The Reality of AdSense Arbitrage

In yesterday's review of AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging I mentioned the existence of a private forum. I spent a bit of time in the forum yesterday and managed to convince one of the regulars there to let me interview him about his experiences with AdSense arbitrage, especially the techniques in Michael Plante's book. As it turns out, this person was already a subscriber to my AdSense newsletter, so it didn't take much convincing to get him to talk. To thank him for his time I promised him a link to one of his sites, and not surprisignly he sent me a link to a single-page AdSense site of his, Tell Me About Computers. Without further ado, then, here's the email interview I did with Khaldoun.

Interview

My name is Khaldoun, and I’ve been working with computers all my life.

It started as a hobby and then went into a full time career. That was 24 years ago.

1. Why did you buy AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging in the first place?
What convinced you it was worth trying?

Actually, I came across Michael’s first post in the Keyword Elite forum by mistake and started to follow his posts and did ask him a question or two at the time.

I was even pleased to see my name in Brad Callen’s free report later.

This is when I joined Michael’s news letter and it sounded like a very affordable way to try and make some money on the Internet seeing that I have never before made any money online.

To tell you the truth, the news letter was rather frustrating because there were so many gaps in the information given that some times it did not make sense to me. I’m the type of person that would like to give and receive information in a very clear manner without leaving anything out.

This is why I jumped at the opportunity and bought the book when it first came out. From there on things started to be much clearer.
Even when I had a question for Michael, I used to send him an email and his response was really quick to my questions.
That was of course before the forum went up, which I consider it to be one of the best forums that I frequent.

2. How long have you been practicing the arbitrage methods described in

the book?

I started with the arbitrage method on 17th December 2006. So as you can see, it hasn’t even been a full month yet.
The experience so far has been like a roller coaster sometimes. But I’m enjoying every minute of it.

During this period, I’ve even started implementing some new ideas of my own and even started to experiment with a new template which you can say that it adds a little twist on Michael’s original template.

3. How successful have you been with AdSense arbitrage?

I can say in all honesty that the first 2 weeks were very gratifying, money wise, for me.
Of course during the Christmas and New Year period, things did slow down quite a bit, but that did not slow me down.
I kept researching new keywords and preparing new campaigns.

At the moment I’m running 6 campaigns. Of those, One has 10 Adgroups, another has 11 Adgroups and one with only 2 Adgroups.

I am noticing quite a surge on one of my campaigns, in terms of the amount of money earned that is.

The other campaigns are not doing as well, but they are slowly picking up.

Please bear in mind that this one campaign that is doing very well is by no means my first one.

It was completed about a week ago.

So really the main thing here is always researching for keywords and trying. And above all, always keep your eye on your AdWords and AdSense accounts.

Some campaigns will flop and others will do nicely.

One more thing to remember, this is not a get rich quick method. If anyone is looking for a get rich quick scheme, then this is the wrong business model.

4. How much time do you spend per day doing it? Per week?

You have to appreciate the fact that I can now afford to give this business model as much time as I want seeing that I lost my job back in October 2006 due to “company restructuring”.

Having said that, it used to take me quite a long time at the beginning to setup every campaign. You can call this the learning curve.

Also, there were, and still is, some things that I’m learning about Google’s Content Network.

So, when I say that sometimes I’m awake till 2 or 4 in the morning, this can not really apply to every one.

I find the late hours and very early hours of the morning to be the most productive for me personally.

But, if you want me to be very specific about the number of daily hours that I spend working on this, I would say between 6 to 9 hours.

5. Do you have any warnings or recommendations for people looking to try

their hands at AdSense arbitrage?

The main thing here is NOT to expect to make tons of money over night.

You have to like doing this and be creative.

There are the basic steps and guidelines that are explained in the book, but that does not mean that you have to follow everything blindly.

The campaign that I talked about earlier that is doing very well was based on a slight twist to Michael’s template.

To start with, I was not even sure that it will work, but I tried it for myself and things started going through the roof.

So, my point is not to be afraid to experiment. Follow want is mentioned in the book to start with, then try some other things on your own while keeping the basics intact.

One last thing that I would like to say here. My wife one day asked me “Why do you spend so many hours on this thing?”

My answer was “I love it”.

6. What kind of ROI (return on investment) are you getting? In others

words, how much money are you making in relation to your AdWords

spending? (You don't have to give exact numbers, a ratio/percentage is

fine…)

As for ROI, I’ve been lucky so far to have a ratio of at lease 2:1 (Earning:Cost).

Sometimes even as high as 3:1

I’ve noticed that there are times when the earnings will start to slide downwards.

It actually happened this past weekend. For some reason, things just went extremely quiet. I was not loosing money, but things were not to my liking.

Come Monday morning, things shot up like a rocket.

When things start to slide, this is when I start keeping an even closer eye on my AdWords and AdSense accounts.

If the downward trend does not reverse within a couple of days, then I immediately start looking at reducing my maximum CPC.

This will help minimize your cost and increase your profit margin.

I usually start to intervene once my Earning:Cost ratio approaches 1.5:1

I never ever let it slide any lower without adjusting my CPC.

7. It sounds like you really enjoy the research aspect. What are your

favorite ways of finding new niches to explore with KE? Do you use any

other tools or services to help you in your niche exploration?

I have 3 favorite ways when it comes to finding new niches.

1. TV commercials: My wife says I am a TV commercial junky. These commercials do not register with her. As for me, they tend to stick in my brain.

   I even notice that sometimes I’m singing a particular commercial jingle, or repeating the words of another.

   Some of my niches actually came from TV commercials.
   

2. My wife: Yes you heard me right. I tend to listen and exchange ideas with her. And nearly every time she throws an idea at me, I just go with it and see where it leads me.
   
3. Myself: Oh yes, I tend to use my brain every now and again.

   No seriously, I never ever sit down and force myself to think of new niches.

   Many niche ideas just tend to throw themselves at you when you are working on something totally irrelevant.
   

At the moment I’ve got about 6 different niches that need to be prepared as far as keywords lists and articles are concerned.

My advice, if an idea comes to you, write it down right away. It might evaporate within a few seconds if you are busy with something else.

As for my favorite software to find keywords, I concentrate on mainly two of them: Keyword Elite and Ad Word Analyzer.

8. Any tips for writing AdWords ads that work well for arbitrage? Did

you end up buying a book like AdWords Miracle or have you just

experimented on your own to find what works for you?

Someone once said, “Why re-invent the wheel?”.

This is engrained in my brain. When I decide on a niche, I go and do a search on the Internet and see what other people are writing about it.

Look at the ads. Read some articles about the subject.

You will be amazed at the amount of ideas, even specific words that you will come across that can be modified slightly or even used as is.

At one time, I used some of the words that I have in the article for my web page.

Some people advocate the “Shock them” method. In other words try and shock those who read your ad.

I have found that this does not work all the time.

The most important thing here is never ever second guess yourself.

Once you have an ad ready, do not start questioning whether it is good enough. Just go with your gut feeling.

Basically, nothing is etched is stone when it comes to writing an ad.

Further Thoughts

First, let me thank Khaldoun publicly for such a great interview.

Second, I want to point out how hard Khaldoun is working. He's a success story, but it's not that there's no work involved. The thing he's got going for him, besides the books and tools he uses, is a real passion for the arbitrage business. Finding niches to exploit with these methods is like finding a needle in a haystack. If you're not the kind of person that likes to search for those needles, you should probably move on to something else.

Coming shortly will be a series of postings exploring the techniques described in AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging.

Sponsored Link: Today (January 10) at noon ET, Joel Comm is launching a new monthly AdSense templates product. If this kind of thing interests you and you have the time and the will to build sites on a regular basis using the materials in the package, here's a special offer for you: buy it through my affiliate link and I'll throw in a free copy of Uncommon AdSense.

Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense and
Make Easy Money with Google. His award-nominated AdSense blog is a lot of work to write, but also a lot of fun…

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