How I Made $95000 In Two Months With Adsense Referrals

Sound sensationalist? I assure you it is not. In future posts, I plan to really take some people and companies to town, and in order to do that, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. So many people talk trash having nothing to back it up. So many people “claim” to be making bank, again with nothing to back it up.

Today, I am going to show you how I made OVER $95000 in two months using Google Adsense Referrals. What do I want in return? Nothing. Enjoy.

Before we start, I want to give a little background and some advice. What I am about to describe to you got my adsense account banned. I am not saying that you try this method, I am saying that you can use this case study as a source to base your own ideas.

Further to that, I would like to point out that even though my Google Adsense account was indeed banned, I did get the full amount of what I was owed. Google paid me every last cent that I earned with them. The only reason I am releasing this case study is because I have nothing to lose. Because I cannot compete in the space any more, it’s all yours :)

I am not going to start with any basics here. The basics of online marketing and affiliate marketing I will leave to those more interested in promoting shitty clickbank products and getting “+reps” on affiliate marketing forums. I come from a very heavily focused PPC background and I always have a large bankroll behind me for affiliate marketing campaigns.

Here is what I did:

1.) I took a look at the wordtracker top 500 keyword list. I am subscribed to the free weekly email report that sends the weeks top keywords. I noticed that every week without fail, in the top ten searched for keywords was “Google Earth”.

2.) I logged into adsense and found that Google Earth was part of the “Google Pack” which offered $2 for each successful install.

3.) I created a “mini site” dedicated to Google Earth. Into this site, I added lots of reviews, videos from youtube and of course, a page to download Google Earth.

4.) The download page was the only page on the site that had the menu removed, the logo/title unlinked and barely any content except for the Adsense referral unit to download Google Pack. The screenshot you see below is a page that was split tested about 35 times. This was the final, best performing “landing page”.

5.) I added to official Google favicon to the site. There are thousands of blog posts available on improving a page/site’s credibility. Read them.

The site was now ready to make money. The next step was to send traffic to the “offer”. Unfortunately, Google does not allow adsense users to “promote” Adsense referrals. However, as is usual with Google, their terms were NOT very clear. According to here:

Can I use online advertising to promote my referral ads?

No, you may not use online advertising to purchase traffic for the specific and sole purpose of generating conversions, unless you have the express permission of the advertiser and your site complies with Google’s Landing Page Quality Guidelines.

Please note that Google does not grant the use of online advertising for the specific and sole purpose of generating conversions for Google products and those of our Google Pack partners.

As you can see, incredibly vague. What exactly constitutes the “use of online advertising” ? Google’s loss. Anyway, moving on.

6.) I decided to send some PPC traffic to the download page. Unfortunately, when using adwords, Google automatically assigns a poor quality score to keywords and ads containing their trademarks. Bet you didn’t knw that did you? (This strangely enough does not apply to the word “adsense”). Sending traffic from AdWords was immediately out of the question.

7.) Yahoo to the rescue. I created an account with Yahoo Search Marketing and set up a single campaign. The “Google Earth” Campaign. Fortunately, Yahoo does not give a shit about quality score. I used a keyword tool to generate about 50 different keywords relating to “Google Earth” and “Download Google Earth” and set the campaign live with minimum bids of $0.10 (ten cents).

8.) Once the account and campaign and creatives were approved, the ad started displaying on Yahoo search. Because the $2 payout was only for the US and certain other countries, I limited the display of the ad to those countries (using different Yahoo accounts).

9.) The traffic literally flooded in. I was getting enough data to start split testing designs almost immediately. I did.

10.) I wont go into the process of split testing and landing page optimization here either, I don’t want to be part of the Internet marketing echo chamber. Needless to say, after a lot of testing and sleepless nights, I came up with the best performing landing page. The only metric that I had to work with was the CTR of the Adsense referral unit for Google Pack. That was enough.

11.) Because nobody else was advertising for the keyword “Google Earth” or related search terms, I was at the number one position most of the time and was only being charged my maximum bid of $0.10 a click. Because there was so much demand for the FREE product Google Earth, there was a LOT of volume. I was a very happy camper.

The Numbers…

After two months, I got the email from Google. My “promotion methods caused a significant risk to it’s adwords advertisers”. Right.

So there you have it. $95000 profit in 60 days and I’m not trying to sell you membership to my uber forum or personal coaching because I got luck with one campaign in my life ;) (Yes that was a dig at that douchebag). Unfortunately my Adsense account got banned so I don’t have the “screenshot proof” to show you. Then again, I’m not trying to sell you anything so I don’t really need it do I? ;) Try it yourself.

I have no idea if this method still works, especially since Google dropped the referral fee for Google pack from $2 to $1. Also, with the recent news that Adsense referrals are to be retired, even with $1 this method will not last very long.

Tips:

Those that use the Yahoo search engine are usually less tech savvy. In this case, they were not aware that Google earth could actually be downloaded as a stand alone application.

Promoting offers with low payouts can be as profitable as those with higher payouts.

Look at other places other than the usual CPA networks for affiliate marketing offers. They are EVERYWHERE and those making serious bank know that.

Don’t waste your time listening to those complete fucktards that blog about their dinner, make videos of their “cribs”, launch membership sites because they made bank with a dating offer once and especially don’t listen to the biggest frauds of them all… the ones who dress up as superheros and claim they are a big deal because they made a myspace layout site once. Go read the blog by Diorex, Eli, Shady, Smaxor and Nicky or even this blog. They seem to know their stuff and are as much against the self proclaimed bullshit as I am.

Feel free to steal the idea in this post. It is of no value to me anymore. Notice I didn’t call myself a super affiliate even once? ;)

Phew… I made it. Not an affiliate link or photo of me holding up an adsense/azoogle check in sight!

July 3, 2008 | Filed Under Ideas 

Comments

27 Responses to “How I Made $95000 In Two Months With Adsense Referrals”

  1. Diorex on July 8th, 2008 7:22 pm

    Nice Post - I don’t care to see a check, but did Google pay you? Be just like them to decide after the fact that your traffic broke the rules and not pay.

    You are dead on about the availability of great products outside of the normal CPA campaigns. Just reading this post, I can think of a dozen ways to exploit this campaign within Google Adwords.

    Just goes to show that the real winners are the guys who think outside the box. Kudos.

  2. Lorne Fade on July 9th, 2008 4:13 pm

    Great Post, keep up the good work! And as is true to form, thinking outside the box is almost always profitable. Well played sir.

  3. barman on July 9th, 2008 4:25 pm

    Shit son, good scheme! I’ll subscribe to this blog. Plz post pics of dinner.

  4. admin on July 9th, 2008 5:49 pm

    Thanks for the comments guys.

    Diorex: Yes, Google did pay me. The full sum I was owed. I did lose a few hundred dollars though between the time I got the email from them and when I turned off the campaign. This was this year, so there is no check. All wire. If you do this now and don’t mind getting your account banned, you’ll see for yourself. ;) I don’t actually WANT anyone to know who I am.

    Lorne: Thanks. I wouldn’t really consider it thinking outside the box, more thinking for myself as apposed to listening to those muppets who really just talk pony.

    Barman: I’ll post pics of my dinner and call myself the black hat of black hats when hell freezes over. :) I will raise my hand… I’m clueless about something, I am clueless as to why My. Chow has such a huge following. I really REALLY don’t understand it.

  5. alexa7 on July 10th, 2008 8:29 am

    Great Post. I came in through Diorex’s blog. Hitting the subscribe button now.

    Very inspirational approach. I appreciate your sharing it. Too bad is died an early death. I’m still not too clear on the Goolge violation, though.

    Almost 2k a day is way sweet.

  6. PunditX on July 10th, 2008 8:44 am

    Thanks alexa7 and thanks for subscribing. I want this blog to be about something other than the usual zip submit, green tea, dating, email submit and craigslist spamming that everyone else seems to get such a kick in posting about.

    I’ll try make the subscription worth your time.

    Regarding the process, I’m sure it still works. Just be prepared to lose your adsense account. I used my personal one, not the company one so it was OK.

  7. uGuX SEO on July 10th, 2008 9:45 am

    Hey,

    Awesome post.

    Did you ever try matching your landing page style closer to Google’s format? (specifically, adding their logo)

  8. SlightlyShadySEO on July 10th, 2008 10:11 am

    Absolutely awesome. That’s some real thinking there. My only question is how do you think they caught on?

  9. PunditX on July 10th, 2008 10:50 am

    uGuX SEO, yes of course. Was one of the first designs I tried. For some reason, it didn’t do very well. I also tried the Picasa landing page that Google demonstrated at the LP session at PubCon last year. That was actually almost a winner.

    You cannot see it in the image (obviously) but those arrows used AJAX to flash them ONCE. The landing page tests actually tested different “flash” frequencies. Because of the volume, I was able to have so much fun testing. I could make the other landers available if anyone needed them but the point is that the image above was the winner.

    Shady, I’d hazard a guess that they saw a massive surge in referrals and placed the account under some sort of “investigation”. While every single lead/download was of course genuine, they couldn’t get me on that. They must have looked closer at the traffic source. Strange though because Google has a VERY hard time for some reason distinguishing between Yahoo CPC and Organic traffic.

    Oh well, was good while it lasted.

    Shady, big fan of your blog. Long time subscriber. ;)

  10. Alan Petersen on July 10th, 2008 9:38 pm

    Great case study! Thanks for sharing. What happens once you get banned? Are you done, you can never run PPC campaigns again? Seems extreme.

    Thanks again.

    Alan

  11. newbie on July 16th, 2008 5:21 am

    Love your posts. And glad to finally read someone telling it like it is without the hype and dodgy promises. With a name like “All the shit that’s fit to rake”, it is obviously not the best place to ask the question but … I will anyway.

    What is the best way to get started and “learn the basics”? Please be honest. Tired of reading countless websites with holes in their propositions so big you could fit a $%£^& through it. I have the theory just need a helping hand to know where and how to get started.

    Getting to the point … where would you go if you were starting today?

  12. PunditX on July 16th, 2008 10:30 am

    Hey newbie. I’ll do a post in a day or two for you.

  13. turbolapp on July 21st, 2008 7:43 am

    Nice blog. (came in through smaxor’s blog) I like the feel of it. Subscribed.

    PS Good article on PJ and EPN, too.

  14. ImagesAndWords on July 23rd, 2008 1:40 am

    Good blog indeed, consider it subscribed. ;)
    And this post was a great read. :)

    I’m focusing most of my time on non-CPA offers and on-site affiliate programs of niche sites that few people know exist. It’s where the money is at.

    One offer I run actually pays $400 a lead (no joke), and there is virtually no competition here for it in Norway because no one knows about it. Granted, it’s a low-traffic niche but it still brings in a massive ROI ;)

  15. Dave on July 24th, 2008 1:35 pm

    I can already tell this blog is going to be awesome. Sub! Scribed!!

  16. Element on August 5th, 2008 5:36 am

    Nice work… It’s not just another story about some guy who made some dough, it’s actually got some creativity to it. Hopefully, you’ve got more where that came from, right? I look forward to more posts from you.

  17. The Secret to Making Lots of Money | diydollars.com on August 5th, 2008 5:56 am

    [...] You want to see an example of a guy who was successful, without “magic” or secrets? A guy who used creative thinking more than anything to become successful? Read here to see how he made $95,000 in two months. [...]

  18. Musashi on August 5th, 2008 11:45 am

    Great post man… Really got me thinking in a lot of different ways… Subscribed!

  19. Gab Goldenberg on August 10th, 2008 7:00 pm

    I would love to see the series of tests you ran, the results you got and the hypotheses before/after each.

    E.g. I’ll bet making it closer to G’s style will give greater consistency and therefore a higher CTR. Test: 2000 clicks, 30% CTR (less than previous iteration of 33%). Scrapped. Explanation hypothesis: Am not Google, and imitating them sketches people out since we’re obviously different entities.

    Would be a terrific learning resource and help as I run my first PPC campaign, where I’ll be competing against deep-pocketed merchants!

  20. Gab Goldenberg on August 10th, 2008 8:33 pm

    One more thing: How much had you spent before the campaign broke even? How many tests had you run by then? How long till it was profitable?

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  22. Amit on August 16th, 2008 11:42 pm

    Hats off! Finally a blog post without all the “me stupid super affiliate” stuff…a refreshing outlook on banking with affiliate marketing.

    Subscribed!

  23. Zach's New Jersey Real Estate on August 25th, 2008 9:15 am

    How did you think up this? You’re a very lucky and smart man. Congratulations on your success, hopefully some day I can do something like that.

  24. Sg4 on August 25th, 2008 9:27 pm

    I did this exact same thing. Was never paid by google.

  25. Marc on September 11th, 2008 2:25 pm

    Interesting read man, I could swear you’re German :)
    I really like your thinking on this one, it’s really the out of the box thinking that makes the most money and huge ROI’s.

    I love internet marketing, it’s the best thing EVER happened to me and my family :D

  26. James on September 25th, 2008 12:29 pm

    Got damn, something so simple made you so much bank. Fucking amazing. Great post man, I bookmarked your site.

  27. uW on November 13th, 2008 12:49 pm

    Nice post, good to see all the right faces in the same places ;)

    I think the out of the box thing is something most people in the arena overlook - opting to do the same old things they read on digital point or wherever.

    I think the most important question is what are you spending the 95k on? it would be ironic to invest it in the google share :p

    uw

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