January 8, 2015

When it comes to selling products online, there are a lot of competing interests that will challenge your ability to gain visibility and enjoy strong profits. Thankfully, there are a lot of tools available to help you overcome the competition, boost your visibility, and drive consumers to your website. Google AdWords and ClickBank are among the most popular tools for webmasters, but what does each product offer you? More importantly, can the two systems work together for your benefit?

In this post we will analyze (briefly) the offerings of AdWords and ClickBank, and then we’ll answer the question surrounding AdWords ability to help your ClickBank products sell.

What is Google AdWords?

AdWords is an online advertising service that places ads on webpages at the top, bottom, and sides of the site. Ads are generated by the system based upon the recent and former search queries entered into Google by web surfers. AdWords was originally rolled out in October 2000 and has become the company’s greatest source of income. Advertising revenues for Google in 2012 totaled $42.5 billion.

What is ClickBank?

ClickBank is a privately held online marketplace that allows vendors and affiliate marketers to connect to sell products. When webmasters have a product that they need to get in front of the eyes of consumers, affiliate marketers help connect that product with consumers. As of 2011, ClickBank was ranked as the top affiliate network in the United States. There are currently 1.5 million affiliate marketers working with ClickBank, and a reported 100,000 active at any given time. According ClickBank, the site processes 35,000 transactions per day.

ClickBank and AdWords Together

We’ve found in our research that a lot of big promises are made when it comes to the powerful combination of AdWords and ClickBank. The following are just two quotes commonly spouted pertaining to the marriage of the two products:

  • “The fastest and simplest way to make money with ClickBank”
  • “Without doubt the quickest way to generate traffic to a site is by using Google AdWords”

As you scour the Internet in search of support that ClickBank and AdWords can be used together, you’ll come across a lot of information. According to [url=clickhttps://www.clickbankguide.com/adwords.htm]ClickBankGuide.com[/url], the following are three reasons that AdWords is so successful with ClickBank:

  • Ads can be posted immediately and be altered instantaneously. Other pay-per-click (PPC) services cannot approve ads with the same speed.
  • As a webmaster, you get complete control of your ad campaign. This includes putting limits on spending, stopping certain ads, and restricting the audience that sees an ad.
  • Ad ranks do not depend upon your bid price alone. Click-through rates (CTR) and the effectiveness of your ads in general impact your rank as well.

    The Case in Favor of AdWords and ClickBank

    You don’t need to look any farther than Google’s own website to learn how you can use ClickBank effectively with AdWords. First and foremost, you need to know the fundamental features of each service before you can set up a Thesis Theme to help you benefit from an AdWords-ClickBank partnership. Google offers the following advice for optimizing your AdWords campaign for ClickBank:

  • Disable the content network feature: When this feature is turned on, Google will show your theme promotions on other sites. While traffic can still come from those other sites, it is not high-value traffic that is likely to purchase your products via ClickBank.
  • Target long-tail keywords: Imagine the keywords you would use in a search engine to search for products if you were the one doing the shopping online. Online shoppers are smarter these days, and they know how to avoid the broad categories that give them too much information to digest. People know how to use longer, detailed keywords. If your AdWords campaign doesn’t take long-tail keywords into account, your ClickBank partnership won’t be effective.

Dukeo.com points out one more tip for promoting ClickBank products through AdWords. Google tends to approve campaigns that link to a landing page that matches your referral ID. However, there are times when they won’t. If you find that an AdWords campaign is not generating traffic to your ClickBank page, publish your own landing page with a banner that allows people to click and immediately redirect to your ClickBank page.

Additionally, it was noted by Dukeo.com that millions of people are advertising ClickBank products on AdWords. Competition is intense and that increases the cost of CPCs. If you want to truly succeed with this partnership, try promoting one of your products from a category that is less popular. This will still bring traffic to your ClickBank page and could boost visibility for your other products.

The Case Against AdWords and ClickBank

There are lots of a webmasters that do not enjoy working with Google, for a variety of reasons. Although there is no strong case against the partnership, Forbes does offer up five reasons why you should consider avoiding AdWords altogether:

  • Pay for clicks: This system is particularly harsh for startups and small businesses. They happily pay upward of $5 for clicks, but all that does is guarantee traffic and higher rankings. Those customers don’t necessarily represent conversions and revenue.
  • Hard to compete: As a result of the cost to pay for clicks, small companies have a hard time competing against the big companies. In an ideal world, AdWords should level the playing field. In reality, there are companies spending $300,000 a month on AdWords campaigns. How can a small business in the same market possibly compete?
  • Limited characters: If marketing your products wasn’t hard enough, AdWords limits the number of characters you can use in the headline, text, and URL for your campaign. Now, in addition to your other business concerns, you have to brainstorm brilliant (yet short) text for your AdWords.
  • Mistakes are painful: Spelling errors or landing pages that become out of date can hurt you in a hurry on AdWords. Google is hyper-focused on high quality content these days, and even the slightest error can cost you dearly.
  • Not a fit for your niche: Lastly, AdWords can sometimes be too broad a tool for the needs of your marketplace. The world’s largest search engine isn’t a success because it offers perfect results for every search, every time. It works because it collates and presents the largest volume of data, with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. If you operate in a niche market, there might be alternatives that better fit your product and the consumers searching for it online.

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