Keyword bidding: How to succeed with Prosperent in 8 Steps

In a recent post titled "Amazon hates their affiliates," I made the case that Amazon was and is doing everything within its authority to bypass paying their affiliates in order that customers visit the Amazon parent site directly. In summary of that article, Amazon affiliates were engaging in the practice of keyword bidding in order to send traffic directly from the search engine result page to Amazon's site. The affiliate would attach their Amazon ID to the referral link and would earn a commission from the sale. This strategy was brilliant because the Amazon affiliate links would appear only in relation to the relevancy of the search engine query and result. Therefore, a customer was more likely to investigate Amazon's products after a search engine query about a particular "product review" for example.

This practice was so popular and profitable for affiliates that Amazon put the brakes on it. This profit saving measure was good for Amazon's bottom line and it was bad for the affiliates, upon whom Amazon owes its house hold name recognition after years of their online marketing efforts in exchange for commissions. But in this particular blog post, I am not debating the merits of Amazon's practice; rather, my goal is to illuminate this practice for its obvious and profitable applicability to the Prosperent Affiliate Program.

1. After you are a member of Prosperent, you'll need to create your first Performance Ad in the Prosperent dashboard. A performance ad is a piece of javascript code that can be placed on a website, such as a free blog from Blogger. If you have questions on how to create a performance ad (once called TCPA Ads), consult the following video:
   
   
2. Now that you have created your first javascript piece of code, it is time to integrate that with your website. If you're using blogger, here is a useful video that shows how to create a new section on your blog that will contain the code:
   
3. At this point in time, it is assumed that you (a.) have a website, and can (b.) add the Prosperent javascript to your website. Also assumed at this point is that you are able to SEE your Prosperent Ads. If you cannot, please re-read the previous steps and figure out what went wrong. It is also possible that you have an ad-blocker that disables javascript from showing up in the first place. You might need to disable that, or at least allow your domain to pass through the ad-filter in order to complete the next steps.
4. Now comes the fun part. You're going to decide which products you want to market through search engine keyword bidding. A popular item (in August 2011) is Halloween costumes. Actually, as Halloween approaches, the sale of Halloween costumes will increase. So, create a post in your blogger account relating to Halloween costumes.
5. You should now be able to see Prosperent Ads that feature Halloween costumes.
6. Hover your mouse over the link to the Halloween costume, and copy the URL of the ad to your clipboard. If you're using the Firefox browser, hover your mouse over the product of interest, and right click your mouse and "Copy Link Location" . This link location will be where you will be directing traffic from your search engine ad creation page.
7. If you need help creating ads on Google or on Bing, it is recommended that you see YouTube videos. Watch tutorial videos until you feel comfortable creating an ad campaign on Google or Bing!
8. Target keywords that are specific and relevant to the product you identified on Prosperent. Also, be sure to link to the product URL that was copied to your clipboard, i.e., the specific link found earlier.

It should be mentioned that bidding on keywords means that there is an out of pocket cost involved; however, you, the bidder, have the power to set your daily spending limit on your chosen keywords.

Enjoy your membership with Prosperent.