Review: AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging

The Keyword Elite AdSense Arbitrage experiment I've been running is based on a free report put out by the creator of Keyword Elite (KE). The report was based on the experiences of a KE user discussing his success with AdSense arbitrage in the KE forums. That user is Michael Plante, who's written a book called AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging that discusses his arbitrage methods in detail. I want to continue the arbitrage experiment, but this time I'd like to base it on the techniques described in his book. So let's start by reviewing the product and see what it's all about. I'll describe things as best I can without giving too much away, which would be unfair to the author.

AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging

When you purchase AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging, you actually get three things:

• The AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging ebook (in Adobe PDF format)
• The page template Michael uses for his AdSense content
• Access to a private AdSense arbitrage forum

I haven't had the time to cruise around the forum much, so I'll concentrate on the book and the template.

The package currently sells for $67, which is not prohibitively expensive. (But see the caveats below.)

The AdSense Arbitrage Book

The book is the reason to buy the AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging product, of course. Michael has updated the book since I first read it, right now it's 70 pages long. Like most ebooks (including mine) it's sold through ClickBank, which means you automatically get an 8-week no-questions-asked full refund policy on your purchase. Which, it turns out, is more than enough time to put Michael's arbitrage model to the test.

One thing I want to point out that the sales page doesn't really mention: Keyword Elite is used extensively throughout the book and plays a central part in Michael's arbitrage model. You can do some of the stuff by hand, but it would be very time-consuming and boring work. (Trust me!) So you'll definitely need a good keyword tool if you want to proceed. If you don't already own KE, note that it currently retails for $176, which adds to the startup costs for the arbitrage scenario. (Unfortunately for you Mac users, KE is a Windows-only program.)

If you haven't used AdWords before, or you've used it and not had much success with it, you'll probably also want to invest in a good book about creating compelling AdWords ads. The one I recommend is AdWords Miracle; Michael recommends a different one I haven't read yet.

[Aside: To ease the pain, I will throw in a free copy of Uncommon AdSense, including the AdSense patent special report, to anyone who buys a copy of Keyword Elite or AdWords Miracle through my affiliate link. Mail me for details.]

The best thing about this book is that it's very detailed, unlike the free report I mentioned before. I like books that give you a step-by-step approach to a system, like the Affiliate “Project X” book that caused a lot of ruckus not too long ago. After a couple of short introductory chapters, Michael gets down to business with a two-page outline of the entire business model, broken down into discrete steps. The rest of the book goes into the details for each step, so it's very much a recipe approach to making money with AdSense and AdWords.

Although he gives brief overviews of both AdSense and AdWords, as I mentioned this is not an AdSense or AdWords book. He shows you how to set up the AdWords campaigns — which options to set and how much to bid — but there's not much info about creating the ads themselves. That's why you need a good AdWords resource, or actual experience writing AdWords ads. Same with AdSense: although he gives you his template (see below) and some general advice, it's not a detailed AdSense optimization book.

But this is all OK. The book is very focused, and I think that's great. We're here to make money with arbitrage, after all, presumably we already know something about AdSense and/or AdWords.

The business model Michael describes has actually been refined from what was documented in the free report:

• After finding a niche to explore, Michael uses Keyword Elite to find 1 to 6 primary keywords with good potential based on the general keyword for the niche.
• A content page is then created for each primary keyword.
• Keyword lists are then developed for each of the primary keywords.
• AdWords campaigns are then set into motion for each primary keyword, using those keyword lists, to drive traffic to the respective content page.
• Each campaign is tested for no more than 100 clicks, with a maximum cost to you of no more than $5.
• A “successful” campaign is one that earns at least 2.5 times the amount spent on AdWords clicks. The others are dropped.
• The process is repeated ad infinitum.

As you can see, it's fairly easy to describe the process. The devil is in the details, which is what the book is primarily concerned with. Michael tells you which options he sets on Keyword Elite to generate the various lists, how he structures his pages and sites, and so on.

Note that this arbitrage model gets its traffic mostly from the Google content network, i.e. other AdSense sites. There is a chapter on applying the model to the search network (Google's search result pages) but the much higher cost of traffic acquisition on the search network makes it much harder to turn a profit. It can certainly be done, but this is where a thorough understanding of the AdWords pricing model, including the infamous quality score, will be especially handy.

The book includes answers to frequently-encountered problems that beginning arbitrageurs encounter. You can also email Michael with questions.

The Arbitrage Template

Also included is a sample content page that Michael uses for his arbitrage method. I can't just give it away to you, but I will tell you it's similar to (but not exactly like) this page on debt snowball tips. There's a large rectangle ad unit at the top left of the page, under the heading, a vertical link unit at the top right, and an AdSense for search box at the bottom of the page. The sample content is an article about migraine relief with a link back to a migraine information site.

There are two things I don't like about the template. One is the use of a link unit. Because the user has to click three times to make you any money — once on the initial AdWords ad, once on the content page link unit, then finally on an ad — it's that much harder to run a profitable campaign. I'm not saying you can't use link units, obviously Michael thinks they're fine, but it's something you should track and test.

The other thing I don't like is the page heading, whose first line is “Top Migraine Headache Relief Resources” and the second line is today's date, inserted automatically via a bit of JavaScript code. This is immediately followed underneath by the large rectangle ad unit. I've seen this technique described before in the “10 AdSense Secrets” report you may have seen peddled around the net in various forms. It's a bit deceiving, really, and skirts the edge of the AdSense terms and conditions. I know a lot of sites use these kinds of techniques to increase clickthrough rates, just be careful with them.

The point is to make money, of course, by visitors clicking the ads on the page. The layout of the page is important, yes, but the content is even more so. Remember, visitors who click an ad you placed will decide in a split second whether or not to stay on your page or return to the page they just came from. After you develop your own version of the template, focus your energy on the content. The template can be reused from page to page, but the content needs to be optimized for the primary keywords you're targeting and appealing enough to stop a visitor from retreating back to where they came from.

Does It Work?

This is the question you're probably asking right now: does it actually work? Personally, I don't know yet, because I haven't applied the method. The arbitrage scenario we've been discussing lately was based on the vague details in the free report, some of which are significantly different than what's presented in Michael's book. So it wasn't a valid test, at least not to me. I want to run a complete series of test following Michael's exact steps before passing judgement on the business model.

That said, I went looking through the forum for any messages for/against the business model and there are buyers who are making money with Michael's method. It looks like $75-$100 per day in AdSense earnings, half of which are profit, is typical.

Niche selection is key, though, based on my own experiences and what other members are posting. (No, no one is revealing their niches, sorry… that would be silly on their part.) And the method requires work on your part. Even with Keyword Elite, be prepared to devote several hours at the beginning in finding the right niche to start with and developing your keywords and content. And you must continually monitor your campaigns to ensure that things are going smoothly, because even existing profitable campaigns can go south all of a sudden due to various factors totally out of your control.

So do I recommend this package? Yes, with the following caveats. First, you'll need more than just his book — are you prepared to spend more money on Keyword Elite and a good AdWords book? (Note that both are also sold via ClickBank, so they have the same 8-week money-back guarantee as AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging.) Second, you'll need to devote substantial time to learning and applying the model in the first couple of weeks. I think it becomes fairly routine once you've done it a few times, but it'll still involve an investment in time — the keyword research, content production (even if you're just grabbing free articles from EZineArticles) and campaign setup all take time. Third, you'll need to carefully monitor and adjust your campaigns as you go along, so you'll need at least 15 minutes per day just for that. Fourth, you must be prepared to spend real money to buy AdWords ads. Fifth, you must realize that there will be more failures than successes, and so you must be prepared to lose a bit of money as well, though the successful campaigns should more than cover those losses. Sixth, you have to act immediately, because who knows how long this particular model will work — Google's famous for changing the playing field.

If you meet these criteria, I'd say it's not a bad investment, because you have 8 weeks to try it out before deciding to keep the product for good. I will try a second arbitrage experiment using the techniques in this book, although I don't really meet the criteria above — I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, not if I'm going to keep writing books, articles and blog postings… but let's give it a go anyhow. Stay tuned!

Eric Giguere wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. His AdSense blog was a lot of work to write, but also a lot of fun…

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