The first sponsored tweets test was to Deb’s blog over at ChattyGal.com

For this advertisement I used a title of “Tweet the ChattyGal Blog.” For the description I simply asked them to get as many clicks over as possible to her blog and gave some example tweets they could use. For Example, “Go Check Out The Biggest Chatter Online” with a link to her site. I also allowed the Tweeter to use whatever creative text they wanted instead instead of the example tweet. Most of the Tweeter used my example although I was hoping to see more creative tweets.

I listed a max cost per tweet of $100. The Tweeter also had to have 500 minimum followers, .75 minimum follower ratio, 56 minimum twitter grade, and 4 as a minimum Klout score. I did not use tags. Sponsored tweets came up with over 2500 matches with those settings. I should have used tags to get more relevant results.

Sponsored Tweets Ad 1 Results:

My total average cost-per-click end up at $0.57 which was a little higher than I was hoping. I personally would have been happy with anything less than .35

The largest single tweet buy  ($100+) had the 4th highest CPC which brought the total average quite a bit higher than if I would have not purchased that tweet. It was also my fault because I purchased this tweet more out of curiosity. The tweeter didn’t exactly have tons of followers looking for mommy type blogs. Since then some clicks continue to trickle in from many of the tweets which has brought the total average CPC down a couple cents. All my other buys were just $12.00 per tweet or less. My second largest buy of just $12.00 had a $.92 CPC even after two tweets.

My smallest buys did by far the best in regards to the lowest CPC but it doesn’t take but a few clicks when you are buying a $2 or $3 Tweet!

Overall I think this test did well enough for me to continue testing and using Sponsored Tweets again. But what about conversions into RSS readers? Unfortunately I had no way to track this.

Sponsored Tweets Ad 2 Results:

In this Sponsored Tweets test I was advertising the free download of my beginner’s affiliate marketing eBook, I entered a maximum per tweet cost of $500 even though I wouldn’t spend that much. I used a minimum of 500 followers, a minimum of “1″ follower ratio, 65 minimum Twitter grade, and a 5 minimum Klout score.

This campaign had an average CPC of $0.61 but actually did very well with a couple of exceptions. If you notice, my biggest buy has a CPC of over $2.00 CPC which skewed the average much higher. Since then the CPC has dropped a little because of some retweets and some clicks will continue to trickle in. My best tweet buy cost me just $3 and sent me 37 clicks for an average of just .08 cents a click! They are a number of Tweeters in this campaign that I’ll be ordering more sponsored tweets from in the coming weeks.

Most Tweeter will retweet your ad up to 3 times if the CPC is over $1.50 CPC which is certainly a good thing.

I hesitate to even call this a case study because there are so many variables that could cause the results to be different each time.

1. What time of day was the tweet sent out?

2. Did the tweeter tweet out several more tweets shortly after your ad which caused your ad to get buried? Not a real good idea on their part because it’s just going to hurt there Sponsored Tweet scores. If you are a Tweeter with Sponsored Tweets, don’t screw the advertiser by burying their sponsored tweets right away!

3. What text was used with the tweet?

4. Did the Tweeter use an automated program to gain thousands of followers who are not even interested in their niche? On a side note I’m not against using these programs as long as you use keywords and such to find relevant followers in your niche.

This is just a few questions of many that would could cause your results to be different.

Would I Use Sponsored Tweets As An Advertiser Again?

Yes, but I’d do some things a little differently.

1. I’d recommend to always go look at the Tweeter’s last set of tweets to see how much they are interacting with their Twitter audience or for anything that might raise a red flag.

2. I’d initially start off with buy buying multiple low cost Tweets rather than just one or two high cost tweets. High cost tweets are not bad but do some relevant targeting.

3. I’d Try and Buy Sponsored Tweets That Could Go Viral.

I don’t necessarily mean to get your ad to go viral. That could happen but it’s less likely being that it’s appended with “#ad or sponsored ad” text. Rather I mean to send them to a page with a new tweet that could be sent out for them to win something. The trick (which I haven’t exactly tested yet) is to buy sponsored tweets to things that could go viral such as blog contest or free giveaway. This is how you will get the most bang for you buck.

I’ll be posting more information from future tests including a new test in which I hope goes viral.

I do believe that if done correctly, Sponsored Tweets has really great potential for both Tweeters and Advertisers.

Click Here To Give Sponsored Tweets A Try

or Click Here To Read My Sponsored Tweets Review

This post isn’t meant to be for bragging or to boost my ego. There are a lot of people doing affiliate marketing that make WAY more than I do online. I’m really a smaller fish in the sea but not for too much longer I hope!

When I see posts like this one, they inspire or motivate me to work harder, try new things and learn more. I personally read a post over on Digital Point that inspired me to enter a new market and shoot for higher goals. The hard work is paying off.

In my “$7500 in 1 Month with CX Digital? Day 8” update post things were going pretty well. After 8 days with (May 2nd through May 9th) I had earned CX Digital $3,032.00 in revenue. That came out to an average of about $379 a day.

I am happy to report that after 26 1/2 days (May 2nd through May 29th) I not only reached my $7,500 in one month with CX Digital Goal, I pretty much crushed it!

With a couple days still left in the month I have a CX Digital May Balance of $15,392.50. This includes the $750 bonus in which they have already deposited in my account. That’s an average of over $550 a day in revenue. While this is certainly not all profit, my return on investment wasn’t too shabby either.

FYI $9,826.50 of that revenue was from ringtones. A little over two months ago I decided to enter a new market more as a challenge than anything else. In a previous post I wrote about having earned $1,544 in Revenue after 8 days with ringtones but just breaking even. Things have improved significantly since then to a few thousand a month profit. I had a huge $3,000+ day with ringtones earlier this month but since then volume has dropped way down and I’m working at getting the volume back up.

Keep in mind that CX Digital is not the only network I’m working with.

I know that it’s not all that helpful to post screenshots of earnings without any tips on how you can do the same. Consider this post as a motivational one. I’m going to start a new thread where I’ll open things up to “ask me anything” type questions.

Meanwhile, you better go sign up with CX Digital if you haven’t already!

I’m not sure how long they will continue with this bonus but when new CX Digital affiliates reach $7,500 in revenue within their first 30 days, they will receive a $750 bonus (you must notify them if you reach this goal).

It has now been almost 8 days since I joined CX Digital (May 2nd through May 9th) and I’m happy to report that I have earned $3,032.00 in revenue. I needed to average at least $250 a day to reach the $7,500 goal. For the first 8 days I am averaging $379 in revenue per day.

A big THANKS to my CX Digital affiliate manager, Nate, who has given me a couple nice pay bumps on two offers already.

Lesson of the Day:

If you think you might be sending decent volume on an offer don’t be afraid to ASK for a commission increase!

Most affiliate network managers will do what they can to meet your request. They have too many other competitors and many of them offer the same or similar offers. Just make sure your request is reasonable. In my case, I thought I was doing decent volume and simply asked for a paybump that matched what I was getting from another network. I will continue to scale. A dollar or two increase on a campaign can make a huge difference in your profitability. Consider if you are doing 100 leads a day but just breaking even. A $1.50 paybump and your instantly making a $150 dollars a day profit ($4,500 a month). We are talking about common sense. My point is that if you are just breaking even on a campaign, don’t give up on it too fast. Continue to scale and then ask your affiliate manager to consider a pay bump on the offer!

<< Note to Nate: I talked to you briefly on the phone the same day I was approved into the network. Having had applied to a couple other affiliate networks that same day I was a little confused as to who you were when you called. I thought you were just calling to improve me into another network and didn’t realize you were just calling to see if I needed anything. I had been approved into CX Digital earlier in the day but at the time I was thinking “IncentaClick” and forgot CX Digital was the same. >>

Here is a screenshot of my first 8 days with CX Digital:

Click Here to Apply to the CX Digital Affiliate Network

I’ll do a full review of the CX Digital affiliate network later but so far I’m impress with what I have seen.

CX Digital is offering new affiliates a $750 bonus if they can earn at least $7,500 in their first 30 days with the network. That’s what I plan to do. I was approved yesterday evening so I’ll count today as my first day!

If they had all the offers I am currently running with other networks, $7,500 in revenue would be a breeze. For example, I’m doing $7,000 to $10,000 in monthly revenue with Linkshare from one offer but CX Digital does not have that offer. Keep in mind that the CX Digital bonus is for revenue generated and has nothing to do with your profit.

It’s about 12:35 U.S. Eastern time here so there is a lot of time left in the day. So far, I’m up to $87.00 in revenue. However I am going to have to average $250 or more a day in revenue to reach my $7,500+ in revenue goal with CX Digital.

Do you think I can make $7500 revenue in my first month with CX Digital and get the $750 bonus?

We will find out in 30 days! I’ll give you updates every few days (with screenshots) and let you know how I’m doing.

You Can Join CX Digital Here.

Well, it’s been about 8 days since I’ve starting marketing ringtones.

Yes, I know I’m about three years late getting into this niche but I wanted to see for myself if I could make money in this market. In my previous post there were several comments like “I thought ringtones were dead,” and that “the ringtones niche is too competitive to enter“. Nevertheless, I thought I would see how I could do in this niche.

My Conclusions After Just 8 Days:

The ringtones niche certainly is a saturated market and it is probably a fact that the glory days of ringtones are over for most affiliates. It is a highly competitive market and probably not one for beginners. I knew this going into this project. However the ringtone niche certainly is NOT dead and I believe there is still plenty of profits to be made in the niche. I’m just not making those profits in ringtones yet.

The Revenue:

This first screenshot is of my AzoogleAds stats after 8 days. I’m running the Blinko offer there and it is my best converting offer so far with an EPC of $1.03. Blinko is paying $14 a lead through Azoogle. Total revenue here was $574 after 8 days.

This second screenshot is of my PepperJamAds stats after 8 days. I’m running the Flycell offer there. It pays $17 dollars a lead and is the highest default Flycell payout I’ve found anywhere. I currently have a EPC of $0.76 with this offer despite it paying $3 more per lead than the Blinko offer. Total revenue here was $578 after 8 days.

This third screenshot is of my Hydra Media stats after 5 days. I was testing an exclusive offer of theirs called RingtonePublic. It started off converting really well but has dwindled a bit. It’s EPC matched that of the Flycell offer at $0.76. Total revenue here was $379.50 after 5 days of testing.

I also just started doing a little bit of testing with SendMeMobile on NeverBlueAds. It has some nice looking landing pages and pays out $12.75 a lead for some of the main cell phone carriers. It’s to early to say if this offer is going to do well. I’ve had one lead here so far. The next offer I may give a try is GlamTones in Copeac.

Total ringtones revenue after 8 days = $1,544.25

The Bad News:

My total ringtones related Adwords costs after 8 days = $1,636.60

Now I wish I could have told you that after 8 days that I’m making hundreds of dollars a day in profits. At this point I’m basically breaking about even. Despite spending really long hours (about 20 hours on some days) over the past week setting up campaigns I have not made any profit with ringtones.

The Good News:

I’ve learned more new things related to PPC in this past week than I’ve learned all year. You learn the most by doing. It’s also interesting to see and learn what some others are doing in the niche that’s beyond the norm.

I started my campaigns initially with really high maximum CPCs and as I lower these it leaves more profit potential. There were also a couple of really bad days that zapped any profits I would have had.

I’ve also really only just started to scale my campaigns so it’s too early for me to conclude I can’t make decent money in this niche or that it is not worth the effort. I’ve also yet to try some new ideas I have planned. More “outside-the-box” kind of stuff beyond the normal everyone else is doing.

What Would I Have Done Different?

So far not a whole lot because I have a lot more scaling and bid tweaking to do but here are a couple things:

1. Not try and work with both the Search Network and Content Network within the same campaigns. I’m starting an entirely new ringtones campaign for the content network next week while I continue to work on my existing search campaigns. It’s better to keep them separate for several reasons.

2. Keep a closer eye on things when playing in the content network. Using the content network can be really profitable but you have to be careful. Yesterday I had a single adgroup get almost 9 million impressions on the content network. It had 879 clicks at an average of 0.16 a click costing $138. Conversions were nada, zero, nothing. That doesn’t help profits.

More updates to come. At the same time as this ringtones project I’ve been working on another new PPC project which looks promising. Wish me luck!

Today is the start of my Build a Niche Store Case Study where I’ll outline step-by-step what I do to try and make money with BANS. I’ll provide updates on the domains I use, different methods of marketing I use and how much money each BANS website makes.

MY SHORT TERM GOALS:

Having never used BANS it’s hard for me to determine just how much I think I will make. A lot of it has to do with how much time you put into it. Simply throwing up a BANS website with zero customizations or marketing probably isn’t going to do well.

How much money you make also is likely determined by the Niches you choose:

1. What’s the popularity of your target keyword phrases?

2. What are the average eBay bids on the products you target and how competitive is the bidding?

3. How competitive are the rankings for you main target search phrases in Google?

4. Is your target Niche to broad?

Ultimately my short term goal is to just have my BANS websites earnings an couple hundred dollars a month in commissions. If I was devoting more time to this project then my target goals would be higher. I doubt these BANS websites will ever even be close to my main source of income, but if they can make $500 a month on auto-pilot then I’ll be satisfied (at least in the short term).

STEP ONE: Choosing A Domain Name(s).

This is going to be one of my most important tips:

When at all possible, BUY AN EXACT MATCH DOMAIN of your main target keyphrase! A lot of you have commented that the hardest part on using BANS is getting traffic to the website and an exact match domain will give you an advantage. Buy the .com if available but a .net exact match domain works well also. I would not buy any other the other TLDs.

For example, if you were using a BANS website to target a broad niche such as “gps.” I’d type-in “gps” to a free keyword research tool and see what comes up. I’d then narrow these results down. In this example, I’ll view the results for “best gps.” The free wordtracker tool show 486 searches a day for that search term but unsurprisingly the domains are taken. How about the next keyword based on volume, “best handheld gps.” Those exact match domains are also taken.

Skipping forward, I checked “best auto gps” which gets about 79 searches a day. The .com is taken but at the time of this post, BestAutoGPS.net was available! Bingo! That’s a pretty good exact match domain with decent traffic that would be a great BANS candidate. Auto GPS devices are not cheap so your commissions would be higher. I just purchased it. There are other nice exact match GPS candidates available.

CASE STUDY NICHES AND DOMAINS:

1. Best Baby Monitors via BestBabyMonitors.net

This is a pretty good niche but not necessarily an ideal exact match because “best baby monitors” only gets about 14 searches a day. On the other hand, baby monitors are usually $50 to $200+ dollars so commissions should be decent.

2. Pet Strollers via PetStrollers.net

Originally I was searching for strollers with babies in mind but noticed that “pet strollers” has about 299 searches a day. I jumped over to GoDaddy and found that the domain PetStrollers.net was available. I think this has potential, but on the downside it does not look like there are a large amount of bids going on at eBay for these strollers (even though a lot are listed).

3. Best Auto GPS via BestAutoGPS.net

I think this domain which I picked up today has the most potential in my opinion. Auto GPS has the most expensive products of the three and good search volume. There is also lots of bidding going on at eBay for Auto GPS.

—————————

So that’s it for day one of this new Build A Niche Store case study! I’ll update you when I’ve uploaded the domains to the server and begun installing Build a Niche store to the domains. After that it will be some customization and finally the beginning of the marketing.

If you want to know more about Build a Niche Store, Click Here.

As mentioned in a previous, I’ve been thinking about some ideas for a new John Chow Banner Ad contest.

John Chow will be selling these currently sold-out 125 x 125 banner spots for whopping $500 a month. Now $500 is not chump change for most people and it’s not for me either. However, if you think smart, your return on investment can easily exceed your costs. That is a fact based on the success some advertisers have had with the 300 x 250 banner spot and some review me orders. Luckily I’m one of the few to secure a new banner spot and my luck is now your reward.

With this first contest, I’m going to give FOUR of you the opportunity to get your banner on John Chow for FREE.

I’m going to keep this fairly simple.

1. A reply to this post counts as ONE entry.

2. A link back from your blog to this thread (trackback) and the eMonetized.com homepage counts as FIVE entries.

Your anchor text and text copy may vary. All that is required is the two links. For example:

Tim Schroeder of eMonetized.com is giving four people the chance to have their own 125 x 125 banner ad shown on John Chow for free. Your can read more about his John Chow Banner Ad Contest Here.

Now this is the easiest contest ever because a simple reply to this post gets you one entry. However, if you take the time to mention this contest on your blog it will significantly increase your chances of winning. I’ll also really appreciate it. You never know, you might find yourself in one of my “In-the-Spotlight” posts.

As an added BONUS for the first 10 linkbacks to this contest from your blog you will get your own 468 x 80 banner rotated on the top page of eMonetized.com for a full month. Just contact me with the link to your banner and url. Remember, I’m getting lots of extra traffic from John Chow so your banner will be seen. Even if you are not one of the first 10 to linkback, you will still get the five extra contest entries for doing so.

This contest will end Wednesday August 29 (specific time to be announced). At the end of this contest I’ll randomly select FOUR winners and announce them on eMonetized. Each of these four winners will get your own 125 x 125 banner shown on John Chow for one day.

How much traffic and how much money will your banner send you? That really depends on how creative you can be with your banner! You can probably expect anywhere from 100 to 300+ clicks on your banner for this free one day ad.

Good Luck and thanks for reading eMonetized.com!

THIS CONTEST WILL END AT 5PM TODAY 8/29 US Eastern Time.

UPDATE: This contest is now OVER and winners will be announced shortly. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Please consider subscribing to my feed so that you will be the first to know about any new contest.

John Chow was kind enough to drop me an email before his latest theme was released and he gave me the opportunity to purchase a new banner ad spot. Without to much thought I took up his offer and if you are a long time John Chow reader you realize why.

These six 125 x 125 banner ad spots sold out even before the new theme was released. In fact they oversold so he added eight ad spots.

In the last couple days I’ve been thinking how to best utilize this ad space and I have brainstormed a few fairly creative ideas (I’ll be testing a few different ideas). One thing that came to my mind is how most average affiliates unfortunately can’t afford to spend $500 a month for a banner ad on John Chow.

>> UPDATE: I’m going to have to make some changes to this original contest as I didn’t realize that “raffles” are technically only allowed for charitable, nonprofit organizations. Info on some possible new John Chow Ad contests are here.

I’ve decided to try and learn the ropes on PPC campaigns a bit better and start experimenting with lots of new campaigns.

At the moment, I’m just experimenting with Direct to the merchant PPC (this does not include my active old campaigns) using Google Adwords.

I plan to look through all the offers in the CPA networks list from my Top Affiliate Networks post.

As a very basic summary I’m:

1. Looking for an offer with a decent per lead or sale payout.
2. I then use various keyword research tools to see what kind of traffic the keywords might get starting with the merchant’s name or main product/service they may be offering.
3. Jump over to Google search to see what kind of competition I might be competing with.
4. Setup direct linking Google Adwords campaigns.

In my first round of tests, I chose the OfferWeb.com CPA network. I started with them rather than Azoogle etc. because I figured there might be a little less competition.

Here is how things have gone so far after running this campaign for 2 1/2 days:

That adds up to $453 in revenue in a little over two days.

Here are the Adwords expenses to date:

On Campaign One, I’ve spent $81.50 and had $270 in revenue, for a total profit of 188.50. This was in less than 24 hours! That’s a huge return on investment. Later however, I overlooked the part in their program description that said “no search allowed.” Ouch. So I paused the campaign and hope they won’t notice. That’s to bad because that would have been about a $6,000+ a month in profit offer based on the half a day stats. However, even if I can’t use this offer in PPC, it’s obvious the offer converts very well. If I can build a high ranking website/page in the natural search engines for the keyword, it could make me a lot of money.

On Campaign Four, I’ve spent $18.51 and had $72 in revenue, for a total profit of 53.49. That’s not to bad given a couple days of tests.

On Campaign Five, I’ve spent $73.74 and had $84 in revenue, for a total profit of 10.26. It’s to early to tell if this one is going to be a long term winner or not one at all.

On Campaign Six, I’ve spent $55.80 and had $27 in revenue, for a total loss of 28.80. It does not look like this one is going to do well. I’ve lowered bids on this one to see what happens.

I’ve lost money so far on the other campaigns.

Overall, I’ve spent $256.67 via Adwords for these OfferWeb campaigns and made $453 in revenue for a total profit of $196.33 in a couple of days. However, if you take out the stats for the best performing offer that I should not have been using in PPC, it comes out to $175.17 in PPC expenses and revenue of $183 for a total of profit of $7.83.

That’s not to good, but this is all about testing. I didn’t believe all of the offer would be profitable. The point of this is to find which offer will be and then drop the others. If I just keep campaign four and if things stay on track, that could end up being about $1000 in profit each month! Everything above was setup in just a few hours.

As metioned, I’m starting with Direct Linking PPC but later will be moving on into landing pages etc.

I’m no expert at PPC and I’m just learning the ropes. As I learn, I hope you do to.

In the previous post, I shared a couple tips about how Commenting on High Traffic Blogs can bring in a nice amount of traffic to you own website or blog.

In the past, I have done very little commenting on other people’s blogs. My bad excuse for this is that I’m usually to busy working on my own websites. However, this is only partly true because I have about 30 blogs in my feed reader and spend a hour+ a day reading though other various blogs. If I am taking the time to read them then why not take a few extra minutes and begin placing some comments if I have something to say!

So this brings to my Blog Commenting Case Study 1.

I’ve created a list of 10 A-list bloggers including:

1. Copy Blogger

2. John Chow

3. ShoeMoney

4. Problogger.net

5. Pronetadvertising.com

6. QuickSprout.com

7. eMomsAtHome.com

8. DoshDosh.com

9. AndyBeard.eu

10. 37Signals.com

I’m going to set aside at least 30 minutes a day for the next couple of weeks and begin contributing comments to each of these blogs. I won’t be commenting on a post unless I have something meaningful to add. This isn’t a SPAM campaign. Anyhow, I’ll keep track on how many total comments I’ve added to each blogs and then use my Google Analytics stats to track how many referrals from each website are being sent back to eMonetized.com

It should be an interesting little case study to see just how much traffic commenting on high traffic blogs can send to your website and which of those 10 blogs send the most traffic my way. As always, I’ll share with you the results in a week or two.

It will begin on Monday.