"Something stinks" I said.

One of our members, I'll call him Bob,  an affiliate marketer, asked me to take a look at his advertising campaign for his Affiliate marketing program.

He'd spent a lot of money on advertising specifically solo ads, he was getting "sign ups" or leads but none were converting.

He'd been at if for some time, watching, waiting for some kind of return. He wasn't a newbie either, he'd been doing online marketing for a few years. Finally in frustration he came to me for help.

I am sharing with you what I found, so you can avoid making the same mistakes and know what to look for when you buy advertising to promote your own affiliate marketing links.

First, I took a look at his Solo Ad copy. It was well written, got to the point, punchy, benefit - rich and enticed the reader to click for a Special Free Offer.

No problems with his Solo Ad copy whatsoever.

Next, I looked at the landing page he was using in his marketing, he had 3 different test versions and was tracking clicks on each. Each landing page (squeeze page) was well written, employed all the essentials of good copy writing, attention getting headlines, call to action, clear benefits, compelling offer, simple sign up / optin form.

Then I reviewed his click rate data for each page.   He had a significant number of clicks with an interesting pattern. When the landing page was promoted in his Solo Ad, the clicks came in within seconds and minutes and hour of the posting, then stopped completely. No clicks at all after about an hour of the ad posting. Let me share some experience with you, as a company we spend thousands of dollars on advertising, and I can tell you that when we post an ad, especially to a list, we get leads for the next few days, even the next week. The responses don't abruptly stop within an hour of the posting. The ad may go out in a few minutes, but the recipients don't check / read their emails at the same time.

Next I turned to his list of leads.  The leads when viewed as a long list was revealing. There was a suspicious pattern. They had very similar entry data, first initial only and a last name. Then some with a Name that was exactly the same as the email address. Some were entered in all capital letters, while others had the same style of abbreviations.  Odd. I've been in the affiliate marketing industry for over 25 years, I can tell you one fact about data entry. Numerous people don't enter data in the very same way, and rarely on a list of 100 leads would you see the exact same or very similar data entry pattern.

Here's the real eye-opener. When I analyzed if any of these "sign ups" had done anything after they entered their name / email to the optin form, I found that NONE of these leads had taken any further action. By action I mean, they didn't login, they didn't take the next step to "GET" what they had opted in to, or signed up for. Strange. If you are like me, when you "Sign up" for something you usually take (or are required) to take further action to verify the optin, or click to access the provided services, or login to collect on what you were offered and signed up for. Even if you are not like me, you would think that at least SOME of the leads / sign ups would "do" something, not one did. Why?

These leads didn't pass the sniff test.

I broke it to Bob. The sign ups were fake, either generated by a robot, or a software auto click program, or spit out by a randomized database of names / addresses/ spoofed IP addresses.  The leads are delivered in large numbers quickly to make the buyer happy. His reason for no conversion? The leads weren't real people, robots and fake names don't buy.

Finally, I asked Bob, where he had placed the Solo Ads. When he told me the source where he had been posting, the gig was up. He had been using a source that our experience and testing shows is a complete waste of money.

Don't be Bob, as an affiliate marketer  for over 25 years we have all the tools, traffic and training to ensure you are successful.

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Author:  Sandi Hunter, President, Co-Founder, Worldprofit Inc.

Rewritten with permission by Anthony Stewart an affiliate marketer.