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When you expand your affiliate marketing campaigns, it's easy at times to forget about cutting off the fat.
Fat in a campaign would be any traffic source in a campaign that is giving you decent volume but is not returning a profit. Over the years of learning to market online, I have learned a few quick tips that will help you to cut the fat out of your campaigns with little effort on your part.
These tips don't apply to everyone, but I think these will help MOST campaigns gain further profits. You can send a portion of those profits to my paypal if you so choose. 
Hahaha.
Demographic targeting:
If you're trying to get some legit customers, and sell a product, you need to target people who actually have some sort of cash. Targeting 13 year olds will result in very few sales because mommy and daddy don't like to give those kids their credit cards most of the time.
For any per sale related item, I suggest targeting at LEAST 25+ years old.
Now, going to the other side of the spectrum. OldWise people. Most people who are in the 60+ years age range are somewhat scared of the internet; not all old people are scared but a vast majority. Putting your credit card online is so insecure in their minds. Therefore, unless you're specifically targeting old people, try to exclude them as much as possible.
This type of demographic targeting really does wonders on campaigns for facebook for example.
Google, Yahoo, And MSN also allow you to do demographic targeting to a certain degree of accuracy. These methods are far less accurate than facebook but overall have helped me turn unprofitable campaigns into $2,000 - $4,000 dollar profit days on some campaigns.
Content, Search Partners, Bad URLS, etc
Another quick way to trim some excess fat is to turn off the content network, search partners, and or block back urls.
In Google for example, turning off search partners (under campaign settings) is generally a good option. There are certain times when it works (and you'll need to split test), but overall I turn it off. I've heard mixed reviews about this as well from friends just as an FYI.
Next, yahoo content network. Again something to split test. Content networks, both google and yahoo are something you need to monitor heavily. If you don't, they can suck a campaign dry of all hope of profit.
There was one campaign for example on Yahoo that was using the content match network. I was getting TENs of thousands of clicks all from this one adgroup for extremely cheap. It looked like the perfect campaign! Sad part was that when it came to conversions, the clicks did not convert at all. It was almost as bad as digg traffic!
Finally, compile a list of URLs (referrer data for the win) and look at their site. If the site is junk, block the url. Many places have some sort of blacklist where you can block bad urls. It's quick, simple and really effective.
After doing these tips, you'll have cut fat faster than an acai berry / colon diet combined!
Do you think digg traffic is better than reddit traffic?
Digg maybe become more popular than reddit. But in my case reddit gives me more traffic thatn Digg. With regard to tropic, I think it depends about whether you drive relevant topics or not.
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
Offers to consider for 13 year olds:
1. E-Mail Submits
2. College Info
3. Zip Submit
Anyone care to elaborate the rest.
For the 60+ audience…
1. Life Insurance
2. Healthy Insurance
3. Reverse Mortgages
Again, just some very general ideas to get your creativity mind coming into play
Offers to consider for 13 year olds:
1. E-Mail Submits
2. College Info
3. Zip Submit
Anyone care to elaborate the rest.
For the 60+ audience…
1. Life Insurance
2. Healthy Insurance
3. Reverse Mortgages
Again, just some very general ideas to get your creativity mind coming into play
BTW I love your blog!
Really nice tips
I was tired as hell last night, so don’t ask what exactly my comment was supposed to be pin-pointing. None the less, thanks for the tips.
And you gotta love the similarity at the end (cutting the fat faster then acai / colon cleanser!) Although I think acai / colon cleanders would second that. Don’t be surprised if they make mention of it on a new landing page
Something I just recently learned… if you are advertising on facebook, as far as Demographic, a great way to target to get even closer is by limiting it to “Work Demographic”. For some campaigns this can be super powerful! Now you’ll really tone those abs even more =D
Till then,
Jean
Reddit and Folkd traffic seem to give me more profit than digg traffic. Good post.
Digg is good at traffic than redit in my case.
Good post. So Jonathan, are you saying you only use Search?
Do you still focus all of your campaigns the in the big 3 ppc networks? Or do you trim adwords now due to it’s gradually waning ROI?
[...] Cut the Fat: Some Quick Tips to Instantly Gain Profit (Jonathan Volk): Jonathan Volk’s gives affiliate marketing tips based on his own trial and error. [...]
Interesting post and some good tips there
Well done
Some really good tips there. Hopefully they will help me with my next campaign. Thanks!
[...] Cut the Fat: Some Quick Tips to Instantly Gain Profit (Jonathan Volk): Jonathan Volk’s gives affiliate marketing tips based on his own trial and error. [...]