NEW: Chris Thomas

Make money from Google AdWords? Without a website? Sounds too good to be true, but worth a try. Stay tuned…

The compromising side of affiliate deals

Like me, I’m sure you’ve stumbled across one of those, too-good-to-be-true ”make millions while you’re fast asleep” e-books at some time or other online. So at the risk of endorsing one I read recently, I thought I’d offer a sneak-peak at what’s inside and save you the $US67 I spent on Chris Carpenter’s, ‘GoogleCash’.

Essentially, GoogleCash tells you how to make money from Google AdWords, “…and you don’t even need your own website.”

What? Make money from Google AdWords? Without a website? How?

Yep. That’s what I thought.

So, being in the industry I thought I’d best read it for research purposes… (OK, OK, I totally got sucked in).

Begrudgingly, I have to admit that it’s actually not too bad. The basic premise is that you sign up to a merchant’s affiliate program and create a Google AdWords campaign to advertise your merchant’s products/services.

When someone performs a search at Google and clicks on your Google Ad, the visitor (with your affiliate code) is transferred to the merchant’s website. If “your” visitor buys a product, or signs up for something, you make a commission. The trick is to make more in commissions than you spend on AdWords.

Sounds simple enough.

Chris Carpenter pretty much pioneered the concept, and he made tons of money before many other folks cottoned on to the idea and ”diluted” it somewhat. So now he’s making money selling “picks to the miners” so to speak; selling his book to the get-rich-quick dreamers.

Chris also uses his PDF e-book to insert his own sneaky affiliate links while promoting various suppliers (such as web hosting providers etc). Not only does he make money from the sale of the book, but the book itself earns ongoing revenue for him from affiliate commissions!

It’s certainly a disappointing aspect of the book from a reader’s perspective, because you’re never really sure if he’s recommending a product he believes in, or because the merchant he recommends is offering the highest affiliate payout. It’s all very compromising.

In spite of the negatives, and starting next week, I’m going to try the system out and see if I can make it work. I’ve already applied for a cool affiliate program paying a healthy $35 per lead – and the merchant doesn’t have an AdWords campaign.

It all looks perfect!

I’m just waiting on approval from the merchant, and hopefully I’ll be good to go in the next day or two.

It should be an interesting experiment, because it brings together internet marketing systems like AdWords and affiliate marketing. Along the way I’ll take you step by step through the process of setting up a Google AdWords campaign.

Even if you’ve got one going already, hopefully I can show you some tips that will save you some money and give you a better performing campaign. I’ll also share a Google AdWords secret with you that can really make your campaign shine!

Will I make some money, or will I loose my shirt?

Stay tuned…

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