Thought I'd pick up a few bucks with the death of the worlds most famous pedophile but still no dice.  I've cut back the campaigns to a very low burn rate until I get some time to iron out the issues with conversion rates.  This isn't just for fun anymore, it's personal.  That's right Google, it's on now, bitch!

I've begun work on a new site in hopes of picking up some AdScense money.  I started by using a soon to expire domain name I had laying around.  You can check out a very incomplete working copy at KindleZine.com.  (There are only 2 pages right now and neither is complete but I think it demonstrates the concept) 

In an effort to keep things low cost I started to get a bit creative.  To avoid the need for a server, I'm designing the site to be pure HTML.  I'm planning on generating all the pages based on creative commons content.  To make things even cheaper still I decided to host the entire thing on a free DropBox account.  I plan on using Disqus to enable comments as well as a few other tools to handle social networks etc... 

Once I iron out the look and feel of the site I'll write a couple of small apps to handle importing new content, generating pages and building site maps.  The plan is to build it large enough and with enough quality SEO to pick up a million or so hits / day, at least that's the plan ;-}

If nothing else I should end up with some pretty decent content for a book "The Internet on $0.04 / Day" ;-}

TTFN

I'm still poor.  In fact poorer than I was a week ago but sooo much wiser.  Here are the numbers for my first week (please don't laugh too loudly as I am a sensitive guy)

Impressions: 17,076
Clicks: 105
Cost: $5.14
Conversions: 1
Revenue: $0

Nothing to write home about that's for sure.  As I started to wrap my head around how the whole adSense thing works I realized that my initial approach was very wrong.  I was going way to broad on all 3 levels: campaign, keywords and ad groups.  I paused that campaign and began a new one with a specific target and a number of different ad groups, fewer keywords, higher CPC bids and more ads.  The idea is to compare the performance of various ads within a group to try and determine the kinds of things that trigger clicks/conversions.  So far that hasn't yielded diddly since some of the ads are still under review (haven't figured out why yet).  To date I am $15 off of my starting point but still have more than that available from promos so I'm not worried but I realize I have a lot to learn still before I can make this portion of my venture profitable. 

Another realization that I came to was that this coin has two sides.  All of these ads that people are buying need to show on sites and the owners of those sites make a few bones every time someone clicks.  This is of course not news to anyone, especially me, but I sometimes get stuck with blinders on.  I get stuck thinking that in order to drive enough traffic to a site I need to create compelling content and a great user experience which requires a lot of effort, hardware, software, time and the like.  My recent epiphany was that all I really need is a cheap way to serve up HTML files (S3), access to some reasonably relevant content (WWW), a way to merge the two (Codegen) and a good site map.  Once I get a handle on the affiliate angle (it's personal now!), I think I'll try my hand at the other side.

I still have a number of things to try.  I'm no where close to done yet.  My first goal is to get a CTR north of 2% and to convert another 2% of those which should put me somewhere around $8 in revenue per 100 clicks and my break even around $.08 per click, which is pretty low but would at least put me at a  level where I think I could make adjustments and identify patterns quicker.

TTFN

Not much to report today.  Starting to understand the whole keyword search tweaking thing and trying to figure out how the tools are work.  I think it's going to take me a few more days until I can work out a formula that works.  I managed to generate a couple of hundred clicks so far but so far it hasn't amounted to anything but a big fat goose egg.

In other news, we released a new site at work: uEncode.com.  It's a video encoding service.  It's not really designed for the average person, the focus is more geared toward someone who needs a bit more flexibility.  It still has a way to go before it's a top notch site, but in the mean time IT'S FREE!  That's right, while we are in beta it's free for anyone to use so stop by and setup an account and tell all of your friends... both of them.  The other interesting thing of note is that we developed the site in about two weeks!  Lot's of fun.

Overall it was a pretty rough day.  Had a controller blow out on 1 site, released a new site and fairly major updates to 2 others.  I'm hoping for clearer skies tomorrow.

TTFN

Day 2 went well overall.  I setup an account with Commission Junction and applied for an affiliate ID with Endless.com and I'm waiting acceptance.  I'm thinking that this will be the first one I attempt to put an actual site together for.  I have a few ideas with some unique presentations for shoes.

I setup a Microsoft adCenter account which cost me a one time setup fee of $5 pulling my account balance down to $172.  Like with Google AdWords I had a promo code sitting around from a previous purchase, this time for $50! woot!  I tried to setup the same campaign that I have running on Google but it turns out that MS doesn't allow adult content.  So be it.  So I created an add for a general title and set the buy at $10 for the rest of the month just to get something started.

I created a new, more targeted ad on Google which I expect will take much longer to achieve its target but that I hope will lead to more conversions.  If it works I'll probably go ahead and create a lot of smaller, cheaper, more targeted ads instead of throwing a lot into a high-traffic spot.

I also realized that I had a better option for my first affiliate; a custom vStore.  While the partner program works just swell, my company also offers a more profitable vStore option.  Lucky for me I had an unused domain sitting around doing nothing that I decided I could put to use so I setup Shop.OwnYourBone.com and started pointing traffic there instead.

One thing I didn't take into account was when I get paid.  Assuming I'm able to drive traffic and get conversions that earn me some money, It looks like I'm still going to run into a cash flow problem.  Turns out most places pay out monthly or quarterly which means even if I pull in enough to cover the expenses, I won't have access to the money for weeks or months!  It shouldn't present a problem for at least a couple of weeks, but I may come to a point where the Can of Change will have to take out a loan from me.  Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

To recap: I've spent $15 so far, redeemed $75 in promos, activated an idle domain, created a store front backed by the #1 provider of adult DVDs.  I opened a new checking account with a couple of side benefits, signed up with the largest affiliate marketing company and started testing the waters.  So far so good.

TTFN

$187.00 is what I have to work with.  Stopped by the bank and opened a new checking account with many coin rolls.  The associate who helped me open the account just happens to be a budding artist with a T-shirt business on the side... rest assured I'll be thinking about how to work that in to my little experiment.  If there is one thing I've learned in the past 40 years is that when the universe talks, you listen!  I opened the account at Citizens Bank where I have a couple of other accounts.  They couldn't have been nicer!  Big props to them all.  As a side benefit they offer a program that gives a penny off per gallon of gas for every $50 you spend using the account.  I didn't sign up for it yet but I will.  A free tank of gas every now and again sure would be nice.

After considering a number of options I decided to start with something small and fairly safe.  Affiliate programs fit the bill so I started looking around for a couple of programs I think I can make work.  I didn't have to look far.  The company I work for offers a very good program which I was already signed up for through the course of working on the site.  This is another one of those win-win situations which I think could be the difference between success and failure.  If I can drive an extra customer or two to the company site, the company makes a little more and I make a little more.  Everyone's happy.

First order of business was to setup an AdWords account on Google.  As it so happens, I had an outstanding $25 AdWords credit from a previous GoDaddy purchase which I was able to apply to my new AdWords account.  Cha-Ching!  In addition I seeded the account with another $10 from the Can of Change, minus $5 signup fee gives me $30 to start playing with and $277 left in reserves. 

I then setup a campaign which I capped at $3/day for starters.  I made a list of keywords and created an add.  In an effort to keep costs low I decided to route traffic directly to the affiliate site for now.  Once I get my feet a little wetter I'll register a new domain and setup a small site to help drive more traffic.  It didn't take long to eat through the $3/day limit!  In a matter of a few hours my ad got 6,812 impressions and 64 click through's with an average CPC of $0.05.  I don't know if any of those clicks resulted in conversions yet since I won't be credited until product ships, but here's hoping!  At this point I'm up $17.04 due to the GoDaddy coupon code, I've met an interesting character and gained some hands-on experience with something I only superficially understood... all-in-all a pretty good start!

Tomorrow I plan on setting up an account with Microsoft's AdWords equivalent, joining Commission Junction, creating a few more targeted ad groups and checking to see if I got any conversions.  Stay tuned!

TTFN