Lately I've been checking out "Traffic Black Book" by chad hamzeh.

In it, he suggests following strategy to get customers for your site - please share your knowledge-experience on this:

1. because you don't know which keywords to focus on for your ebiz when starting selling, you shouldn't do SEO in the beginning. (true? false?)
his opinion is you should first try by adwords etc. to figure out which keywords convert best for your biz and after you have your best keywords you should focus with seo later on...
(he sees seo as long term marketing and thinks its dangerous to focus like 6 month of action on some keywords that can be not the best and you ve wasted time)

2. now you have your very large lists with 100-200 keywords related to your niche-market, you buy adwords space for every keyword and bid very high to get 1-3 top position for every keyword.

he does this, because he thinks only the top position are worth it when doing adwords.

so, if a current cost per click is 1€ for a tested keyword, he bids 5€ to get the top spot.

3. now you let those ads run for 24-48 hours.

4. you pause all the ads / keywords that did not very well in those 1-2 days.

note: he is well aware of the fact that you probably won't make a profit on this test, because your cost per click is way to high. all he cares about is which ad-keywords get the best views to click ratio - how often got the ad displayed, how many people clicked on his ad?

good one: 1000 views, 30 clicks
bad one: 1000 views, 2 clicks

5. he doesn't worry about sales and conversions YET, because he will split test the hell out of his page offer AFTER testing adwords.

6. now, after knowing the top 5-10 keywords for his keywords and ads (he split tests different ads for same keywords as well) he switches from cost per click model to cost per view model.

why?

because when paying for every click you get you don't pay for how many times your ad gets displayed, but only the clicks, right?

so if you have 10 clicks from 1000 or 10000 views it's still the same cost: you pay for 10 clicks


his theory is now:

if i know my best 5-10 keywords and ads and i switch to cost per views model i pay for every 1000 views - it doesn't matter if i get 5 or 50 clicks from those 1000 times my ads get displayed.

so he pauses all cost per click ads and starts cost per 1000 views for his most effective ads so far.

7. after you see which cost per 1000 views banner ads give you the best results you try to cut out the middle men, in this case for example google, and advertise directly on webpages where you get your best results (= most clicks from 1000 views).

8. now you can do this test again and again, maybe especially if you don't have a big budget starting out and you want to start with 10 ads instead of 500 etc.

9. after having some very good sources for traffic from his banners, he splits test all different offers on his site to figure out what converts best from traffic > sales.

10. knowing which ads-keywords work best for his ebiz he starts now doing heavy seo and other tactis to scale up business.


-----


this is how i understood his strategy - what do you think? mistakes in it? doesn't it work anymore? etc.

thanks

I can't comment directly on Google's CPM pricing, but just looking at my campaign and average CPM, they are basing that price on my CTR and CPC. Also, CPM is not available for Google Search only, but for the Display Network. So I'm guessing this strategy no longer works, at least not for search. Now for other platforms, say Facebook, it's a completely different story.

so if you have 10 clicks from 1000 or 10000 views it's still the same cost: you pay for 10 clicks

Click to expand...

That's not true in Adwords. If your ads receive only 10 clicks in 10,000 views, your quality score will decrease --> you will have to pay much more per click to google than if your ads receive only 10 clicks in 1,000 views.

Prices are not fixed per click in Adwords ppc, although it may look like that to a beginner. They fluctuate according to a lot of factors, and the ads ctr is one of them.

Other than that, the strategy looks good, but requires a lot of start up investment.

I would not call it the "best im strategy ever" though, i am sure keeping check on what keywords your competitors bid on, and what landing pages they use, and try to siphon data from the way other people are spending money rather than spending your own is still a lot better than testing everything yourself. And getting free traffic from social media websites, and getting other people to recommend your website it's still better than paying for traffic.

Also getting affiliates to promote you on a commission only basis still looks like a better strategy than that, i guess it all depends on the niche and what you are trying to achieve.

Nick said:

That's not true in Adwords. If your ads receive only 10 clicks in 10,000 views, your quality score will decrease --> you will have to pay much more per click to google than if your ads receive only 10 clicks in 1,000 views.

Prices are not fixed per click in Adwords ppc, although it may look like that to a beginner. They fluctuate according to a lot of factors, and the ads ctr is one of them.

Other than that, the strategy looks good, but requires a lot of start up investment.

I would not call it the "best im strategy ever" though, i am sure keeping check on what keywords your competitors bid on, and what landing pages they use, and try to siphon data from the way other people are spending money rather than spending your own is still a lot better than testing everything yourself. And getting free traffic from social media websites, and getting other people to recommend your website it's still better than paying for traffic.

Also getting affiliates to promote you on a commission only basis still looks like a better strategy than that, i guess it all depends on the niche and what you are trying to achieve.

Click to expand...

maybe adwords cost per 1000 views doesn't work like that (=paying the same no matter if you get 10 or 100 clicks from 1000 ad displays)
but: the aim is to buy banners on websites and as far as i know,
webmasters selling ads space on the pay per 1000 views model have fixed prices, right?
you buy your banner per month and the prices doesn't change whether you get more or less clicks from 1000 ad displays...correct me if i'm wrong

ps: what tools do you use to spy on the competition? sem rush?

TK1 said:

but: the aim is to buy banners on websites and as far as i know,
webmasters selling ads space on the pay per 1000 views model have fixed prices, right?
you buy your banner per month and the prices doesn't change whether you get more or less clicks from 1000 ad displays...correct me if i'm wrong

Click to expand...

Simply put, it depends. If you are an expert negotiator, you can probably get a much better deal. This is if you go with direct media buys, something like a self-serve system, you'll be paying sticker price.

Ungodly said:

Simply put, it depends. If you are an expert negotiator, you can probably get a much better deal. This is if you go with direct media buys, something like a self-serve system, you'll be paying sticker price.

Click to expand...

no, what i mean is:

the price won't change for your banner if you get more or less clicks per month.

for example:

at the fastlane forum you pay 149$ for 3 month banner on this forum.

if i buy this the price won't change no matter how many clicks i get from the banner per month.

The best internet strategy is to get content based links. This can be done through article directories, blogging websites, guest blogging websites etc.

the problem i see with this is: not every business has a business model that makes it easy-possible to create valueable content...

RachaelJetkins said:

The best internet strategy is to get content based links. This can be done through article directories, blogging websites, guest blogging websites etc.

Click to expand...

TK1 said:

if i buy this the price won't change no matter how many clicks i get from the banner per month.

Click to expand...

Again, it depends. Hah. Example:
Say you buy some ad space on this forum, you are paying CPM (cost per thousand). Let's say you and MJ are tracking how well it is doing. The first month, let's say you pay $1 CPM. You are still dialing in the campaign, and have a low CTR for that month. The next month however, you rock it out and get a really high CTR. MJ would probably be keeping up with this stuff and consider bumping the price.

Not every one does this, but it can't happen. Unless you have a signed contract, keep an eye out.

Ungodly said:

Again, it depends. Hah. Example:
Say you buy some ad space on this forum, you are paying CPM (cost per thousand). Let's say you and MJ are tracking how well it is doing. The first month, let's say you pay $1 CPM. You are still dialing in the campaign, and have a low CTR for that month. The next month however, you rock it out and get a really high CTR. MJ would probably be keeping up with this stuff and consider bumping the price.

Not every one does this, but it can't happen. Unless you have a signed contract, keep an eye out.

Click to expand...

well i guess if prices change by the web admin you have 2 possibilities:

be offended and quit the partnership or

pay the new price

making a decision on this shouldn't be based on emotions (how the hell can he charge me way more right now?), but only on ROI, right?