PPV marketing is one of the most exciting ways to market a product or service. It’s great for CPA offers and for generating leads, but I have found that it’s not so great for generating outright sales. It’s always better to build an email list and from there you can market your products.
Over a year ago I started my first PPV campaign. And for those of you that don’t know, PPV stands for Pay Per View and is basically pop-up advertising that results because of users that have agreed to these ads because of using a free service like games online or screen savers, etc. My first attempt was a dismal one, so I hope to help any of you who are just starting out in PPV marketing so you don’t make the same mistakes I made. I am by no means a guru in the PPV field, but thankfully I am a lot better at it than I used to be.
So here is what NOT to do in your PPC or CPV campaigns:
Don’t just direct link all your campaigns.
Who doesn’t love a good ole direct link. Direct linking is popular for a number of reasons. First of all, it is easy. You don’t need a landing page so it saves you some time and effort there. Also, it’s easier to start out direct linking to test a campaign to see if it’s worth building a landing page or not. When I started out with Media Traffic I had no clue what I was doing and just direct linked with all of my campaigns.
Here is the #1 problem with that: the pop-up windows delivered by the PPV software are only so big. They won’t even show the entire landing page of the offer. And trust me, people are bothered enough by a pop-up. They are not going to scroll over to see what this great intrusion of there time is all about. They are simply going to close the box. Having landing page means you can fit your creative exactly to the window and you can make it even more enticing than the offer’s landing page, so when someone clicks on your ad they are already convinced to try whatever it is you are offering.
Don’t just bid on keywords
Yeah, I made this mistake too. I just bid on all the keywords I could think of. I went to every keyword tool and came up with a huge list of keywords that I was going to make a fortune off of. But it was a huge flop. Most people suggest to start out bidding on URLs rather then keywords. The reason for this is that domain names are more targeted than keywords and you will get way too much broad traffic with keywords. Once you get a winning list of domains and URLs then you can start finding some golden keywords.
Don’t forget to use tracking software
This is probably the biggest mistake I made in my PPV marketing. Yes, I was crazy NOT to use tracking software with my advertising campaign. I got a few conversions on my offers but I had no clue where they came from. So I was just guessing what keywords brought in the leads and which ones didn’t . This is no way to run a business. It’s like running through the woods with a blindfold on. I was bopping into so many trees I never wanted to try PVV again. But now I use Tracking202 or Prosper202 and I know exactly where my sales are coming from. Whew, this is much easier, and I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me where my leads are coming from.
Don’t try to sell something
It’s tempting to just promote the CPA offers that have the highest payout. You might get $60 for selling an ab workout machine, but with PPV marketing the less selling you do the better. Think about it. Someone already have their surfing interrupted by a pop-up. The last thing they are going to do is whip out their credit card and order something. Even if the product you are promoting is related to the page they are on, credit card purchases are rarely made with PPV marketing. You CAN make money from it, but that’s for the experts in this field. Either that or the crazy people. Just focus on generating leads with short forms and you can make some serious dough.
Don’t make your offers too relevant to the domains you are bidding on.
If you are promoting an iphone offer it will be tempting to just bid on all the iphone sites right? But this is what everyone else is doing too, so the bids are going to be more expensive which will kill your ROI. Besides, if someone is already on a website about ready to get an auto insurance quote, why would they fill out a quote on a pop-up they just got. Rather than taking that approach, try thinking like a consumer. What do people who love iphones also love? Where do they like to go online and what other gadgets might they like. Then bid on those sites and see how many conversions you can get.
I hope this helps a little. PPV marketing can be a lot of fun and you can get some super cheap traffic for less then $.02. But hose 2 cents can add up fast if you don’t know what you are doing and if you do what I did when I first started.
Hi cashcoach , thanks for your informative post, could you please help me out with more info as i’m planning to start ppv marketing soon ,thanks once again
Of course, I will help as much as I can, but you need to be a bit more specific as to what exactly you want to know.
I’m wondering if you build your list using single or double opt in?
Thanks
Almost always use double opt-in, but it really depends on how I am trying to build the list. With PPV it will certainly hurt your conversions doing a double opt-in, but it’s usually worth it because people just type in fake emails. This is why I only send out free info directly to the email address they use and not just redirect them after they sign up.