For most webmasters and affiliate marketers, Google AdWords is their bread and butter, and rightfully so.  AdWords is a beast of an advertising system, and if targeted properly its earning potential can be great. If you follow some of these strategies then maybe even you can make money off Google AdWords.

1. The merchant or vendor site should have a professional look to it, in order to ensure the surfer that it is a credible product/service that they will be buying into.

2. Make sure to be able to maintain a level of communication between you and your affiliate preferably through an AM.  This will help you realize which ads convert better as well as keep you updated with new offers.

3. When you are paying for clicks, you need to realize the ratio between what will be a positive return and what wont be.  Try and promote affiliate products that will pay more than $15 in commission to get your ROI up. Clickbank is good for this.

4. The landing pages and sales sites need to be top of the line. If the customer is unhappy with the appearance of the page, it is more than unlikely they are going to invest their money into what your selling.

5. Same goes for the sales copy and actual marketing that is done ON the landing page.  It should include testimonials , and other key selling features in order to ease any hesitations the buyer may have.

6. Would you buy it? Ask yourself this when choosing a campaign for your affiliate program.  Chances are if you wouldn’t buy it, then most people wouldn’t be comfortable buying it either.

7.  Affiliate links are fine with your vendor as long as they are low key.  It can kill a sale if the user feels like he is getting scammed or bought into something.

8. The referring page for the vendor website should only have one product/service on it.  If there are multiple products the user can get confused by the sales messages and become hesitant to buy.

9. Tracking!  Keep a keen eye on your keywords and phrases. If any of them are getting higher than a 1:200 buy:click ratio, they need to be cut off.  A decent ratio to look for is around 1 in 50 creating a sell.  The higher the click-through rate, the better rankings you get on your niche.

10. Most affiliates will keep a record of email addresses for all your referrals.  This makes sure that you get credit for a sale even if the customer took 4-5 visits before buying… which is the case a lot of the time.

As most of you now know Google Analytics is freely available. With more than 243,000 sign ups within the first week, you can really see a value in a true “analytics” program such as this. Urchin already had a real name in the analytics marketplace and their developers, teamed with Google’s people made a truly amazing product here.

So, do you as a forum admin really need this much information? I sure think so! Google analytics will share bits of information, such as Geo tracking, that good ole webalizer and awstats only dreamed of doing. If you have plans of doing a bit of advertising through Google Adwords, I strongly advise you to use the ROI tracking utility with Google Analytics.

From Google.Com:

Integrated with AdWords.
If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics is the only product that can automatically provide AdWords ROI metrics, without you having to import cost data or add tracking information to keywords. Of course, Google Analytics tracks all of your non-AdWords initiatives as well.

Implementation Made Easy.
Simply paste the Google Analytics tracking code into each of your website pages and tracking begins immediately. No purchase process. No need to download anything. If you don’t edit your own site, your webmaster, designer, or hosting provider can probably do it for you in under five minutes.

It is safe.
Google takes the trust people place in us very seriously, and is pledged to safeguard the privacy of your corporate data. We understand that web analytics data is sensitive information, so we accord it the ironclad protection it deserves. Read our industry leading privacy policy.