My friend Davey Z and I took on search engine marketing about 2 weeks ago. We started out by putting in $30 to open an account on Yahoo! and getting a free $100 bonus from Yahoo! for opening up the account. So far we have burned up about half of our $130 and have made back about $52. We still think that we’re down roughly $20 and need to correct our actions before we loose too much more money.
I know that $20 isn’t a whole lot to lose, but since we’re starting out with such a targeted and focused campaign, we didn’t want to blow our initial capital within 2 days and have nothing to show for it. Our strategy is to show really targeted ads and try our best to convert on the clicks we do get. As you can probably imagine, we’re not getting a whole lot of clicks; $35 per week in advertising is very minimal especially for the SEM industry. I imagine that after we get the hang of things we’ll be spending more than $35 per hour if things go as planned.

One of the biggest hurdles that we are dealing with right now is delayed reporting from Azoogle. Our campaign manager says that it takes about 4 days for programs to report their earning to Azoogle. 4 days in Internet time is an eternity! I wonder why it takes so long with Azoogle? It seems to me that Commission Junction does a much better job at reporting things nearly real time. If not real time, then at least it seems like they report daily on my activities and commissions.

The thing about having to wait 4 days to see a report is that we don’t really know what is working and what isn’t until we get data to interpret. When we are forced to wait for 4 days, if something isn’t working then it means that we’re losing money and don’t even know it. This is a huge problem and I wish there was a way for the affiliate program to provide more up-to-date information for their publishers…especially newbies like us. Veterans don’t necessarily benefit from same-day reporting as much as those starting out do because they already have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. I believe that we would have a much better chance of success with quicker access to our conversion data.

Learning how to deal with this delay has been somewhat nerve wracking…and somewhat discouraging. Since we’re doing such low volume targeted advertising to get the most for our bucks, we see the click counter updated rather quickly but the money meter always stays still, or so it seems. I know that in the grand scheme of things “traffic is the new gold” and the more traffic we send to the affiliate programs the more money we stand to make. I think about adding a few more targeted keywords and see what kind of difference that makes…in 4 days.

I will keep you posted as we struggle through these challenges. I believe that tomorrow we will start seeing results from our last batch of changes. Regardless of tomorrow’s outcome, I hope that a solution is presented soon to address these reporting delays. After all, if we make money it means that Azoogle or other affiliate programs are making money.

As with any business, affiliate marketing requires some strategy. While it’s tempting to take out a lot of advertisements on large search engines to promote your products, you don’t want to end up spending more money than you make (something that is entirely too easy to do). In order to avoid losing money, follow the hints in this article and you’ll be prepared to face some of the challenges that will come your way as a marketer.

• Adjust your expectations: Affiliate marketing can be a very profitable business, but you should not expect to earn $10,000 in your first month of business! Every product has different selling strategies, and finding the balance and nuances takes time. Don’t give up if you don’t make as much money as your expected; this is a business, after all. I have yet to break $500 per month but am working on it!  You will gain experience as you go, and your experiences will help you make more money in the long run.
• Learn how to advertise: You’ll want to advertise to the widest client base possible, so use only the largest search engines. Google has a relatively cheap way to get started in advertising with their Adwords program. Adwords advertisements are the ones that appear on the top or the side of each search result that you get after performing a search. Google performs countless searches each day, and is a great place for you to place your ads.
• Start small: If this is your first attempt at affiliate marketing, stick with what you know and love. Don’t promote products that don’t appeal to you or that you know nothing about. Begin by partnering with a trustworthy program like Amazon or Clickbank and start selling products and making money online!

By following these three steps, you will be able to get started in affiliate marketing with the right frame of mind. Don’t over expect and under deliver! Do exactly the opposite! To learn more about affiliate marketing, head on over to “Making You Richer” and join their program.  For just $25 ($69 – $45 once you get rolling) you get a ton of benefits like 1 year of web hosting (that’s over $100 in savings right there!) and a lot of extra help like website templates, articles for you to use, and advertising credits on search engines.  There’s no better deal than this to get you started.  I wish I would have found out about this program when I started w/ marketing over 2 years ago!