Making money online is something I really wanted to pursue after working in IT for so many years. Back in 2004, I researched and found many great ideas. “How To Use Google Adwords” was being displayed on a multitude of sites. It was the hottest thing going at that time. The ploys and sales pitches were everywhere. You couldn’t avoid a sales landing page if you tried.
For me, new to this digital marketing space, I jumped on one of the offers. It was one of those; just fill in your email, and we’ll send you a full PDF with all the great details that got me. We all know what happened next. Nothing is for free. I ended up getting years and years worth of emails from this person/company/spammer.
Getting back to the PDF. It was a lead-in to making money with PPC program (pay per click). Had I bought the course they were touting, I would have received all their tricks of the trade. I’ll never know if it would have helped or not, since I didn’t buy the course. The one thing I did learn was getting to know more about PPC was the way to go.
In 2004, pay per click was the place to be. It still is a HUGE revenue stream for Google and other search engines. At the time, Google Adwords was the service to use. Getting set up with an account only took a few minutes. Today, there are all kinds of hoops to jump through to get started.
This was my official jump into the pool of making money online. Although the setup of the Adwords account was pretty easy, I did need to send traffic somewhere. I decided to sign up with Linkshare.com and CJ.com. They were the biggest affiliate marketing networks with all kinds of different offers. By using these two networks, I was able to generate money without having a website or landing page. A lot has changed since then. Make sure you read about all the terms and conditions these sites have today.
How to Make Money with Adwords in 2004
All I had to do was bid on certain keywords, create a nice little ad and hope people clicked. These ads took them directly to the Product site. (TODAY – You can’t directly point to an affiliate offer.) The first product or lead generation I went after was, getting people signed up at eBay. Everyone knew eBay was a strong marketplace. I figured why not create ads that got people signed up.
The payout was nice. $15 per signup, plus some back end cash if that person bought something.
I was impressed early on with the results I was getting. The click-through rate (CTR) was producing very well at a low cost. Meanwhile, I didn’t really understand what was happening. I was picking words that I thought people would search for and hopefully clicked on. If it is this easy, why wouldn’t everyone do it? At the time there were a lot of people in the game I didn’t know about. In 2018, the amount of people using and spending has grown exponentially.
I thought I was going to rule PPC. I had about $90 worth of conversions in a few days. My ROI was ridiculous since the keywords I chose hardly cost anything per click. All of a sudden, after the holiday was over, Google decided to raise the CPC. Within a day or so, I was blowing through my balance. Why they changed their algorithm for their pricing model was obvious. They knew they could make their shareholders more money. The excitement of pay per click was fading fast.
Lesson Learned in Trademark Bidding
The last thing I learned about in the PPC world early on was Trademark bidding. Early in the game, I didn’t know all the rules. I didn’t think it was a big deal to bid on company names, like eBay and WalMart. Here is a short story of how I made a good chunk of money in no time.
I set up two ad-word campaigns at the same time. One went after WalMart and the other went after Target. Two huge online retailers at the time and still to this day.
I was keyword bidding on Walmart, WalMart, Target and all kinds of different variations.
Right out of the gate, I thought I found the million dollar ticket. I was cranking clicks at .07 a click. This was so cheap. I was wondering why no one else was bidding on these terms. What I didn’t understand was when I checked my Linkshare account. It wasn’t showing any sales. Did I just waste all that money sending clicks to WalMart and Target? Was it just another lesson in learning about digital marketing?
THE GOOD NEWS – It turns out, sites like LinkShare have at least 24-hour delays on their reporting. I didn’t know this so the panic ensued for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours and with a lot of money spent on ads, I saw the magic number that changed my world.
$793.23
This was the commission I had earned from $300 in spending. Things get even wilder. COOKIE DELAY – With a 48-hour cookie a lot of those people that didn’t buy came back to the site. The next day I was showing earnings of $1400. I was buzzing all through the office where I was working at the time. Nothing could stop me until mid-day I received an email.
Both WalMart and Target affiliate managers wrote to me.
My heart stopped for sure. I accepted what was happening and knew I needed to act fast. I immediately responded with an apologetic email telling them I was new and didn’t understand the rules completely. They wrote back saying it was okay and thanks for understanding. The next month I received a check for well over $1400. It was a great feeling.
Even though I found some success in PPC, I knew this wasn’t the place I wanted to be. At the time, click fraud was prevalent and I didn’t see great ROI after the trademark bidding. I probably could’ve made better ad campaigns, but it just got too expensive to keep up with the big boys. I decided to move away from PPC and start focusing on making my own websites. Developing free organic traffic seemed like the next best option.
If it wasn’t for PPC and the income I received on trademark terms, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Please feel free to reach out with Any Questions.
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