Growing an email list with Google Ads

[Andy Black]

I started this project accidentally last month while messing about in another thread (here).


Here’s the Google Ads stats for the last 7 days (I'm targeting the whole world at the moment, hence the low CPC's):




Here's a screenshot of the list growth in a new MailCheat(Chimp) account I setup for this project:




I then created a new YouTube channel so people could follow-along. The first couple of videos are linked to below.

What's your takeaways?

What will you do different going forward?

View: https://youtu.be/38mgK3LDD3I

View: https://youtu.be/lmGdO8pgQLE

 

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[Andy Black]

@Andy Black's totally killing it! Going back to first principles...

Thanks.

Ignore the low CPC and CPA for the moment. I just wanted to show how simple it can be to get started.

I’ve a whole thread explain that landing pages don’t convert, people do:

• The biggest landing page mistake

It’s all about getting the right person to the right offer at the right time.


I’m also trying to show how little copy needs to be on a sales page / landing page.

And I’m trying out a way of building a YouTube channel by having serialised content that’s a follow-along.

I’ll start running YouTube Ads to the videos that I’m creating on the channel and see if that can start growing a different email list.

Next steps though are to start making money so I can keep spending the €5-10/day on this project.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Even if long sales copy would win I like to start with none and see if I can get ads running, ads showing, and ads clicked on.

My thinking is there’s no point agonising over what’s on the page if you can’t get anyone to it.

This is very similar to how we work at my agency. The idea is to a/b test starting from very general features (offer, marketing angle, etc.) to very specific ones (copy, length, etc.). Gradually you get all elements into place, but you always start with the most general ones, since if those aren't right, as you say, then there's no point in getting anything else right.

I’d like to put an offer on the Thank-You page first and see if I can dial it in so it’s “self-liquidating”.

I’ll definitely look at an onboarding email series later. For now I’m trying to use the free plan on MailCheat(Chimp) that doesn’t allow automations other than a first welcome email.

Seems like a great idea, especially given MailCheat(Chimp)'s automation constraints on the free plan. I still have a much older account, started way back in the day, and that one has no automation constraints on the free plan. Kind of a pity that they introduced automation constraints for all newer accounts.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

@Andy Black's totally killing it! Going back to first principles...

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

It’s all about getting the right person to the right offer at the right time.


I’m also trying to show how little copy needs to be on a sales page / landing page.

I agree. In direct response circles, long copy tends to always get promoted ahead of short copy in terms of effectiveness. But from my observations, the most effective length actually depends on the offer and more specifically on where the prospect is on the buyer's journey and how far along the landing page is trying to take them.

In your case, as in the second vid, a short landing page with just a headline makes sense. You're targetting people who just want to learn more about something - they're at the information-seeking stage, somewhere problem or solution aware. And you're just giving them the information. Adding more copy is actually probably going to reduce effectiveness since it will either (1) give too much away and take away from their curiosity, (2) confuse them as to what the offer is, (3) make it seem like you're trying too hard.

On the other hand, if you wanted to sell them a $300 dollar product about the info they're seeking, then just a headline would not do, since you're trying to move them through quite a lot of stages in the buyer's journey in one go - you'll likely need quite a long landing page.

Next steps though are to start making money so I can keep spending the €5-10/day on this project.

Have you thought about having an on-boarding email series? You can soft-promote one or more affiliate products in your niche (these can be products you yourself are using - basically giving people tips on how (and most importantly why) to use them) - that will likely get you the $ you're looking for at this stage without requiring you to create your own product.

 

[Andy Black]

Even if long sales copy would win I like to start with none and see if I can get ads running, ads showing, and ads clicked on.

My thinking is there’s no point agonising over what’s on the page if you can’t get anyone to it.

Have you thought about having an on-boarding email series? You can soft-promote one or more affiliate products in your niche (these can be products you yourself are using - basically giving people tips on how (and most importantly why) to use them) - that will likely get you the $ you're looking for at this stage without requiring you to create your own product.

I’d like to put an offer on the Thank-You page first and see if I can dial it in so it’s “self-liquidating”.

I’ll definitely look at an onboarding email series later. For now I’m trying to use the free plan on MailCheat(Chimp) that doesn’t allow automations other than a first welcome email.

 

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[Deleted74396]

I doubt I’ll sell my course to people currently signing up. My course likely costs more than an average monthly salary for where I’m getting signups from.

I’ll figure it out as I go along.

If the average salary is $280/mth in Indonesia for instance, then I’m wondering what folks might be happy to spend $2.80/mth on.

This will be an interesting thread to watch for sure! About 20% of my audience are from the Philippines (totally randomly, actually) where the average wage is about 15% of my main audience (USA), so I can't wait to see you approach this

 

[Andy Black]

Great thread! I will start with Youtube Ads tomorrow so I'll follow along. What would you say is an appropriate size for an audience?

I’m not running YouTube Ads yet in this thread. I am/did in my “Figuring Out YouTube” thread:

• Figuring Out YouTube

 

[Andy Black]

Hey Andy, you know I love your Adwords/Google Ads content, so no prizes for that.

As for building a list with Google Ads, isn't it slightly on the greyish side and could get you in trouble, especially if you have a very short "squeeze page" for the sole purpose of collecting email addresses?

I remember Google doesn't like blatant email collection like that, so maybe a slightly longer page with more content will put you on a safer side?

Also collecting sign ups from third world countries while paying pennies is all well and good, but you'll struggle to get anything out of those sign ups, because I'm sure as you realise yourself, these guys won't be buying anything and only want free stuff.

The CPC for English-speaking countries is higher for a reason, but even in that case, you really need to have a good funnel to be able to recover your costs, let alone make a profit.

With this type of advertising a lot of clicks are "wasted", because initially you have those people who will simply click away after landing on your page, then you have those who will sign up, but possibly later won't open your first email, and then you have those who will sign up, open your email, but won't necessarily click-through to your offer...

Yet obviously you are paying for every single click and considering the above, the numbers often don't add up in your favour. Anyway, that's my limited experience, as I haven't done email marketing via PPC much, to be honest.

I’m just showing how quickly a page can be setup, especially if we’re just after an email address and aren’t “information harvesting”. If a project has legs then get more content created on the site.

We often build equally simple pages to generate phone call or email enquiries.

As for whether people buy or not... some people will likely buy something and I’ll get an earning-per-click. Whether that EPC is high enough to cover my CPC remains to be seen. For €5/day I’m happy to run little tests.

Also... bear in mind they’re still people doing searches to solve problems they have.

Can I help them? - Probably.

Will I get paid enough? - I don’t know.

Can I get people on the email list to get initial views on videos, learn more about what they’re trying to do and why? - Maybe.

I’d rather launch and learn than second guess myself.

I’ll talk about this stuff in another video. A few people are asking why I’m running campaigns in emerging countries...

 

[Andy Black]

Andi, i love what you do! Things look so easy, when you do it!

Ha. Thanks.

You realise I’m figuring this out as I go along?

And that I’ve earned a big fat zero from my efforts to date with this?

I want to get that first sale sooner rather than later.

 

[Timmy C]

Ha. Thanks.

You realise I’m figuring this out as I go along?

And that I’ve earned a big fat zero from my efforts to date with this?

I want to get that first sale sooner rather than later.

I know that feeling all to well, working a couple of months for nothing and all of a sudden $3 hits your bank account and your a genius.

 

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[Andy Black]

I think you're navigating through a landscape formed by companies to ward against looters and schemers (and to show due diligence in reducing fraud). It's tricky.
This is getting interesting.

Yeah, and I’m in an industry full of looters and schemers so will have to be squeaky clean.

“Interesting” is a politer word than the one I had in mind...

 

[Bekit]

And now my MailCheat(Chimp) account is under review and I can't send emails. I presume because I mentioned "credit card" in the email?

Thoughts on this from my experience working at constant contact:

I don't think it would have been because of mentioning "credit card."

I think what tripped their spam/fraud filters is more likely the fact that you have email addresses from worldwide IPs, with continual signups happening from third world countries.

This may be flagged as suspicious because they don't know if they're fake. They don't know that you're running Google ads to build the list. They don't know that your intentions are to provide value to your subscribers. They don't know that because you are Andy, no other scenario is even in the cards than you providing value. This may look to them like the kind of thing someone would do to build a list of addresses that they plan to sell. Or it may look like a list that's being built through scraping the web.

An alternative hypothesis is that a few of your subscribers marked your email as spam. Hopefully this didn't happen, and in most cases, someone who JUST signed up for a mailing list is not going to flag the messages that they know they signed up for as spam. But it may be unpredictable what people's behavior is in the developing world. And the threshold of the number of spam complains that will get you blacklisted is very low (like 3-5 people per thousand, if I remember right). In other words, if you send to a mailing list of 1000 addresses, and 3-5 of those addresses mark your message as spam in Gmail or Hotmail or whatever they are using, you can get blacklisted. It's a very big risk for the providers of email marketing services, because if their servers get blacklisted, it's a very expensive problem that affects all their customers on that server, not just you.

This is an issue that's not just confined to MailCheat(Chimp). Any email marketing provider is going to have a similar set of safeguards in place.

I also think I’ll keep my email content super short in future and sell people on clicking a link to a YouTube video or to an article on a website I own. I figure that the less I write in the email the less I can get flagged for.

Maybe I’ll stay safe by writing less?

Actually, if an email contains fewer than 50 words, it is far MORE likely to register as spam versus an email that provides more substantive content.

I'm already annoyed with ConvertKit and it's form and landing page templates. I just want it simple!

Oh my goodness, I AGREE!! I just signed up for their freemium product and I find it so frustrating!!! I thought it was just me!

 

[Andy Black]

Stats for Fri 10-Jul-20

07:45 am

• I looked at ActiveCampaign first and can see there's 9 new signups.
• I'll assume all 9 came from the Google Ads campaigns that restarted at midnight.
• Here's the Google Ads stats so far today:
• Conversions and Impression Share stats won't be reported accurately for the day till sometime tomorrow.
• So possibly 9 signups from 29 clicks = 31% visitor-to-signup rate.
• Possibly 9 signups for €2.45 = €0.27 CPA.
• I didn't create some content like I meant to last night. Everyone so far on the list just got/gets a welcome email.

 

[Andy Black]

Week Commencing 13-Jul-20


Spend last week was €27 for 65 reported conversions.

• Total number of email subs on the brand new email list created last week was 101 when I checked this morning.
• This includes some who signed up this morning, and some who signed up from my other small email list.

Weekly Trading:

• I've created a Weekly Trading sheet for this project and updated it with stats for last week.
• The main channel I'm focused on is Google Paid Search. I'll get to other channels later.

Goal this week:

• Send an email to the list pointing them to a video on a new YouTube channel. See whether I can generates views, likes, comments, and maybe even shares of a brand new video on a brand new channel.

Tasks this week:

1. See if we can get more clicks for the €5/day budget.
   
   We lost 79% Impression Share due to hitting the daily budget last week. I'll drop bids from €0.10 to €0.09 to start with. I think impressions dried up when I dropped bids to €0.08 last time.
   
   
2. See if we can increase the conversion rate.
   
   The landing page asks for name as well as email address. I didn't ask for the name last time. This time I thought I'd send personal video emails to people, but there's way too many signups coming through for me to do that. I've asked my developer to remove the name field today so we can run most of the week without it. It will be interesting to see what effect it has on the conversion rate, bearing in mind I'll drop bids which might change the visitor search intent too.
   
   
3. Publish the first video on an empty YouTube channel.
   
   
4. Send my first proper email to the list.
   
   
5. Add that email into the autoresponder sequence for the new folks signing up from now on.

 

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[Andy Black]

I'm subscribed and also opened the email.
Those figures are off. Email tracking systems use a hidden image file to track opens.
Emails that end up in spam do not load images (at least for me).

Make sure your email is properly set up with Active Campaign. Check your DKIM/SPF records in the DNS zone (your developer should be able to do that for you).

Also, check this tool out: Newsletters spam test by mail-tester.com



Crazy conversion rate!

Damn. Only just spotted this reply. Thanks for the tips @Fid.

Sure enough, ActiveCampaign support directed me to this article to setup my DKIM (whatever the heck that is - this is like another language!).

My homework for tonight:

• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Authentication

 

[Andy Black]

Google Ads campaigns were stopped for a couple of weeks while we worked on the flow through the funnel. We also created a survey funnel but I’ve not re-enabled the campaigns.

I noticed that it takes so much longer to get things done when there’s the back and forth between the media buyer (me in this case) and developers. This isn’t a good use of a developer’s time, and it’s not the best solution for media buyers who want to iterate fast and move faster.

In the past we looked at Leadpages, Unbounce, Clickfunnels, Optimizepress, Thrive Themes, and various other solutions. I didn’t take to any of them.

But a client is raving about Kartra so I had a look at that (Kartra).

In the process of researching Kartra I found this video on YouTube about InfluencerSoft.com which can be purchased for a lifetime price of $497 if you go via an affiliate.

View: https://youtu.be/5jifb5d2RCQ


I thought this was a great video and the tool looks fantastic. I’ll likely buy it or Kartra over the week and see if I can get a quick funnel setup to get people onto an email list and sell them something.

 

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[Andy Black]

Impressive! Do you split test your offers?

No split-testing done yet.

The second video shows the simple offer on the simple landing page.

 

[guidaccio05]

Great thread! I will start with Youtube Ads tomorrow so I'll follow along. What would you say is an appropriate size for an audience?

 

[Blackman]

I’m just showing how quickly a page can be setup, especially if we’re just after an email address and aren’t “information harvesting”. If a project has legs then get more content created on the site.

We often build equally simple pages to generate phone call or email enquiries.

As for whether people buy or not... some people will likely buy something and I’ll get an earning-per-click. Whether that EPC is high enough to cover my CPC remains to be seen. For €5/day I’m happy to run little tests.

Also... bear in mind they’re still people doing searches to solve problems they have. Can I help them? Probably. Will I get paid enough? Don’t know. Can I get people on the email list to get initial views on videos, learn more about what they’re trying to do and why? Maybe.

I’d rather launch and learn than second guess myself.

I’ll talk about this stuff in another video. A few people are asking why I’m running campaigns in emerging countries...

I can see how building a list would be a great long-term idea for selling your Google Ads course, but I imagine the CPC for relevant keywords would be ridiculous for the usual suspects, i.e. US/CA/UK/AUS.

Testings things yourself is always a good idea, rather than guessing, so see how it goes for you and if you can get anything out of it.

 

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[Andy Black]

Is it safe to assume, based on the lead gen process, that their English is serviceable? Maybe instead of getting them to buy something, they could be paid to do something. There must be something an army of tech literate people can do for $1.60/hr each that throws off a profit.

Exactly. Folks in emerging countries may well want to work for folks in the Tier 1 countries...

 

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[JohnForte]

Yeah. I don’t even have control over my email list it seems.

I’m ditching MailCheat(Chimp) and will find something else that’s less trigger happy.

A learning for me is to catch mistakes earlier. I could have started emailing links to video tips earlier and found out this.

As it is I’ve spent €100 and acquired 400 signups. I don’t know if I can import them into any other platforms, or if they’re now gone for good.

It’s a learning and I’ll move swiftly on.

You should be able to just export it from MailCheat(Chimp). Just know email done right so you don't get added to blacklist, show up correctly in email clients and not jump up in spam rankings, is somewhat a dark art from a technology standpoint. That is why it's hard to move off of established players like MailCheat(Chimp).

I am starting to see more people build SMS list and since I am a freelancer I am even playing with that. Something to think when capturing emails.

 

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[Andy Black]

That's one down then. Two to go.

Why the heck do I need a fully finished website?

 

[PapaGang]

That's one down then. Two to go.

Why the heck do I need a fully finished website?

View attachment 29911

?

 

[PapaGang]

I think you're navigating through a landscape formed by companies to ward against looters and schemers (and to show due diligence in reducing fraud). It's tricky.
This is getting interesting.

 

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[Andy Black]

Amazing results from your ads. People gloss over how important traffic is for conversions.

I’m looking forward to reading about how many sales you get.

Thanks for following and your support.

Thanks also for the little hint that I need to make an offer earlier!

On the subject of traffic and conversions: I prefer to call them visitors, and it’s the visitors that convert, not the landing page. That’s one of my main tips for media buyers, and business owners in general.

• The biggest landing page mistake
• AndyTalks with The-J about AdWords and Conversion Rate Optimization

 

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[Andy Black]

Thanks @Bekit. I forgot you worked in Constant Contact for a few years.

Actually, if an email contains fewer than 50 words, it is far MORE likely to register as spam versus an email that provides more substantive content.

Ah. Nice tip. I’ll bear that in mind.

I think what tripped their spam/fraud filters is more likely the fact that you have email addresses from worldwide IPs, with continual signups happening from third world countries.

Again, thanks for the insight. I’ll either focus on the countries where I was getting plenty of cheap signups, or go direct to Tier 1 countries.

 

[Andy Black]

1) I'm setting up hello@domain.com email addresses for the three brands I'm going to build/test. I'm just using Namecheap's email addresses and they're $11.88/year for each.


2) I see I need to setup a simple website to get compliant with email marketing systems, and it will help with Google Ads too.

I've started creating a template Basecamp project. Here's the To-Do Lists. I'll flesh it out and add to-do items to them.

This is for selling courses.

 

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[Thiago Machado]

@Andy Black,

Following this!

I learned about self-liquidating offers a while ago. And, unfortunately, it's a topic that you don't find much actionable information on Google.

I'm curious about your experience with them - mainly being:

How do you troubleshoot them? (No one ever talks about this).

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black
what program for collecting do you use (still chimpmail? fixed the problem) and how exactly does that work?
(beginner/beginner level)

MailCheat(Chimp) never got back to me about that account that it put under review. I’m about to start up another test with another domain and email address. I’m undecided what to use for the email marketing part.

These platforms are pretty simple to get started with. MailCheat(Chimp) is by far the most popular, probably because of its free plan. But I presume having a free plan means they have to be very careful how their platform is being used, and they need automated systems to shut things down it suspects are on the shady side.

 

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