Use MicroSoft Adcenter to Drive Loads of Targeted Traffic to Your Affiliate Website

When some people hear, “pay-per-click traffic”, they often think, “money pit!” And that is definitely the case sometimes, but when done right, PPC campaigns can make you some great money.

Today I’ll be explaining how to use Bing PPC/AdCenter to drive major traffic to your affiliate websites for a mere fraction of what Google Adwords can cost you.

Find a Niche Product
I’m sure you have heard this a million times by now, but it’s so true, you will need to find a niche market for optimal success with this technique. You will never own the top spot on Google, Bing or Yahoo for search terms like, “computers”, “electronics”, “naked ladies” and “furniture”. So what you need to do is choose a niche product in a niche market. For example phrases and products like, “vintage wooden furniture”, “the canon t3i camera”, “naked goth midgets” etc.; these are all niche, “long-tail” SEO, keyword phrases that will give you the opportunity to capitalize on a smaller portion of the search market, and at the same time generate sales.

Which Affiliate Program to Use
There are so many affiliate programs out there to choose from (probably even one for goth midgets!), but I suggest Amazon. It’s very easy to use and has virtually every product you can think of. However, please note, the key is to sell big ticket items with Amazon. The reason is that their affiliate structure starts at 4% commission and goes up to 10% depending on how many items you sell monthly. So this means you can sell a lot of small items to bump you into the next tier for more commission, or you can sell as many big ticket items as you can. I myself go for a mixture of the two, I try to sell as many small items as I can to raise my commission level, then I also focus on selling big ticket items for the nicer commissions.

The funny thing you will notice is that if you just get people to Amazon, they will buy! With one of my affiliate campaigns for the Canon T3i camera, I didn’t just sell the Canon T3i camera. I also sold computers, TVs, games, slippers, metal detectors, shirts and even sterling silver communion plates while just marketing the Canon T3i. I don't know why it happens this way. I don’t try to figure it out, I just know that I get paid and you will too!

Create Highly-Targeted Landing Pages
This is an article in itself. So I won’t go into much detail here. However, in short, a landing page should be pleasing to the eyes, easy to read and allow potential customers to “get it” easily. There should also be an obvious call-to-action that directs the customer to the “buy” page for the product you are pushing. Please put the time and effort needed into your landing pages or your campaigns will not pay off!

Use Google’s Keyword Bid Tool to Find Keywords
For Bing and/or Microsoft AdCenter, you are still going to need lots of relevant keywords related to your niche, and there is no better way to find these keywords than with the help of the Google keyword tool. You will want to find about 600 to 1000 targeted keywords. If your campaign is about the “canon t3i camera” you are going to want to find as many related and RELEVANT keyword phrases as possible. Again, you will need 600 to 1000, so don't just get 100 or your campaign will not be as successful.

Create Targeted Bing Ad
First off, if you have never used Bing AdCenter, I'll say it's pretty user-friendly. So set up your account and click-around a bit. If you have any questions just use the "support center" to find your answers.

Now, creating your targeted Bing ad, this should be pretty simple. If you want a user shopping for a Cannon T3i to stop at your site, then make the title, “Buy Cannon T3i”. Be as targeted and direct as possible. Your landing page, keywords and ad should all be inline with each other.

Focus on Content Bids and Not Search Bids
Now here is the little secret with this whole technique in regards to getting that mega traffic with Bing/Microsoft AdCenter. Lower your search bid to about 20 cents starting your campaign (yes, I said 20 cents.) (For help with creating an AdCenter campaign click here.) You see, for this technique, we aren’t worried about direct search traffic; we are going to focus on “content” traffic. Why you ask? Because EVERYONE is playing the "search" game, so we are going to use an out-of-the-box approach.

So, initially, start your content bid off at about 35 to 42 cents. Now, depending on your market, clicks will either fly in or trickle in.

In three hours if you have 150 clicks, you definitely want to lower your content bid amount by about 6 to 10 cents. If you have hardly any clicks, you want to raise your bid by 6 to 10 cents.

The goal is to get to the most efficient bid; one that will get the optimal amount of traffic for the least amount of money. So for this step of the process you will have to adjust and monitor your bids and traffic every couple of hours. This part is key! Once you are at the lowest bid possible and still receiving a high amount of traffic, you are at your optimal bid.

Adjust and Refine
Once your bids are steady and you are getting highly targeted traffic at an optimized price, you’ll want to monitor which keywords are performing well or bringing the most traffic. Additionally you’ll want to keep an eye on your “optimized” bid for content. Watch to see if traffic decreases or increases. This will be an indicator that let’s you know if you need to raise or lower your bid.