Our business is called direct response marketing, and our goal is to make the customers take action.

Step 1 we want them to click on the ad.
Step 2 is to have them read our landing page.
Step 3 is to sign up for the offer or make a phone call.

What makes a great ad is if you can get people to take the desired action.

Your ads will have these three goals.

1. It needs to get attention.

Which one of these ads from Outbrain Ads on CNN.com is likely to get more clicks?

Over time you will develop what's called a "marketer's eye".

Certain things will grab your attention more than others because, in the image above, looking at the pictures, the first one with the lady grabs my attention. 

After all, it's a unique headpiece, the glasses don't, and the pills don't either.

The one on the end, it's kind of like "whoa" is this guy doing a building or a city pole?

That one is the most attention-grabbing, not to mention that it's in black and white and looks like an old photo, so it has some other incongruity that you are not used to seeing.

If people don't click your ads, then you have zero chance to sell them anything.

2. Ads have to be relevant.

If you want to get better at basketball, which ad would you find more relevant?

The ad on the right would be more relevant if you're trying to learn how to shoot a basketball.

The point here is you don't want people clicking on your ad if they have no desire to buy your offer.

Each click costs money.

Another example:

Let's say you're running an ad for Chicago Bears Jersey and when someone clicks the ad, they get directed to a Geico Insurance page.

If you are running these ads to Chicago Bears fans, you'll probably get a high click-through ratio, the offer they are seeing is not relevant to what they're looking for, the people will leave, and you waste money.

3. The ad needs to help convert the offer

Which of these ads makes you want to pull out your credit card?

The picture on the left shows there's a clear problem with the windows letting off heat. The one on the right doesn’t really show the problem.

Most people don't want to waste money on heat and spend more than they need. The heat map grabs your attention more than the nice suburban house. (Heat maps stand out and are not something you see everyday). It's relevant if you're looking to save money in the wintertime, and you're looking for a solution to insulate your house better with new windows.

A good time of year to target this would be in the wintertime in the northern states.

Types of Ads and Examples

Different traffic sources specialize in different styles of ads.

Some traffic sources may have multiple styles of ads.

In the section I'm going to cover the most popular type of ads with some examples.

1. Text Ads

I'm sure you've done a Google search before, these are the Bing, Yahoo, and Google's specialty.

These ads are strictly dependent on your ability to write copy.

Examples:

2. Image ads

Here's an example of 300 X 250 banner ads the most popular size.

The most popular desktop sizes are:

• 300 x 250 (Medium Rectangles)
• 728 X 90 ( Leaderboards)
• 120 x 600 ( Skyscrapers)

If you're just starting, you're going to want to focus on the most popular banner sizes and then consider some of the other banner sizes if you want to scale.

Note: Some traffic sources allow GIF images, which are like animated banners that can be attention-grabbing.

3.  Hybrid ads

These ads typically have text and images. The text is a headline, and you want to focus attention on the image and a headline.

Some Native ads and some Social ads feature both.

Facebook is a perfect example of a Hybrid ad. Similar to the image above with copy and text on the ads.

4. Pop under ads

Pop under ads are when you use landing pages as ads.

The customer visits a website, then your landing page pops under in another browser under the current website. Typically the customer's not aware of this.

When they close their main window your ad or landing page appears.

One of the major Traffic sources for Popunders is Ad Maven. You can always Google search "Popunder Traffic" as well.

Add metrics and formulas

The only two things that matter in Affiliate Marketing regarding your ads are the Click-Through ratio and conversion rate. Ultimately are you making a PROFIT?

1. Add metric number one a.k.a. CTR or The click through ratio

Simple math, if your ad is showing 5000 times(5000 impressions) and 100 people click on your ad, your CTR is 100 / 5000 = 2%

Generally the goal is always to increase the CTR of your ads.

Traffic sources typically reward you with a lower cost per click.

The reason for this is some traffic networks only make money when your ad gets a click.

If your ad is bid for $2 and nobody clicks on it the network doesn't make any money.

Rewarding you with a lower cost-per-click is their a way of motivating you to shoot for higher click-through rates.

Lower cost-per-click means your campaigns are more profitable.

   2. Add metric number two conversion rate

Ads can affect the entire conversion rate of your flow.

There is an art to balancing the conversion rate versus the click-through rate.

We have run the situations before. If you make a false promise like saying the word "free," you will get a high C.T.R. and a higher conversion rate. People find out that the product or service isn't free, and the offer doesn't convert, and you end up losing money.

This deception will also affect the quality of the leads.

The advertiser will come back at you with complaints about lead quality. They may not want to pay you for misleading the leads.

Copywriting for Affiliate Marketing

This section is where the rubber meets the road in Affiliate Marketing.

The average gets crushed by the pros.

Copywriting is the ability to persuade people.

If you could persuade people through writing copy, you can get conversions and make a lot of money.

Let me demonstrate with a couple examples:

1. Help the environment by using green electricity
2. How I saved $172.41 a month on my electric bill

In this case, the second one will perform quite a bit better because specific and more appealing to the person actually reading the ad.

Don’t get me wrong; people want to help the environment and go green. Most likely, they are not going to convert unless they know they're saving actual money each month.

​Saving money on their electric bill is appealing and benefits.

Which paragraph you think will perform better:

• Ginger oil has a lot of health benefits, it’s been proven through years of research.
• No more leg swelling with this hundred percent herbal ginger oil. The world is going crazy over this massage oil for leg swelling.
  
  The second answer will convert better because you're telling people the benefits of what it's giving them.
  
  You hit on the pain point, which is leg swelling, and you are providing a solution. I know this converts because I am running it at the time of this writing.

My Top 3 Copywriting Tips

1. I mentioned in the example above, people are buying on benefits, not features

The critical thing to remember is you need to tell people exactly what's in it for them; people don't care what's in the product. For example, the oil above, they only want to know what it's going to do to help them. It converts well; we have proven that copy.

2.  The book Cashvertising needs to be your Bible. Look up the life force 8

This couple above encompasses several life forces.

Once you understand certain things that just about everybody wants in life, and you use that knowledge to target the human needs, having this skill will set you free with Affiliate Marketing.

You want to use one or a combination of a few:

• Enjoyment of food and beverages.
• Life extension, survival, enjoyment of life.
• Sexual companionship.
• Freedom of fear and danger.
• Comfortable living conditions.
• Care and protection of loved ones.
• #winning, to be superior.
• Social approval.

3. Keep a swipe file

There are many times that I have a hard time being creative, so I look into a file that I keep in a Dropbox with ads that I've seen over the years that have caught my attention.

If I ever need inspiration, I just open this folder and get some ideas to start writing my copy or work on my images.

Here are my top 4 headline formulas

When I went to college and even in high school, they never taught me how to write copy.

We I first started, it was like a blind man trying to write persuasive copy.

I did have a basic understanding of the benefits instead of the features.

So naturally, you start looking at other people's work and then copy competitor's writing.

That generally is a short-term solution and doesn't last too long.

I found out over the years; you need to be creative and come up with your own unique headlines.

You will notice over time if you look at newspapers and magazines that many headlines are quite similar.

Topics can be very different, but the attention-grabbing headlines are similar.

If you can figure out the headline game, you will start winning in advertising.

We acquire skills to get higher click-through ratios and lower cost clicks on your ads, which will equal more profitable campaigns.

There are several proven formulas that we've used, and below is the psychology behind them.

1. Big Promise Without the Pain

Everyone wants the easy pill these days, think the benefits without the pain.

Most people who are overweight don't like going to the gym or dieting. They all know what the solution really is but making that happen is a different story.

Promise your readers they can achieve their goals, tell them it doesn't involve with their fear or pain point.

The Formula: How to(desired goal) without (common, painful method)

Examples:

1. How to lose love handles without going to the gym or dieting
2. How to make $369.82 a day without selling
3. How to look 6 years younger without injections

2.  The comparison headline

Let's talk about the anchor effect in psychology. People make judgments based on what they have seen in the past.

The Formula: (Your offer) is better than (Known Product)

1. My Game is better than Fortnight
2. Match.com is for boring people. Our website has more out-going people.
3. Our acne cream is 125% more effective than Clearasil

It's pretty straightforward in these scenarios; we're claiming, a.k.a. advertising our product, is a better product then the original product the audience already knows.​

A real-life example was when Apple came out and said they were better than Windows.

You see this all the time. In Advertising brands will say their product tastes better than the competitors.

The products that people have already heard of are the standard, and you're trying to persuade them.

4.  Promise Instant Gratification

In today's world, our attention spans are shorter than ever. We want Instant gratification, and we lack patience.

Jimmy John's promises freaky fast delivery.

They built their entire marketing campaign around quick delivery.

From personal experience, I've ordered Jimmy John's, and It does come incredibly fast. It's almost scary.

I'm pretty sure just about all of you have seen the Jimmy John's commercial: there's a fire in the house and the delivery guy shows up before the fire department to help put out the fire.

It's kind of funny but it definitely proves a point about instant gratification when you're hungry because you can get your subs freaky fast. This campaign has been running for a long time, I barely watch TV and I have seen it, I am certain it’s been effective.

The Formula (Get desired result) in a (Time frame)

Examples:

• Get your mortgage lowered in less than 10 minutes
• Need a date? We will find you one for this weekend
• Repair your cracked phone screen in 5 minutes

5. Rebel Against The Experts

Have you ever seen a commercial for the product Liquid Plumber? Their slogan was something like the professionals hate us.

The meaning, plumbers, and the professionals don't like the product because it takes business away from them. Think about if you had a product and you implied that it was so good that they wouldn't need the experts in the field, or that the experts don't want you to know about this.

The formula: The secret the (Experts) don't want you to know

Examples:

• Your fitness trainer won't tell you about this weight loss trick
• Dentists won't tell you this when you ask about teeth whitening
• The one fruit doctors won't recommend when discussing diabetes

How to Make Ads

At some point in your affiliate marketing career you're going to have to design banners.

Don't worry I'm not a Photoshop expert, but there are plenty of designers out there who are.

You don't have to be a great designer in order to get a good performing banner.

We've repeatedly tested professional-looking banners against what I would consider ugly banners, and generally, the ugly banners have a higher C.T.R.

Here's an example of a template as an ad

You don't have to be a graphic designer to make successful banner ads.

You don't have to be super creative or clever, the main focus of a banner ad is for them to take action.

The software Canva is excellent for making banners and graphics, and the product is beginner-friendly.

Components of a typical Banner ad:

1. Headline
2. Image
3. Border
4. Benefits
5. Call to action

Spy Tools

Spying is one of my favorite things to do in the research stage. 

Once I talk to my affiliate manager and decide which offer and which traffic source I'm going to run.

Spy tools are where research begins, which includes spying on other affiliates.

If you can find stuff that's already working and model it better, you're going down the right path.

Social Ad Scout

If you're on mobile, then I would recommend Adplexity.

Spy tools are a huge time-saver, and time is money in this business, and your goal is to make money.

Homework

Get out there and do some spying and use your marketer's eye to notice some ads.

Check out vipbox.tv for some mobile ads and also check out your Facebook news feed.

Keep that swipe file. I mentioned all the ads that catch your attention, keep for viewing at a later date.

Spy tools don't get every single ad, but they're an excellent starting place.

The best place to see ads happening in real-time are the platforms themselves.

Create a swipe with the following ad formats:

1. 728 x 90
2. 300 x 250
3. 120 x 600