[Linda Buquet]

Hi Robert,

Great question and I'm not sure I know the answer but hope some of our PPC affiliates will weigh in.

Part of the answer though lies in conversion rates. Sometimes when you are new and don't know yet how the game is played or if you have a merchant that does not convert well, it can take 500 clicks to get your 1st sale.

If you aren't doing your keywords optimally have have lots of info KW as opposed to buy KW you could get lots of clicks with no sales. You also may need to add negative keywords.

Also conversion rates vary depending on the type of product. Average conversion rates are 1 - 2 % for retail type products but for lead based affiliate programs where no credit card is required, conversions can be much higher.

Ask your affiliate manager what average conversion rates are. That will help you gauge better how long to test a campaign.

And remember there are so many variables that can have an effect on PPC conversions - your keywords, your ad copy, your landing page copy, call to action and presell. So you need to test, tweak and measure all those elements.

Then once they click through, the merchant landing page, selling price, site and cart all play a part.

All that said, I think I've heard skilled marketers say they give it 500 clicks, because they know what they are doing so if the offer does not convert they drop it. But if you are new you may need more because you don't have as good of a feel about what works and what needs to be tweaked on your end. Anything less and you could drop a perfectly good converting offer simply because you had not done all you could on your end to make it work.

There is an EXCELLENT free PPC course launching next week. I think I'll probably be blogging about it at some point so keep your eye on my blog.