First of all, you should read a post by VladTheAffiliate on My Affiliate Journey called Can You Afford Pay Per Click? Also, it might not hurt to read my post below called 5 Common Sense Tips About Affiliate Marketing and the comment by Mike from InsureMe.com at the bottom of the article. The key quote being:

One thing that I’ve learned early is – don’t give Google a dime unless you can get more than a dime back. Sounds simple, but there is always the temptation of thinking you can overspend and then hoping Google will start showing you some love. Truth is – it is likely that you will never see the love you need to recover the loss.

Alright, after all of that if you are still interested in using AdWords, I am guessing you believe that if you spend a dollar on AdWords you will get two dollars back, right? Well, the answer is complicated but the bottom line is simple; if you want to have any chance at all for this thing called AdWords to work, you will have to write compelling ads.

Be careful to follow Google’s Editorial Guidelines – mainly you can accomplish this by being careful not to “trick” or “get away” with anything “sneaky” - also, no triple punctuation marks like !!! or ??? or even ?!? that is a no-no with Google.

Capitalize Every Word In The Ad

One of my affiliate sites, currently under re-development, focuses on insurance. An ad I created for it reads as follows:
Cheap Car Insurance Quote
Compare To Get Your Best Rate – Up
To 5 Agents Bid For Your Business!

Notice that I am capitalizing words which are normally not capitalized in a title or sentence. Make sure you capitalize “And”, “But”, “To”, “Up”, “All”, and all the other words in your ad.

Tell Them What Your Product/Service Is or Isn’t

Remember the client has just performed a search, hopefully, on your title keywords which are part of your keyword list. But, some of those individual keywords may only vaguely represent your service. I have had bids on specific makes and models of cars in the past. So, somebody might do a search for “BMW Series 3” and come up with my ad. I want them to know that my ad is for a Car Insurance Quote – NOT for BMW auto parts or a leather seat cover because I am probably paying $4 - $6 per click. Insurance is a VERY expensive CPC market, so not many people are crazy enough to play there.

Call To Action – Try to Compel the Reader to Action

Notice in the above ad, that we are asking the customer to “Compare To Get…” Ask them to do something.

Give Them a Benefit Statement

Let them know why they would want to click on your ad. We need to let them know that they are in the driver’s seat, so to speak by telling them that up to 5 agents will bid for their business. Agents will be competing against each other for their business. Hopefully, they will like that and click the ad.

Brainstorm The Composition Of The Title And Ad Body

Get out a pad of paper and a pencil – Write down your ideas for headlines. Try to have at least ten different ideas, where you are telling the client what your service is, or what it isn’t. Try different arrangements; Put the Call to Action in your title and the Benefit Statement and Product Description in the body, or vice versa. Mix and match, be creative. Create multiple ads and track their performance, then use the best one.

Have Fun – But Remember, It MUST Pay For Itself!

Affiliate marketing is a business, you are in it to make money, not to support Google’s stock price.

Do NOT make the mistake I made and overspend your budget. If you spend a dime, make sure you are making a quarter back. If you spend a quarter, make sure you make fifty cents back.