PPSeer - Content Network Conversion Tracker

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As you can imagine, our clients and users value their privacy - especially when it comes to their advertising. While we can't name names or mention the actual website discussed below, we wanted to share one clients' story with you. To protect their privacy, we'll refer to them only as Site X.

This is a study of how one small company increased their AdWords ROI by almost 50%, and increased their total profits by over $40,000 a month, strictly via the use of our web-based tracking tool.

Neither of these are record-breaking numbers - many users increase their AdWords ROI by 100% or more - but without knowing you or your situation we felt you would best identify with this story.

Regardless of whether you're a merchant, affiliate or consultant managing campaigns for your clients, the process used and lessons learned can easily be applied to your own business.

Site X - Starting from square one

Site X was like a lot of other AdWords advertisers - they had purposely disabled the display of their ads on Google's Content Network. On the advice of a PPC consultant they were working with, who told them horror stories about "worthless traffic" from the Content Network, they didn't even bother giving it a try.

Now, a very small percentage of advertisers won't be able to profit from the Content Network - but this is extremely rare. It normally only happens if you're bidding on highly unusual niche keywords.

In our experience, 99% of advertisers will profit from the Content Network with the right tracking.

We reminded them of the "holy grail" of marketing, and suggested they should immediately begin testing their ads on the Content Network. Since they were referred to us by a trusted friend, they agreed.

Truism #1: Don't assume anything. The only certainties are those which can be tracked, tested and proven to apply in your specific situation.

We were excited for them - we already knew what was going to happen. They on the other hand were pretty leary, especially when we suggested they get started without the use of our tracking tool.

We had been using our tracking system with great results for quite some time, to manage our own campaigns and various campaigns for some of our clients. But it was still a bit rough around the edges - we were right in the middle of upgrading it to something more presentable and appropriate for general use.

We suggested to Site X that they get started with the Content Network anyway, to speed up the data gathering process. We would still be able to track everything behind the scenes, and as soon as the "front end" user interface was done they would have lots of data in the system to analyze and act on.

Initial Results without the benefit of PPSeer's CNT

You can get a lot of traffic from the Content Network. Most advertisers are able to get lots more traffic from the Content Network than they get from Google's Search Network, and many see even more traffic than from Google itself. Obviously you don't want it all, but the point is that there's lots of potential.

Anyway, back to Site X. They agreed to run their ads on the Content Network for one week, and then report back to us. That would be enough time for our system to gather some data on their campaign, and we figured it would be enough time for us to put the finishing touches on our tracking system.

A week went by, and indeed they started getting a lot of traffic from the Content Network.

Here's a screenshot from their account, showing the activity from August 3, 2005 to August 9, 2005 - over 2 million impressions and almost 4,000 clicks.

Truism #2: This is not something to take lightly. There is A LOT of traffic available from the Content Network. Some good, and some bad. If even 25% of it is of acceptable quality, it's usually more than enough to significantly increase your profits.

As you can see, Site X was averaging 500-600 clicks per day from the Content Network. This screenshot also illustrates the problem with the stats Google provides in relation to the Content Network - there really are none. All you get are totals - results from 100s or 1000s of individual content sites all lumped into one.

Now the first thing you're probably saying to yourself is "Ok, Site X spent almost $3,500 for about 4,000 clicks - but I bet a lot of that money was wasted on worthless clicks." And technically you'd be right ...

First of all, don't pay any attention to the dollar figures. Whether you end up spending $50 a day, $500 a day, or $5,000 a day - it doesn't matter. The benefits of conversion tracking, and the value of monitoring your "return on investment" are equally important to all advertisers, regardless of how much you spend.

Secondly, we've found most advertisers waste little to no money while our system is gathering data for them. You might "waste" a little initially, but chances are you'll at least be close to your break even point.

Site X offers a free service, and a new user is generally worth around $3 to them. In this case they actually made a little money, because each new user from this test only cost them an average of $2.42.

The point is, don't let the thought of losing a little money hold you back. You might lose a little initially, you might break even, or you might even make a little. Either way, it's all part of the process.

Even more importantly, once you get started it won't really matter. We'll show you why ...

The moment of truth - let's take a closer look ...

Site X paused their campaign on August 10th. Our system was ready for public use on the 12th, so we immediately sent them their login information so they could take a look at some real, meaningful stats. Here's a partial screenshot based on the data gathered during their one week test:

The domains of the individual content sites have been blurred for privacy reasons - they are not important. What we want you to notice are the drastically different conversion rates (in the Ratio column) for each of the Content Network sites that sent them traffic. All the way from 0% to over 46% in this example!

Note: Ignore the actual conversion rates - just notice the huge differences between them. Unless you offer an extremely cool free service you'll probably never see a 46% conversion rate at your own site.

Truism #3: There IS quality traffic to be had from the Content Network, despite what you may think now or anything you may have heard.

Compare this to the practically meaningless aggregate totals that Google provides, and you should start to get a better idea of how extremely valuable accurate Content Network conversion data can be.

Now let's get to the fun part and see how this data was used to skyrocket their ROI ...

General strategy to Increase ROI

By now we hope it should be pretty obvious what comes next. It's not rocket science. The people over at Site X were already crunching all the numbers. They realized that all they needed to do now was to take this data and use it to get rid of the undesirable traffic that wasn't converting for them.

All you really need to do is decide on a cut-off point - a specific conversion rate where you can say that anything less is simply not acceptable. We call this the conversion rate "threshold".

If you recall, earlier we stated that for Site X and the free service they offer, each new user is worth at least $3 to them. And you can see from their Google stats that these clicks are averaging $0.86 each.

Now you just do some simple math. For Site X to at least break even at $0.86 per click, they needed a conversion rate of at least 29%. This is simply your average cost per click divided by visitor value.

Truism #4: Block the bad, keep the good - if you exclude the sites sending you undesirable traffic, all you're left with is targeted, profitable traffic.

So for Site X, an appropriate conversion rate "threshold" would be 29% - anything less than that and it meant that most likely they weren't making a profit on that traffic. They wanted to be a little conservative so they went ahead and set their conversion rate threshold to 25%.

As you can see from the above screenshot, the system has actually highlighted each source of traffic with a conversion ratio less than their preset threshold amount of 25% by displaying an "alert" icon.

If you don't want to review each site manually, you can automate this process - each night the system will review your account and automatically exclude sites based on your preset click and conversion settings.

Overall results for Site X

So what were the overall result for Site X? Take a closer look at the numbers for the first ten Content Network sites in the above screenshot and you can get a pretty good idea ...

Sites #2, #4, #6, #8 and especially #10 with zero conversions ... this is all just money down the drain.

By excluding any and all Content Network sites with a conversion rate less than 25%, over the next few weeks they increased their Content Network ROI by 112%, and their overall AdWords profits by 48%.

And remember, they weren't using the Content Network at all prior to this. This was all "found money."

Now that they had the confidence, they went ahead and created several additional and highly-profitable campaigns. Our little tool increased their profits by over $40,000 a month - with literally zero risk.

So the million dollar question - will this work for you? Of course it will. We can't guarantee you an extra $40,000 a month in profits, but you WILL increase your AdWords ROI and make more money.

Truism #5: It HAS to work for you. Due to the way it works, you have to generate more profits. There's just no other possible outcome.

If you're only paying for highly profitable traffic, what other possibilities are there?

Actually, that's not the whole truth ...

Site X actually went on to make a lot MORE than an extra $40,000 a month in profits. That's only what they made as a direct result from tweaking and improving their AdWords campaigns ...

Shortly after developing this tool we realized that it was even more useful than we anticipated. If you really think about, there are lots of profitable ways to use the conversion data it generates.

For example, when viewing some of the sites that were sending them high quality traffic, the owners of Site X noticed that a bunch of them actually sold different forms of advertising. Since they already knew the traffic was of high quality, it was a no-brainer. They tell us all of these new ads are profitable too.

Site X also generates about half of its traffic, sign-ups and profits via their own affiliate program. They figured, why not contact the Content Network sites with high conversion ratios and try to get them signed up as affiliates? Last we heard they had recruited a handful of "super affiliates" this way.

These are just a few of the additional ways you can profit from the conversion data our system generates. We talk more about these strategies in the User Guide, available to all users of PPSeer's CNT.

What can PPSeer's CNT do for you?

There's really only one way to find out for sure - take a Free Trial and see for yourself.

Once you add the simple tracking codes to your site, the system will start tracking all your ads immediately ... and within a few days you should have enough data to dramatically increase your profits.

By the end of your free trial we promise you'll be convinced - this is one tool that, quite frankly, you'd be foolish to do without. It's like the law of gravity. It just works, without fail, every single time.

If you want to learn a little more about how it works, you can get a detailed Overview applicable to your current situation. And please don't hesitate to Contact Us if you have any questions.