End of March

Hi everyone.

March is coming to an end, which means only one thing: Google's reports are coming. And they're going to hurt. That's what happens when you scare away the clients. I hope Google understands this and changes its way with AdWords.

My article marketing is advancing pretty well, one article a day. They get published in many blogs, and hopefully one day I will be established as an expert enough to make sales with my driving test guide.

I also opened another blog, which is called (shockingly) "Pass Your Driving Test". It has my articles, some videos, and some ads for my guide (of course). Google "sandboxed" it, but I hope it will return to its high rank in the search results soon.

Remember that I planned to do some viral marketing? Well, I did. Big time. The exact method is still kept secret (although I don't think there are that much readers here), but I managed to get over 100 hits per day. Too bad I installed the email capturing form only when the traffic faded away.

And finally, as I mentioned, I installed an email capture form for a course about driving test mistakes. I already have 16 messages, and every fifth message is a "how are you?" message trying to get the listed people to do something and show them I'm a living person. A research showed that people need to be exposed to an offer seven times before they accept it, and I hope they will finally accept my offer some day.

Hoping for a great April,
nadavs

Birthday

Hi everyone!

Today I'm 18, which means I can finally have my own international credit card and my own PayPal account. I won't get it so fast, but I have the option. That feels great.

Today I officially launched my guide about the driving test, with publications at Digital Point forums and a press release (which should be online by Thursday). Hopefully these will boost sales.

That's it for today. Not much to say.

Yours,
nadavs

Going Viral and Articley

Hi everyone.

A few days ago I thought Google unslapped me: many words on my campaign became active and acquired impressions and clicks (well, a single click). Sadly, when I woke up in the morning, the words were there, but the nice bids weren't. Google still wants $10. Well, they can ask for $10 as long as they want, I don't pay that amount.

On the brighter side, I finally begin to see the results of my SEO. A couple of days ago I had a sale from a completely stupid YouTube video which apparently caught someone's attention. I hope this video continues to do a great job.

On the much brighter side, when I look up my EzineArticles name I see many results, some of them not on EzineArticles. My seven articles are published across the net with my links in them. More backlinks, hopefully more traffic.

And for the viral part, I now offer a free ebook for anyone who visits my landing page. More than that, I offer it as a part of my product's affiliate tools. The ebook in the affiliate tools is rebrandable, meaning you can plug your own affiliate name and spread it around.

Until my birthday (two days to go),
nadavs

Refunded Sale

Hello everyone.

Let's open with the bad news: I got the almighty "Google Slap". Yesterday Google decided that my webpages aren't good enough and nothing can stop them. All my bids on my new ebook jumped to $10. My campaign halted. I contacted several representatives, each making a new excuse about my sudden quality score drop. Others have been affected as well. They have a maintenance scheduled on Saturday, and hopefully this will help my campaigns.

The less bad news is that my ebook has been refunded. The first buyer could not download the ebook and refunded it. That's really annoying.

The good news: I had a sale from my ebook! It was refunded later, but it proved it can sell well and work. Now all I need is my campaign to start running again.

Until the unslap,
nadavs

Marching into the Launch

Hello everybody.

That's it. My product is on. It has nice download buttons, a 51% "discount" and a good looking cover. The topic? Passing the driving test. The link? Right here.

Sharp eyed marketers would notice that I used an affiliate link there. That's because I want to check something with ClickBank. If you want to promote it, there is an affiliate page for you. Not many tools in there, but it gives you the link format.

Every email makes me jump now to see whether I sold something or I have to keep waiting. So far I'm on the waiting side. I have some affiliates (no idea how), but no sales so far. If you have any idea for the sales page, please share.

On the bright side, March is finally here. My 18th birthday is getting closer and closer. I want to make a sale on this product before I can buy a domain for it. Then I can really call it a keeper.

Until the sale,
nadavs

The 29th

Hi everyone!

Today, as you know, is the 29th day of February. This special day occurs only once every four years, and it's a real waste not to write any post on that day and wait until 2012.

Tomorrow the month of March finally begins. This means two things: one, my birthday is very close. Two: my product is going to go online.

Yes, it's finally happening. My product is going online and everybody celebrates. Just some finishing touches and I will start to see the publisher side of ClickBank (which turned out to be somewhat good, so I unpaused my campaigns).

Also, my first article ever on EzineArticles has been published! I was so concerned about PPC problems and ClickBank so I turned organic and wrote this article. It's related to my video, but it also has a good, live link in it. SEO, here I come!

Finally, February 2008 will be remembered as my first month with profit. Yes, you read well. PROFIT!
Not much, but still something.

To a better March,
nadavs

Pausing

Hi everyone.

Something bad happened to ClickBank. Sales have stalled for many affiliates, money flows to PPC like beer in a bar with no results. I am on pause mode.

From now on, I have no PPC campaigns running until one of the two happens: ClickBank fix their problems and I can get sales again or Safeway.com approves me on Commission Junction. Until that, Google will have to live with others' budgets.

I may try some article marketing now. I still have to get traffic, and although I get about 20 hits per day from ezinearticles.com (no idea from where), it'll still be nice to make it more formal source of traffic (and have an idea where traffic comes from).

Finally, the moment everyone's been waiting for has arrived. I finished my eBook, designed a not-so-ugly sales page, an affiliates' page, and a thank you page. The eBook is also approved by ClickBank. Now all I need is that ClickBank will go back to normal and they will get my $50.

Until the ClickBank columns return,
naddavs

The Money is in the List?

Hello everybody!

Like all other internet marketers, I heard the money is in the list. So to test this out, I set up my own list of emails with a nice opt-in form, and all I do now is wait for leads.

Every lead in my list receives a series of eight emails telling him about the wonders of what I'm promoting, including two videos I made and two others I didn't. The videos appear on my pages, so there is no danger of leaking traffic.

After two weeks the entire series is over and the prospects get the opportunity to look for the best products available for this niche. Guess who receives commissions for these proucts. After two more weeks, if there is no purchase, I kindly ask why he/she didn't buy. Nothing helps more than information from customers and non-customers.

I also started doing some social bookmarking, hoping it will bring some traffic in. So far it's fine, but it doesn't pay yet.

Here is my second video on YouTube. I already have an idea for the next one:


Until next time (or until the money comes from the list),
nadavs

Electrolysis

Hi everybody.

Let's start with the bad news first. After enjoying four months of no refunds, the curse of annoyance has landed on the people who bought through my link, and I got two refunds in two days. That brings me back to a February loss, which is really annoying after finally having a profit.

Lately I've started using ad scheduling on my AdWords campaign. Because, seriously, there is no point in advertising during times that did not produce a single sale. Now all I need is, well, sales.

In addition to ad scheduling, I also changed my landing pages to fully implement the idea of freeway marketing. No extraordinary results so far, but the landing pages do look much, much better.

Today, my friends, I joined the club of video marketers. I finally created a video and put it on YouTube. The video is very simple, and it explains about electrolysis and HHO. Even though it's simple, I think it can do the job well.

You can watch the masterpiece here:



In one month and one day I'm going to be 18 years old, which means an international credit card, which means: new ebook published. Stay tuned for updates.

Until next time,
nadavs

Putting the Signs on the Information Superhighway

Hello everybody.

After thinking about it for some time, I finally put my site's description on the site itself, and as you can see, at the title of this post. Catchy, right? Now I just need to redesign some of my landing pages to include the nice picture with several modifications.

Notice the picture is in a form of a freeway sign, with the intention that people driving around will recognize those signs with my site. I'll let you know if this is just hope, or sales do come from this.

My eBook is coming off very nicely, with 21 pages already (probably the longest document I've ever written). I've also created a sales page for it which I'm promoting right now (and it will be revealed here when I start publishing the eBook). Why I'm promoting it? Because when the visitors click "Get your guide now!", they reach a very ugly page - the survey. I want to see how well my page converts, if it does convert (I highly doubt it, it's very short and probably ineffective). One little conversion (page visit) on Google, that's all I want to see.

That's all for today, friends. See you next time.

Until the conversion,
nadavs

Going Global

Hi everybody.

So far February makes me smile: I'm in the black. Maybe not deep in the black, but not red. All I need this is to continute, preferably with the product I'm promoting now.

After profiting very nicely in one niche, I decided to leave. Not because of the profits, but because of the competition. It just became too intense. I can't handle too much foolish competition without Google's monthly maintenance. There are just too many one dollar domains that do nothing but redirection, a prohibited act on AdWords. I hope Google catches those fools soon and puts them in the $5/click jail.

The niche I'm promoting now is another topic I'm interested in (hint: goal zero). Since usually my campaign for this niche gives ten clicks per day, I decided to go global: on the country list I picked "All Countries and Territories", so if you look for my campaign in Antarctica, you'll probably find it. You can't find it on only one country, guess which one it is (hint: starts with Isra and ends with el).

And finally, I've made some big progress towards my own eBook: I created an account that allows me to build forms! Yes, that's not a big deal, but with my procrastinating attitude this is something big. The next steps are: creating a form, creating a page for this form, creating a campaign for this form, receiving feedback, actually writing the eBook, writing a sales page, putting it on ClickBank. One step at a time to financial freedom.

Until the first sale for the new niche (or before),
nadavs

Foolish Competition

Hello everybody.

January didn't come off with a profit, but with a little $2 loss that can be called break-even. February, on the other hand, looks very promising. As long as the foolish competition is gone.

The foolish competition are the new advertisers that now joined my niche, and appearantly they use almost every keywords I'm using. This of course creates an annoying situation which causes my CPC to rise. From past experience this situation doesn't last too long and the new advertiser goes home unhappy. But if he stays and my CPC stays like this, I'm going to start an inverse bid-war (nice technique to get rid of annoying advertisers). If that fails, I'm going to start promoting other niches. Preferably the one that will help me achieve goal number zero.

And finally, after rejecting the idea of a viral eBook for now, I'm starting to plan a paid eBook. When I break even on the business (around April) I'll start doing surveys for my eBook ideas and see what works. The winner idea will get its very own eBook.

Until next time,
nadavs

Closing January

Hello everybody.

I haven't written in a while. A big while. I know, that's a big blogging sin, and I hope the internet god will forgive me for that. That's because I have great news for him.

January 2008 will be remembered by me as the first month that allowes me to use the word profit. Finally, after two losing months, comes a month and shows me this is possible. Internet marketing does work, there is money to be made out there. If I get another sale today or AdWords doesn't go over $16 today (preferably both), I can put a little plus sign. And if AdWords takes the entire budget, well, losing $4 can be called break even.

Lately, and that's one reason I need another sale, Google gave me wonderful QS, but clicks were nowhere to be found. People just ignore my ads between 0:00-6:00 in the morning (PST). Then they come in a bulk and at the end of the day I end with 30. When my page starts converting 10%, that'll be acceptable. Now it's converting about 4% (which means about 10% of the people who go to the sales page!), so I need 40-50 clicks to make two sales. I suspected the low number of clicks was due to position preference, but now, when I turned it off, it doesn't seem to have an effect. AdWords is a weird system indeed.

And finally, like every quarter, Google is going to report its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2007 and the report for the entire year. It's going to be interesting to see how a company that keeps going against its customers (the new QS rules are harsh, but they seem to ease for me. Nine words went from OK of $0.15 to Great of $0.05) turns out a bigger profit than last year. Reports are after Wall St. closes, at about 4:00pm EST. Conference call is at 4:30 pm EST (right when Blogger is down... Weird...).

Have a great February!
nadavs

Better Landing Page, More Sales

Hi again, everybody.
I haven't been updating lately since I was working on some improvements to my landing pages. Someone from DP forum gave me his specially made landing pages to use, and... two sales.
Now I implemented his methods on my landing pages, hoping they'll bring a good amount of sales as well.

Also, AdWords has finally reduced my CPC below the dreadful 30 cent mark. Now I can get about 60-100 clicks per day, but since I use position preference I don't even get near 50 clicks a day. If that continues into tomorrow, I'll resume another campaign which has improved landing pages. And then, who knows? Maybe I'll finally make the $100 mark.

As you can see, I added a list of goals to the blog. You might wonder why there is a goal number zero. Well, that's because it's not really a goal. It's more like a personal wish, and I promised myself that one day I will see "cohypnosis" as the vendor in my transaction list.

The last goal is "Main source of income". I just want to achieve that until I finish my military service, which means until 2012-2013.

See you later,
nadavs

Plan on Going Viral

Hello everybody!

After being suspicious about ClickBank, it turns out the system was either good from the beginning or fixed yesterday. Whatever that is, after more than two weeks of boring commission page, it finally came back to life.

In fact, I do believe there was a problem at ClickBank. Other people at Digital Point forums mentioned that their sales were back to normal too yesterday. I hope ClickBank will look into this, and will return the lost money to the affiliates.

And now, the viral part. I am planning on writing an eBook and giving it away for free, and even encouraging people to give it away for free too. This might help my website's traffic and recognition. And the best part is: there is no eBook on that topic, at least from what I've seen. This will lead to a wide distribution and hopefully more traffic.

Until later,
nadavs

Another Day, Another Nothing

Hi.

Another big day of nothing has gone by. Google keeps getting its money, I keep not getting any. I now have a proven seller (which I took down after some problems) resumed, and if it doesn't sell something is definitely wrong with ClickBank. I'll pause my PPC campaigns and start working a little on SEO.

I also started experimenting a little with AdSense. I saw that some of the products I promote get a small yet steady flow of traffic (if two hits count as traffic...), so I put some AdSense ads in them. I also put AdSense in the pages that point to math and physics tutors that I promote on Yahoo Answers (you can find me there on math and physics).

Let's see what tomorrow brings. This starts to get annoying.

nadavs

Top CTR

Hi everyone.

Today I managed to get a CTR of over 9% for a campaign. This was probably due to an improved Quality Score (which Google seems to be changing every two minutes) which led to my ads appearing above organic results. Now I'm using position preference to keep them away from the top of the page. That will also ensure a lower CPC.

Still no sales from my new, improved landing page. I've seen some complaints at the Digital Point forums about weird ClickBank statistics and really low and unusual sales activity. Something's fishy with ClickBank, and I really hope this is all just a temporary bug that will get fixed soon.

And finally, Blogger now supports Hebrew, but I don't really need it. My English is quite good and after yesterday I really don't want to work with Israelis. Maybe I'll expand on this in the future.

See you again tomorrow,
nadavs

More Landing Page Techniques

Hello again.

Yesterday I asked the guys at DigitalPoint forums about my landing page for the six-pack abs promotion. With their advice and some making up of my own, I came up with this. Also, for the women, there is this page.

The new technique I used is "customer participation" - when the user clicks one of the checkboxes, it's almost certain that he'll move on to the link I provided (after all, he checked all that applies to him). Maybe that will increase conversions (increase meaning more than zero...).

So far, no sales. I'm starting to get suspicious about something there. Let's see how it goes.

Until next time,
nadavs

A Young Marketer

Hello everybody!

I am Nadav, a 17 (soon 18) year old internet marketer. I've been in this area for three months now, and I decided to open a blog to document my way to... well... financial freedom.

I'm driving traffic mainly from AdWords, but yesterday I somehow got a sale from an unknown source, so I guess AdWords is not the only traffic driving method I use. At least consciously.

Until the next time,
nadavs