PPC Advertising On Bing - Update & My 2nd Campaign Results
Following my last blog Pay Per Click With Bing - How Did I Do? I said I would do an update as time passed and share any further developments with the referrals I got.
Results so far from the 1st Campaign
Well from the 1st campaign, resulting in 90 Starter referrals, I still have no Premium referrals.
Yep a big fat ZERO!
It is now more than 5 weeks since my first referral from the PPC campaign joined (Feb 13th) I would have thought if the campaign was viable I would have had at least one go Premium within the first 7 days.
As I have no experience in what sort of time frame is normal to expect Starters to go Premium I am not sure if there is now any hope at all that any of my referrals will. I suspect not and I am not holding out much hope that any of them will convert at this stage.
I am feeling like Campaign #1 is a bit of a lost cause, I hope I will be proved wrong at some stage :)
Let's Try Again Shall We!
So I stopped the campaign for about 10 days, to see what would happen, and had a second go at it starting 28th February.
This time I restricted my spend to $10 per day (total spend $100) and targeted Australia, UK, USA & Canada only.
As to be expected the daily impressions and clicks went down but my $10 per day lasted pretty much 20 - 22 hours before I reached my budget on each day.
And the results I hear you ask?
Total # of referrals: 52 Starters
# of referrals that filled in profiles: 11 from 52 (up from only 8 with 90 referrals)
Cost per filled in profile: $8.31 ( down from $13.65)
Number of impressions per click: 10 (down from 25)
Number of clicks per referral: 14 (up from 10)
Cost per referral: $1.76 (up from $1.21)
And how many Premium referrals do you have now Heidi? STILL NONE!
Yep you read right, now some 2 weeks after the 2nd campaign ended I still have not had one referral upgrade.
So I deduce from this that the second campaign targeting Aust, UK, USA & Canada resulted in:
- more filled in profiles that cost me less to get;
- I needed less impressions to get people to click;
- but the actual conversions to Starter referrals from those clicks cost me more money.
Probably the most startling stat from this campaign though is that only 15 of the total 720 clicks came from a desktop computer!
Now I do not know why this was, or whether it has anything to do with why none of my referrals have gone Premium, but it certainly shows how important it is to have a website which is mobile friendly.
So is PPC worth it?
Well for me the jury is still out. Obviously I am overjoyed to have 142 referrals, but if none of them ever go Premium then it has all been for nothing.
I really don't know if there is a problem with my advert or the campaign landing page I am using. It seems to get referrals but as to why none of them are upgrading once they join I really don't know.
As I said in an earlier blog I am now focused on building my local SEO business. Once I have a few local clients paying me for web building I will have another go at PPC. I feel like it has tremendous potential and if I can get my offering right I can see how it can scale up beautifully to get me out of the rat race and into being my own boss.
If you have any suggestions on what I might be doing wrong or you have experience about on average how long until a Starter member usually upgrades to Premium I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you have done or are running a PPC campaign I'm sure we would all love to hear your success (or lack of) stories.
Till next time ....
Recent Comments
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What Mick said below, amazing. But I'm even more amazed at your findings about mobile vs desktop or laptop. Are you attracting a younger crowd? With WA as your niche, why would that be?
Donna I really have no idea why so many on mobile. But I do wonder if that is why they don't convert. I know some people do build their sites on their phones but it must be so very difficult.
I put my mobile bids at -100%. This way all of my clicks are from desktops. Your cost per referral is not bad at all. My guess is you are very close to getting your 1st premium from PPC.
Thanks for the info Kirk. Do you find more convert if joined from a desktop than a mobile, hence why you have -100% mobile?
If mobile is the only device they have I doubt they are going to be able to build and run an affiliate business very easy.
I don't recall seeing that in the WA training, but it would be a good experiment to knock out mobiles and see what the conversions are like without.
Hmm might have to find some more cash for round 3 lol.
Very interesting feedback here. With the $19.00 first month sign up I would have thought the majority of savvy people would go Premium in the first week. I wonder why more don't? Are you keeping in touch with those who join WA but don't go Premium? Maybe they need a newsletter or something.
Sometimes it’s discouraging when you put in your best and the results done come in,but you have to keep pushing.PUSH( push until something happens),don’t give up,the big break is just around the corner.
Goodluck
Thanks Rosemary, I am quite convinced the big break is imminent. We will just keep pushing until it does.
It seems to be a very common issue, Heidi. Lots of referrals, few profiles completed, no premium upgrades.
I think email follow up is a good idea and you can do that directly through WA.
You probably have to acknowledge though that plenty of your referrals clicked with no idea what they were clicking on, signed up to see what it was all about, had no idea what they were looking at and disappeared never to be seen again.
That seems to be exactly what has happened ... never to be seen again!
It's kind of sad, not just because I didn't get the sale, but they were so close to something great, they had every chance to make a difference for themselves and they have missed out on a fantastic opportunity.
To me, it's impossible that no one will go premium from the 142 referrals. You are doing the right thing since your referrals are increasing.
I hope you are right Jimmy :) I am certainly not getting a 12% conversion rate at this time so I suspect it is my ad and/or landing page that is the problem (maybe).
one question I have is are you sending your visitors to a lead capture page and collecting emails so you can continue to promote WA to them through email?
I was wondering this too, so you can have an ongoing email campaign to those who did sign up for starter memberships.
I am not Ralph. The landing page only had two options, probably more ideally it should have only had one. But the options were 1. join WA or 2. read my Affiliate Marketing Guide which says join WA :)
We are taught to keep the ad and the landing page/blog very focussed and specific so that's what I did.
I have my automated message sequence set up here at WA to continue contact with my referrals.
I also went through and personally contacted each one to ask if they had any questions. Not one of them responded, so I am thinking they are no longer logging in to receive my contact.
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Hi Heidi.
I think people in general do not like to be told what to do. In fact the more you insist, the more they will rebel, that why PPC can back fire. You need for people to come to their own conclusion that this is the best thing since sliced bread and not because someone tells you.
We live in a world where skepticism, too much get rich schemes and weariness. It may be a good idea for people to fill a questionnaire to find out there feelings and why they don't sigh up. The reasons may shock you.
Antonio
I don't think my landing page TOLD them, well at least I hope that's not how it came across. I invited them to come check out WA for free and with no obligation.
The way Kyle and Carson have set up the platform is genius for that very reason, and why I am here today. I was very cautious of being scammed but because I did not have to put in any payment details I decided to come check it out.
I upgraded within 7 days because I had finished the first 10 lessons and liked what I saw. I then paid for one month at $49 because I wasn't sure that I would be committed enough to continue. I really do understand that people want to be sure that this is legit and that they can do it.
I will get back to my referrals and ask why, I would genuinely love to know so that I can tailor my offer better.
Thanks for your comment Antonio, really appreciate it.