Profit From Advertisements: 1 2 3
Maximize Your Resources
Learn to maximize your resources. You may not get thousands of visitors per day, but if you focus on making every advertisement absolutely as effective as possible... you'll be profoundly more successful using the resources you do have. The best way to do this is to track EVERYTHING. There are many "click tracking" scripts available on the internet, but very few of them are capable enough. They all track clicks, of course, but most are unable to track and archive a daily record of clicks - an aspect that is critical in enabling you to learn the effectiveness of your ad campaigns over time. I've been on a quest of sorts for years to find the absolute best tracking script in existence. I haven't found exactly what I'm looking for yet... but I've come exceedingly close with a script called AdTrackZ. Without breaking a sweat, it keeps track of referring urls, total and unique clicks per day, clicks per month for all campaigns and sub-campaigns, and a lot more. I highly recommend that you consider this script, or something similar... I can not begin to explain to you the amount of time and effort it has saved me (not to mention the profit and increased traffic it has helped me earn). One other tracking script that I've recently heard rave-reviews about from reputable sources such as SitePoint (but have not tried for myself yet) is called ProLinkz. If you don't have the means to install a tracking script for your site, you can consider a service such as ROIbot.
The reason I'm so fired up about scripts like AdTrackZ is that they are able to track "sub-campaigns". You should NOT simply use a single tracking link to monitor the effectiveness of an advertiser as a whole. In order to ascertain whether the specific links to a certain advertiser throughout your site are performing optimally, it's important to know how many clicks each link is able to draw. If for a given advertiser, you have a banner at the top of your page, a textlink on the side, a button in the middle, a link in your newsletter, and several mentions within the content or articles of your site... you should track each of those links separately (thankfully, the script makes this very simple, and even gives you a total count of the sub-campaigns added together). Then you should make adjustments in the text of the ad, the banner/button you choose to use, etc, until you find the "sweet spot" for each one - which is the refined ad copy/imagery that gets you the absolute best results possible.
Tip: An additional benefit of using a tracking script, is that it can help ensure that you receive the commissions you deserve for your referrals. If you post an affiliate program link in your newsletter or something similar, it is possible that the reader might feel uncomfortable clicking the long and complex link. As such they might (and sometimes do) copy the link to their browser and remove the affiliate tracking code that gives you your commission in the event that they choose to signup or make a purchase. You can remove this possibility by inserting your own tracking link instead.
Redesign Ad Banners / Graphics if Necessary
Some advertisers don't seem to understand the value of a thoughtful, well-designed banner (or other advertising graphic). They might have the most amazing product that is absolutely perfect for your audience... and yet they expect you to be successful using the half-witted graphics they threw together at the last minute. Of course this isn't always the case, but it can happen. If it does, then invest some time into designing some more effective media to use in your promotion. You should, of course, check with the advertiser to be sure that they are ok with you doing this. If not, then consider moving on. If they are ok with it though, you might also try offering the improved media to them, possibly in exchange for a slight commission increase or some other benefit.
Learning Doesn't End Here
Obviously this article can't possibly tell you everything you'll need to know to become and stay successful at making money with advertising. You need to continue to educate yourself, and keep up on the trends and changes in the way society thinks that can effect the potency of the ads you display. There are plenty of good resources out there for that... though one key that I would consider exceedingly valuable is a newsletter published by one of the web's most prominent minds in affiliate marketing, Allan Gardyne. You can subscribe for free at his site. I've been a reader for several years. Since you may be hearing about it for the first time right now, you might also be interested in the archives of what's been published throughout the past few years.
If you'd like to check back here now and then, I'll be sure to add additional must-have resources to this article as I discover and test them.
Anyhow... now that I've told you all these secrets (hehe)... go out and find your success! Work hard and be patient, and you'll make it in the end. And... "I'll see you at the top!"
