by Patricia Mayo

The numbers are down. Conversions just aren’t happening. You feel at your worst and it’s starting to affect everything you do. You want to give up, but is it really time to go back to the drawing board?

I hope not, because that is exactly where I stand right now. My problem - the ad copy is too effective!

My Pig Sty

A couple days ago I started a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. The click-through ratio (CTR) is awesome, sitting pretty at a hair shy of 4% - which is almost unheard of in this industry.

Two days and 94 clicks later, I haven’t gotten one single conversion. I have reached the “re-evaluate” point I determined before I began, and the news is not good.

Mind you, this is an affiliate campaign, so the best I can do to improve conversions is make my own page - which means buying a new domain, designing a site, writing copy for the site, writing articles for directory submission to get some quick backlinks, etc etc ad nauseum.

Obviously, I don’t want to go through all that mess since the product is excessively FAQ-heavy and very technical. I thought about dropping the product, but I believe in it and I want it to succeed.

Of course those were not the only determining factors in choosing the product. It helps solve a pretty major problem today (rising gas prices) in an environmentally friendly way (converting your engine to burn hydrogen brown gas) with a great sales record in a steady and drastic upward trend.

You would think such a product would convert well, right? Especially where the “super affiliate” is the merchant. I guess not.

Next Steps

photo credit: preciouskhyatt

I might still end up making my own page, because I’m downright determined to make this product convert well. However, I have a few possibly better solutions in mind.

First of all, I know I have great ad copy - click-throughs really couldn’t get much better. I can capitalize on my annoyingly effective ad copy with lower-cost advertising alternatives, such as classified advertising or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads.

I can also offer to re-design and re-write their landing page so it converts better and gets a better quality score for profitable keywords (which would mean cheaper ads for everyone, although I certainly wouldn’t do it for free in any case).

Lesson Learned

When all seems lost - don’t go back to the drawing board just to throw in the towel. Have a second look at your plan, turn it upside down, kick the coconut tree, and get creative about solutions.

I will share all the details on exactly how I developed that grossly effective ad copy in the premier issue of ComHacker Magazine. Please do definitely voice your questions in the comments so I can truly help you write better ad copy too.

Thank you so very much for reading - see you next time!

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Trisha, @mayobrains on Twitter