Many of the following guidelines might seem like obvious obvious stuff that you’ve heard a million times, but it’s worth it to really make sure you’re not committing any of these fatal errors. It is easy to make these mistakes, even if you’ve heard the guidelines before like I had.

1. Waste money on useless products/coaching. I’ll be honest here. It’s a huge waste of time and money for the most part. I was part of PPC-Coach for since December 2008 and just came to cancel my membership this month. It’s great if you’re starting out, but you could do a lot more by just TRYING stuff instead of hoping someone will hand you down their magic campaign. Seriously, all you need a few good posts from WF, your brain, and the determination to test, test, test. That’s what it all comes down to and it’s what I failed to realize the first time around. Almost ANY offer can be made profitable, if you do the right testing.

Using PPC-Coach I actually wound up LOSING money. Why? Well I thought I had it made with polls and moved onto their search strategy (which was along the lines of bid HIGH and Google will discount your clicks). Well that didn’t really happen and by the time you knew it I was out $10,000. Yeah. Big mistake. Better idea- follow your gut, use your  brain, and be rational. (*While I liked the tools and there were some insightful posts, the quality died off as the program went on.)

2. Don’t track. This one is huge. I was lazy and part of the reason I didn’t make my grants campaign work was because for some reason T202 wasn’t showing my stats even though I had installed the tracking code, and I didn’t bother to figure it out. I figured oh well, I’ll just go by the daily profit and loss. Uh NO. Before you do anything, do yourself a huge f***ing favor and make sure your tracking is working. In all honesty, I wish I had gotten Tracking202 PRO so my lazy ass wouldn’t have had to worry about most of the usual stuff involved with tracking.

3. Link your credit card to Adwords, etc. Bad idea (in the beginning). I was desperately throwing shit against the while trying to get something to stick…and nothing did. The higher my credit card bill went up, the more desperate I got to try just one more thing and maybe have it turn around. That didn’t happen. I had my $100+ profit days with PPC in the past and thought I could get another one to do it for me, but unfortunately not before I maxed out my cards. And now I’m pretty much stuck with a very large PPC bill that I’m looking to get rid of using SEO/free methods of marketing. Really ONLY start off in PPC with what you have, and not what you wish you had. Not only is it safer, it will force you to look at your numbers much more carefully and not go balls out setting $150/day spending limits.

4. Don’t track your Landing Page to Offer CTR. What a really dumb thing to do when I look back on this. Although I did on a daily basis keep track of my EPC, rarely did I put as much importance on my landing page to offer CTR. This is probably one of the biggest metrics you have because….any clicks that you’re not getting to your offer is the same as burning piles of cash. You just want to make sure you burn as little cash as possible. Another metric to look at is which ad is producing the most conversions. An ad might have a higher CTR, but converting less than another ad with a lower CTR.

5. Advertise on Google Search. The longer I’ve been in this industry, the more I realize just how MANY different sources of traffic there are. We’re all suckered into Google Search in the beginning until we wake up and realize…WHY GOOGLE SEARCH? Dealing with QS, getting slapped, and inflated click prices…why bother when you have so many other traffic sources to test out. NickyCakes posted a huge list of places you can advertise that you can find here.

These don’t have to obscure traffic sources. I still recommend Google content network as its the easiest way to get a ton of cheap traffic. The first place I started off with in AM, Facebook- while it isn’t looking like the greatest place to advertise right now with clickbot issues, is still a great place to get cheap traffic provided you think outside the box.

All these tips sound repetitive and obvious I am sure, and like I said I myself had heard many of these guidelines before…but it still happens! When you’re starting off, you might think you know all the answers and will follow everything according to guidelines, but trust me it’s easy to mess up when you play the game with emotion as opposed to being rational and getting your math skills in order.

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