cost low. So, how fast can a campaign be successfully launched?
In this article, we are going to look at how an affiliate expert launched a Google ad campaign in 48 hours, and we are also going to see how and when the campaign started making money within a week. This post is a case study of how Chad Bartlett used Google Ads to promote one of his affiliate links.
Chad Bartlett is an affiliate marketer with many years of experience and accomplishments, and he has his own YouTube channel where he teaches people how to make money online through affiliate marketing, entrepreneurship, and other methods.
Let's take a quick look at how the strategy works to help us understand and comprehend the process.
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Let's dive into this article...
The first step is to search for niche software with little competition, and this software will then be advertised on Google Ads. These ads appear when people type in the name of the software being promoted; therefore, it is necessary to optimize our ads so they can show more often. According to Chad,
"The reason this works so well is that when we find software that has no ads running to it already that means there's no competition for us, plus when people are typing in the name of the software and click on our ad, the traffic goes to our affiliate link. That traffic is already really warm so we do not have to do any hard task to start selling".
How to Get the Software to Run Campaign On
To get started, we are going to use a website called capterra.
Capterra offers thousands of different software products to promote. So go to the software categories; browse all of them. Scroll down to find the product you're looking for.
When looking for products, keep the following in mind:
- The goal here is to find software that you have never heard of before. Or, even better, one that is just around the corner.
- You want to find a software keyword that has no Google ads associated with it.
- You also do not want to do anything with software that has no reviews, as this indicates that there is no demand at all.
You may have to do a lot of research to find good software to promote.
Chad's choice of software to promote is in the video conferencing platform niche, and it gets about 1 300 searches per month, which is not bad. It also does not have any advertisements running on Google, but more importantly, it has an affiliate program we can join.
Chad's dashboard
After getting the referral link, the only thing left is to start running ads for the software name's keyword Proficonf. When people search for this software, the ad is going to come up and it's going to redirect visitors to the affiliate link through which commissions will be earned.
How to Run a Profitable Google Ads Campaign to Your Affiliate Link
Go to your Google Ads account and create a new campaign without a goal. Then, you should work on your daily budget since this is very important, and the budget is determined by the number of monthly searches for your software. Chad started with a budget of $20 per day which is around the same amount you should also start with if you want to be successful.
Since the ads have only one keyword, you should select clicks as your action, and there is no need to use Google's Display Network. Also, it is better to target all countries, and the choice of language should be English. Do not forget to add your affiliate, and then, fix in your choice of keywords you want users to search for to find your ads.
The display path part of the setup shows a preview of what the actual ad looks like on the right side, and this way, the affiliate id part does not show up.
Always add a good headline.
Because the software developers may have used a specific headline for promotion, it is best to use the exact words or phrase as your headline, and you can do the same with the description.
When you click done, you will see a preview of how the ad will look. You can now review the campaign to ensure that everything is in order, and once you've done so, you can click the publish button.
As you can see, the ad says eligible, so it should take a couple of hours for it to be approved.
Results
Chad did absolutely nothing for 48 hours after setting up the campaign other than letting the ad run the entire time. Let's see the results in the Google ads account first.
There have been 346 clicks so far, and the average click costs $0.15. Also, Chad has spent $51.32 so far on the ads in the last two days. Looking closely, you will notice that the ad was linked directly to the affiliate link, but is that possible?
According to Chad,
"You can as long as the company has terms and conditions and they're not breaking any rules, you're allowed to use affiliate links. There's no problem with that".
We need to state that directing the links to the affiliate links may be prohibited on some platforms, so you need to be very careful. The choice of implemented strategies and platforms determines the operational methods we can deploy.
Now let's go into the dashboard of the software being promoted.
The ad began on March 29th and did not begin running until later that night, resulting in only 30 clicks. It showed that it ran for three days, but it's actually only 48 hours because the ad started late. It received 30 clicks on March 29th, 123 clicks with one customer on March 30th, and 78 clicks with seven customers on March 31st.
If you're wondering how much money has been made thus far, the answer is zero.
Chad didn't realize this software had a trial period until around this time. As a result, all of the customers on the list are on trial. There are currently eight people on trial, and because this product pays recurring commissions, it can start to add up over time.
One thing to keep in mind when promoting software is that almost all of them will have free trials, so this means that you will have to wait a week or two before you start seeing conversions.
A benefit of promoting this software is that you will continue to receive the 25% commission even after the trial period has ended. Most software pays recurring commissions, and many people who sign up for this software will stay with it for more than a year. So all of your recurring commissions start adding up over time to cover the cost of running the ad.
At this time, Chad was spending $6.25 per customer from the ads for a total of eight customers. As long as this generates more revenue over the next two or three months, it will be very profitable.
Just to show an example, Chad used this same strategy for Builderall, which also has free trials and pays recurring commissions. One of his clients has been paying for the software, making him recurring commissions for the past four years.
The screenshot above shows all of the commissions earned by this single person who is on $45 autopilot every month.
How the Campaign did After 1 Week
A total of $150 was spent in a week on the ad, and because the Google algorithm thinks its ads are doing better, the average cost per click went down to $0.06.
We can see from the affiliate program report of the software being promoted that there are still some customers on a trial period. On April 1st, it received 21 customers and seven conversions, resulting in a $136 profit. Remember that the commission rate is only about 25%, so the commission was $34. The cool thing is that seven people have a paid plan, and sure, it only made $34, but if half of those seven stayed the following month, this would generate another $15 in recurring commissions.
On April 2nd, three customers completed transactions resulting in a total of $62, with a commission of $15.50, which is a little bit complex to analyze. This is because different pricing plans are available for users on this product page. While some of the subscribers were on the $12 per month plan, others were on the $25 per month plan.
So commissions are earned based on how much one makes from each customer, which is determined by the plan chosen.
On April 3rd, there were no conversions, and three visitors were converted on the 4th and two on the 5th of April. A total of $67 in actual commissions was earned. With a total investment of $150, $67 was earned, resulting in an $83 loss for this campaign.
Since we have had some repetitive sales, and we are making losses with the Google ads, it may be wise to pause the Google ads campaign so we can start making profits with recurrent commissions.
In his final remark, Chad said,
"What I could do right now is to turn off my ads. I don't want to spend more money, and then within two months I will probably break even and start making a profit within six months. I will still start being profitable because I guarantee you that some of the people who signed up today are still going to be paying for the software in six months for now and I am still going to be making commissions from them".
On the other hand, he can choose to continue running the campaign to scale up his profit faster. Chad believes that the cost of ads will keep going down in the long term, while sales will keep increasing. The only downside to this software affiliate program according to Chad is that its commission payout is low. So you might want to stick to software with a high commission rate.
Income Analysis
- Total Revenue for a week trial — $67
- Total cost of Ads — $150
- Total Income: minus $83 (loss)
Conclusion
In this post, we learned how to successfully run affiliate marketing in the software market. Using Capterra, one can search for upcoming software to create a Google ad campaign. Using this method, we will compete in a less saturated market, which will benefit us. Furthermore, we discovered that it is possible to direct an ad to an affiliate link as long as it does not violate any terms and conditions of the platforms we are using. Therefore, it is paramount to always check the details of the terms and conditions of all the affiliate programs we are interested in promoting.
Although Chad's case study initially resulted in a loss after a week, the fact that the software pays recurring commissions shows that he can still profit from the campaign. As a result, we will like to emphasize that promoting affiliate programs with recurring payouts is one of the secrets to making money in this business, particularly when using paid ads to promote our programs.
