Alright, so I told you there would be a lot of updates with this little challenge that I’ve been working on. Today I’m going to talk to you about what’s happened over the last couple days. I’ve had some hiccups and hit a couple road blocks already that have set me back some. It shouldn’t be too bad though. I’ve overcome them (for the most part) and should manage to stay on track with the challenge.
Just as a quick update so that you can follow along. My new mailing list that I’ve been building is at 33 subscribers as of this posting and I have made $0.00 from my efforts so far. My only monetization tactics up until now are my banner on my thank you page and some affiliate links in the report. With only 33 people opting-in, I haven’t seen any money from these tactics yet.
May 9, 2012
Right before I started sending traffic to my new landing page, I realized that I didn’t have any sort of tracking in place to know where each visitor came from before opting-in. How am I going to tell which sources are effective and which ones aren’t if I have no idea where each opt-in originated from?
Luckily, I purchased a piece of software a couple of years ago called AdTrackz Gold that actually gives you unique links for each traffic source and allows you to see exactly where each visitor that opted-in came from. I went ahead and installed this software on my new server and immediately ran in to my first roadblock… The links weren’t redirecting properly. Every time I tested one of these special tracking links that AdTrackz generated, I was sent to a “404 Page Not Found” page. ARG!!
I probably spent 2 hours playing with the software before finally giving up and going to a service that I’ve heard highly recommended called LinkTrackr. Now LinkTrackr is a $40 per month service that will also give you custom links and keep track of where all of your opt-ins came from…
I purchased a membership to the LinkTrackr service and, literally, within 3 hours, their servers went down. All of the links that I had created stopped working for a good 20 minutes. This made me really nervous about their reliability. I figured this was a fluke and kept the service anyway. A few hours later, after I began generating traffic to the site, I went to check my stats in LinkTrackr… LinkTrackr was showing I had 3 opt-ins while my Aweber account clearly showed I’d had 7 opt-ins. The damn software wasn’t tracking properly! ARG!! (Refund request sent)
I went back to screwing around with AdTrackz for a little while and, as it turns out, I missed a step while installing it and it was totally my fault. The software was working fine now. Unfortunately, in the time all this happened, I’d had several opt-ins that I wasn’t able to track the source of… (Lame)
Here’s what the reports that AdTrackz generates… The blurred areas are the individual keywords I’m targeting.
Anyway, I was back on track now. I installed Google Analytics on to the site so I can watch how many total visitors I was getting and all was good.
Right after I purchased my doomed LinkTrackr account, I set up some paid traffic campaigns. I created a campaign in TrafficVance to send some Pay-Per-View traffic to the opt-in page and, as keywords, I used URLs of some websites that were related to my offer. With PPV traffic, you tend to want to target websites as opposed to keywords. When someone in the PPV network goes to a website that you are targeting, your opt-in page pops up. I set the budget of this campaign to $20 per day and bid my keywords anywhere from $0.01 per impression all the way through to $0.60 per impression depending on how relevant I thought the keyword was and how much competition the keyword had. I then watch which keywords get conversions and drop the ones that don’t seem to convert.
I then jumped in to 7Search to create a Pay-Per-Click campaign. Now, I don’t do much PPC, so I’m really flying blind with this experiment but I bid on some keywords that I thought were pretty relevant. I set my daily budget of this campaign to $20 as well and I bid anywhere from $0.25 per click up to about $0.60 per click depending on the competition. I shoot for the 2nd or 3rd spot in PPC. I don’t need to be in the number 1 spot to get clicks, I just need an attention grabbing ad.
I then went to this site and contacted five people who offer solo-ad mailings and made them offers. Of the five people, two responded. One of them was way too expensive. They want $200 to send 200 clicks. At $1.00 per click, my opt-in page would have to convert and 100% to hit my goal of $1 per opt-in. Not worth it. The other person that replied accepted my offer of $75 for 250 clicks (meaning for $75, they’ll guarantee that 250 people will see my opt-in page). My page needs to convert at only 30% to reach my goal of $1 per opt-in. This solo mailing is going out Saturday, May 12th so I should see a big spike in opt-ins after this.
May 10, 2012
A lot of the people I’d been contacting seemed to have accounts at a site called Safe-Swaps.com. Apparently, this is where people hangout to arrange adswaps as well as sell solo ads. It’s actually a pretty cool site because people swap with each other and purchase solo ads then immediately leave reviews of how things went. If someone doesn’t fulfill their promises, they receive negative reviews and no one swaps with them or purchases solo ads from them anymore. It sounded good to me so I created an account for $29 per month and began browsing the site.
For about 2 hours, I browsed Safe-Swaps and read reviews of solo-ad mailers. I ended up contacting and making deals with 6 more people for solo ads.
Since I’m paying people to mail their lists for me, I needed to write email “swipe” for them. This is basically where I write up the exact copy that they will be sending to their list. When it comes to solo-ads and adswaps, copy should be real short and real attention grabbing. The subject line for the email should really have a lot of thought in to it because, even though someone promises 200 clicks, if your subject line is really attention grabbing, you’ll probably get much more than you bargained for.
Breakdown
Total Opt-ins: 33
PPV Cost (TrafficVance): $32.27
PPC Cost (7Search): $34.95
Solo-Ads Cost: $572.06 (7 solo ads – 2,000 Clicks promised)
Total Cost: $639.28
Current cost per Opt-in: $19.37
Now I know that looks like really big numbers BUT keep in mind that I paid for a whole bunch of solo ads in advance. These solo ads will be fulfilled at all different times throughout the month. I’ve purchased over 2,000 clicks from people over all of these solo ads. Most people will only purchase one solo-ad at a time, wait for it to be fulfilled and then purchase another one. I’m just being really agressive with this challenge. As these people fulfill their mailings, you’ll see my total opt-ins climb and my cost per opt-in drop dramatically.
As of right now all 33 of my opt-ins have come from my TrafficVance campaign. I’ve received a lot of traffic from my 7Search campaign but no opt-ins. I’ve now paused the 7Search campaign to rethink my keywords and try different things. Seeing as all my traffic has come from TrafficVance, if I was to isolate that one source of traffic, I would have actually spent $0.98 per opt-in. Unfortunately, my failed 7Search campaign and my pending solo-ads have driven that cost-per-opt-in up.
I doubt I will purchase any more solo ads after the current ones are fulfilled. I’m not really sure yet. It will depend on the success of these ones. If my page converts at 50% (not unheard of), these solo-ads and my PPV campaign could get me to my 1,000 opt-in goal by themselves. I’ll just have to wait and see. If I purchase no more solo ads for the rest of this challenge, over 30 days, my daily spend on solo ads would only be $21.30.
If you’re keeping score, I’ve basically got a $20 per day budget for PPV, a $20 per day budget for PPC, and a $21.30 per day budget for solo-ads. That’s a total spend per day of approximately $61.30… And that’s assuming that I continue to run the PPV and PPC traffic campaigns every single day (which I won’t). So over the next couple of posts, you’ll see my expenses per day drop and my cost per opt-in skyrocket. I will make an ROI! I promise.
I’ll keep everyone posted in my next update.
I know a lot of what I said in this post was kind of technical. If you’ve got any questions or need any clarification, please make sure to leave a comment below.
More Posts In This Series:
1. Add $1,000 Per Month To Your Business in 30 Days
2. One Thousand Email Subscribers in 30 Days
3. Creating A Free Report And A Simple Squeeze Page
4. Traffic Generation And Challenge Hiccups
5. Your Questions Answered And More Stats
 The (not so stellar) results post (Challenge) |  Your Questions Answered And My Latest Stats (Challenge) |  Creating A Free Report And A Simple Squeeze Page (Challenge) |
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This is the kind of IN DEPTH NUTS and BOLTS explanation that starts to pull the curtain back on how all this really works.
I hope when this is all completed that you do offer for sale, a detailed version of the process complete with vids, resources, strategies etc. A valuable product…maybe a great WSO!
This whole thing is cool….I had never even heard of AD Swaps…or even better, how to find a good one.
It’s a bit daunting laying out the large sums to get it going but without some risk there is probably not much chance of reward!
Rock On Matt Wolfe….I wanna grow up to be like you!
David Rodwell
LOL! Thanks David. I’m glad you’re enjoying the updates. When it comes to paid traffic, feel free to hold off until I can prove what’s working and what’s not. This is all very experimental at the moment. Certain traffic techniques will be much more effective than others.
I could really feel for you when your LinkTrackr account didn’t fulfill.
Good job you managed to sort the AdTrackz – but it is all a time taker, let alone a stress maker.
Lots of good information.
I’ve never done a paid traffic campaign, and so i am learning a lot here.
Just as an aside – can you suggest why my gravatar is not showing on these comments? Will it be one of my settings or is it your blog?
Hey Dave. LinkTrackr was frustrating to say the least…
You Gravatar is set at Gravatar.com. You need to make sure that the email you post with on blogs is the same email you have set in your Gravatar account.
Hi Matt,
Yes a lot of what you said was a bit too technical for me but it indicates an area (paid traffic) that I need to learn more about if it pays off for you.
Its also good that you admit your “challenges” as I can learn from them and it makes you seem more like one of us rather than some guru speaking from the ivory tower.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff. I’ll dive deeper in to paid traffic as I experiment with it more. I’m a little afraid to give to many details, have people do exactly what I do, and then have that method not work. Details of what traffic is most effective will follow as I really get some good test results.
Hey Matt,
Great post. I appreciate all the detail. We use a number of trackers and AdTrackz is excellent. Takes a bit to get things working, but it’s very accurate, and no monthly fees. As you move forward, I recommend CPVLab, which allows a lot of increased functionality like split-testing offers, landing pages, opt-in forms, etc.
On the traffic, I am a huge TrafficVance fan, and if that’s working, LeadImpact may be worth a test too. Solos are great when you can get them. Safe-Swaps sounds cool, I’ll check them out.
Thanks man, looking to see how you progress.
Jonathan
Thanks for the tip on LeadImpact. TrafficVance’s initial fee of $1000 is a bit rich for my blood, especially for an experiment
TrafficVance is a bit pricey but so far it’s been my favorite traffic source. I still recommend waiting until I show results of all my paid traffic sources before deciding to stick to one. I’ll give a lot more details in an upcoming report.
Hey Jonathan. Thanks so much for commenting! I’ll definitely take a look in to CPVLab as Adtrackz works but it’s very dated and doesn’t have a ton of functionality.
I love TrafficVance. I do have a LeadImpact account as well but, so far, the traffic doesn’t convert as well for me. I find that an identical campaign converts leads so much better at TrafficVance than it does at LeadImpact. I have no idea why that is though.
Thanks so much for the tips! They will come in handy as I experiment more!
Hey Matt,
Wasssuppp? Thanks for sharing exactly what you’re up to and what you are using. This ones gonna be interesting to follow.
Brandon
Thanks Brandon. I’m really hoping the results come out the way I’m hoping.
OK, this looks like home-work time. I’ve always had an allergy to traffic analysis programs
Now it’s time to change tack and really master all that stuff.
Did you find any other newer program (apart from the doomed LinkTrackr)?
Jonathan Mizel above recommended CPV Lab. I may test that one as well. I like AdTrackz because it’s not an ongoing cost. Just pay once and it’s yours. It is, however, old and you can’t really expect much customer support.
Am really loving this!
Right, so I am still following on – a little bit behind though – sort of. Have now a created a second report (a descriptive list of all the products I am/have been using – free and paid). Can’t quite decide whether to simply incorporate it into the main report or to keep it separate. Also still need to set up all the links properly.
Note: Having lived in the Middle East for a number of years, I discovered that all the usual shortened links have been blocked which means millions of viewers can’t follow them. For that reason am using the “recommends” format. A bit time consuming to set up initially, but hopefully worthwhile in the end.
Am not yet too happy with the site I originally built – had planned to go the membership route but have now definitely decided to let everybody in and just limit the product sales, so have to fix it. Will not be using paid advertising (at this stage anyway) because I had to upgrade my Shopping Cart and simply can’t afford both.
Have completed a number of products but still have to upload them to the site and link them with the shopping cart.
Have an Early Bird Squeeze page up – have 39 sign ups – but no marketing done yet – this site has been languishing around for almost a year, unloved and uncared for
, but still get a few sign ups every month – it will be interesting to see what happens when I do actually get around to working on getting traffic to the site.
Will probably use video to generate traffic since YouTube is free. Not yet sure what other traffic getting routes I will try.
As for tracking – not sure what I am going to do about that other than Google Analytics. Does anybody have any advice about this?
Sandy
Hey Sandy. Since AdTrackz installs on your own domain, it shouldn’t be blocked anywhere. That may be helpful for your tracking purposes.
YouTube is a good source of traffic but I highly recommend forum marketing as your #1 free traffic strategy. Just get in to forums, make sure the link to your site is in your signature, and then just get active in the forums. Respond to questions, start conversations, etc… It’s a GREAT source of traffic.
As an addition to my earlier post.
Have just signed up for a JV/giveaway event. So will definitely put both my reports together into one single ebook. Will have to create a separate landing page for this but will use the same aweber list that I am using for my early bird landing page.
The giveaway starts in two weeks time so at least have a few days in hand to ensure that everything is 100% complete and get my giveaway uploaded.
The one big stumbling block is that I am supposed to promote the giveaway to my as yet non-existant list to find additional contributors – but I do have an idea for that – hopefully Facebook and my “IM friend list” will oblige.
Sandy
Good luck Sandy. Can you report back on how the giveaway went? I haven’t used that method in years and I’d love to hear whether or not they are still effective!
Looking forward to hearing back!
All set to go!
Bought and installed Adtrackz today – still have to configure it fully though. Also signed up with LeadImpact. My budget for this is $10 per day.
The ball should start rolling now while I figure out all the other lead generation options and technical stuff
Can’t wait to see what happens next!
Awesome Eddie. Keep us posted on your progress.
What I don’t quite understand is whether you paid $1000 up front to TrafficVance (like it says on their website(. Did you? Or did you somehow get around that payment?
I think it is the minimum ‘kitty’ or depost that you have to pay before your campaign can go live – much like putting money in your bank account before you can draw against it. No, I didn’t join TrafficVance but went for LeadImpact instead.
I set up the account and everything without paying anything, but at some point you need to pay for the leads. In LeadImpact’s case the minimum is $200. As I set up a daily budget of $10 and I want to do the full month, I paid $300 to get the ball rolling.They will now deduct from that for every referral until my account is empty and I have to top it up again
Eddie is right. You will need to deposit funds before you’ll start seeing traffic. I did start with $1,000 in TrafficVance. I use TrafficVance for other campaigns besides the one I’m showing in my challenge as well so the investment was worth it.
The money isn’t gone though. That’s the money that is drawn against as you start receiving traffic.
Thanks for sharing the results of your challenge publically. As you can tell by the comments you’ve received, you’re building an incredible amount of goodwill with the community.
I have to admit I’m not following your calculation for the montly ad costs. You mention that you’re budgeting $20/day on Traffic Vance, $20/day on 7Search, and $21.30/day on solo ads. My math says you’re budgeting $61.30/day but that doesn’t mean that’s what you’re spending (its a potential maximum spend per day).
However in the same paragraph you said that you’re spending $61.30/MONTH. If you happen to max out all your daily budgets wouldn’t you be spending (assuming 30 days in the month) $1839/month? Let’s say you only spend 50% of your daily budgets, that’s still $919.50.
I’ve read those paragraphs a few times so let me know if I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying or committing some bonehead math mistake.
Thanks Jeff! Good catch. That was a typo and I fixed it. It was meant to say $61.30 per day. I had said in an original post that I’d budget up to $100 per day and attempt to accomplish a cost of $1 per opt-in. Right now I’m not even hitting $100 per day.
If I continue to spend $61.30 per day, I would have a cost of somewhere around $1839 for the month but I won’t get there. As I optimize my PPV costs and PPC costs, I’ll spend less and less on those sources of traffic.
Word of warning – I bought Adtrackz from adtrackz.com and could not get it working right – kept on getting Error 404 when setting up campaigns. Trying to get support proved impossible as the guy that originally wrote it has disappeared from the face of the earth.
It turns out however that there is another site ad-trackz.com. This guy bought the original rights (if you look at the details they are identical) and according to the articles I found, this one works and gives support. I am still to prove this though so hold your horses on adtrackz or ad-trackz until I know either way.
My site shows 480 page views within 24 hours of signing up with LeadImpact! No opt-ins yet though
, so I have revised my squeeze page – did some research on what makes a good squeeze page.
Looking forward to the next 24 hours to see what happens next. While I wait, I will try to set up ad-trackz and let you all know what happens. I have in the meantime read the manual and managed to get my head around how ad tracking works so i should be able to start tracking soon (providing of course this blasted version works)
Quick Update:
The new ad-trackz works great. Installation is similar but has been made somewhat easier.
Checked my LeadImpact report and saw that my hits were coming from a keyword where I wouldn’t realy expect conversions. De-activate that keyword and increased my bid on some of the more important ones that were not showing hits yet.
Isn’t it great to be able to see exactly where your traffic is coming from?
Thanks for the update Eddie. I purchased AdTrackz a long time ago. Thanks for sharing the updated link. I’ll make sure it’s fixed throughout the post so no one tries to purchase it from a site that doesn’t offer support.
PPV traffic is fun to watch and tweak as you start seeing traffic coming through.
I understand the figures ok, I guess there’s not so many people ho have that kind of disposable income, especially if it didn’t turn out so well and you actually lost the money. But they do say you have to spend money to make money. Hope the sales start coming your way.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
Thanks Mandy. This is definitely all a learning process for me. Luckily the numbers are starting to get better for my experiment.
With this little test, people can start as slow or as fast as they want. In one of my next 30 day challenges, I’ll challenge myself to make some money with no paid traffic. (It will be much harder, I’m sure)