Post 4 - Facebook PPC Journey

How I became interested in Internet Marketing was though one of my best friends. He showed me through dedication and perseverance that you can make a ton of money....all from the comfort of your home. See him make more in one month than I do in a year really opened my eyes. He has a Affiliate offer he mails and also got in mailing other peoples offers.  When I told him about this class he offered to pay for me to mess around with Facebook advertising. How could I refuse. Armed with a $50 a day budget and a refinance mortgage offer to advertise I was all ready to make a ton of money. I got my first ad approved by Facebook fairly easy and thought there wasnt much to this. Reality set in pretty quick. After 324,695 impressions I had 221 clicks with a click through rate of .068%. Not bad I thought....but out of the 221 click I only had one lead! That means only one person filled out the offer!!!! Wow! So instead of making money I was actually losing money. From there I set out to split test different ads by changing images and the content of the ads. Mostly with disastrous results. But it is actually kind of fun....mostly because my friend is nice enough to foot the bill. I've tried different approaches....like trying to figure out a image that people would trust and click on. So I designed a ad with Oprah on it......Facebook shot that down quick like. Facebook is kind of funny because they will approve ads and then a day later come back and disapprove a ad you are already running. But if this was easy everyone would be doing it. So now I signed up with a Affiliate network and im looking to run some other offers and see how they convert. I know there is a lot of money to be made with PPC and running affiliate offers, I just have to put in the time.......I will make it work......its just going to take a little longer than I originally thought.

Guest Speakers / Post 3

     Ricardo and Katie Villareal are two very passionate people who spoke to my internet marketing class about their upcoming documentary "Ride With Larry." It was so great to listen to them speak because they told us all of the struggles they encountered and how with some hard work they over came them. As soon as they started speaking you instantly realized how much this project means to them. There is nothing better than to listen to some speak when they are truly passionate about what they do verses someone who is only in it for the money. Ricardo and Katie shared so many tips and gave so much advice that I wish I could have taken it all in. The main topic they shared was about a site called Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter.com is a crowd funding site that supports peoples independent efforts. It helps writers, musicians, independent film makers and a whole lot more. Kickstarter.com  was named one of the top 50 inventions by Time Magazine. The Pros are that it is free and can reach the masses for you. Some of the Cons is that you risk your idea, either you raise all the money you set out to raise or you get nothing.  Ricardo and Katie used Kickstarter.com to raise $50,000 in 60 days which is quit amazing. They are using the money to fund their upcoming documentary "Ride With Larry." They gave us a lot of useful information regarding Kickstarter.com but they also shared how they used some other social media platforms to raise awareness for their cause. They used Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, and Vismeo. But their biggest secret was to collaborate, connect, engage influences, and most of all work hard. They were great guest speakers and it was really amazing to see how social media helped them to raise $50,000 in 60 days for their documentary "Ride With Larry." I wish them nothing but continued success.