Hi Linda,
To answer your question, I don't PPC at all right now, I just use the "free ways" like forums, articles, blogging, etc. So my only cost right now are my monthly fees for my programs. I start to see results now but it takes time and that's OK, I expected it and tha's the way it works.
To outsource PPC means to have someone else who is specialized with PPC for affiliate programs to run your ads for you. Put it this way, there are websites out there who claim to send/submit your affiliate programs to 100 000 search engines each month. The problem is that affiliate programs have all the same sale's page and search engines know this, unless you setup a personalized landing page branding yourself, which is something I want to do later on (can't do everything at the same time...)
These website don't tell you that a lot of these sites where they submit are farm sites, FFA, etc. which are sometimes crappy and search engines don't like them it can ban your link and see it as a scam... and because as an affiliate, you have the sale's page of your program which you can't really optimize it for search engines, you can't change the content. They charge $100 or $200 a year for this service. I have tried it with three different places and they didn't bring me any result at all, nada, nothing...
However, it's very easy to loose $100 or $200 in PPC (I tried in the past) that does not work properly with Google or Overture, refining, trial, improvement, etc. especially in newtork marketing or affiliate businesses where the competition is extremely feroce. PPC should also be one of the advertising method to use, not only put all the eggs in the same basket. I have read some articles on this matter and of course there are pro's and con's like anything else.
With PPC outsourced, you pay an initial setup price (fix price $200) and they take part of the "risk" at the beginning and then you pay a small monthly fee (about $40/month) to run your ads and as soon as you get a good ROI, sales and significant traffic on your link, you can increase this monthly amount as you wish and invest it back for leverage. It sounds interesting to me and I can personaly afford it. The company are currently promoting for some people in my organisation, I will contact them to get testimonials to ensure it brings results before I jump.
I build my business rock-by-rock using strategies around organic search engine (forums, articles, blog, etc.) but it's a long term process. Using PPC is something I want to "retry" and I would feel more confortable using this outsourcing service than spending my time and risk loosing money by going by myself, I prefer spending my time in forums, writing articles and helping others.
Thanks for reading, this is a long post... :-)
|