Ok, now I’m getting serious. I’ve kind of dabbled with the tool to try to find a profitable product. Now I’m going to follow Chris Carpenter’s instructions to the letter.

• Long List of Possible Products
  First make a list of 10 – 20 products that have a gravity of 100+ (Clickbank’s rating) and a Profitability Index of 2,000+ (Google Cash Detective rating).
  
  This took me a couple of hours and was very tedious. I ended up with a list of about 20 possible Clickbank products that all had a gravity rating > 100.
  
  Then I started using the Google Cash Detective to find existing campaigns that had a high profitability index.
  
  This proved harder than I thought. The first thing I discovered (not through the tool; I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it) is that starting April 9 of this year, Clickbank is no longer going to carry vendors that have downloadable products they consider to be in violation of copyright laws (P2P products).
  
  Well, that just knocks out a bunch of stuff on my list. I had downloadable movies, music, and wii games.
  
  Then when I started trying to find existing campaigns using the tool, I only found a few that had a high profitability index.
  
  Oh, wait a section. Actually I’m supposed to start with 10 – 20 products that have a high PI and a high gravity rating. And after hours of research, I only have four.
  
  This is much harder than it looks.
  
  I can also see from the Cash Detective’s spying that there are other people that have bought the Detective who are already setting up campaigns for my products.
  
  So I skipped the next step of evaluating the landing page. I figure if it has a high profitability index, it means people are making money with it. And therefore it must have a good converting landing page.
  
  So I set up an Adwords campaign for one of these products, using just four keywords. I could see by the GCD that those keywords are profitable for someone else. I can also see the text of his ad, so I cloned it.
  
  Now, logically, I should be able to make some money with this if someone else is. After all, it looked so easy when Chris did the same thing on his training video, right?
  
  So here are my stats. I let it run overnight. Now it is 3:01 pm. According to Google Adwords, I have had:
  impressions: 13,509
  clicks: 47 (whoo hoo!)
  cost: $31.47
  ctr: .35%
  
  Ok, it’s a start!
  
  Eagerly logging into my Clickbank account, I could see:
  Sales: 0
  
  Oh, c’mon! Not a single sale???
  
  But, but, but…that OTHER guy is making money! Same ad text, same keyword.
  
  What gives? This is obviously harder than it looks. Not sure what to try next.

  Posted by susb8383 under Google Cash Detective | No Comments »

I was gone all day doing an errand of mercy (transporting some cute pet rats for a rat rescue group so that they could be neutered in a different state, cheaply, and hopefully adopted).

When I tried to find out more data on the person I was emulating, I couldn’t do a single search in the Google Cash Detective tool. Any search I tried to do kicked me out! I was back to the login page.

The thing that makes me really nervous about this tool is there is absolutely no customer support. There’s no support phone number OR email. If you open a support ticket (which I did), it just sits there with no reply.

And now the forum is closed too. The message says that they discovered a logic flaw with the forum that affected the performance of their main tool, so they’re working to fix it. It also says they’re looking for a forum moderator.

Hmm…this product has been in beta test for how long?? I’ll tell you: since last year!! And you went live with a forum without having someone to be the moderator?

These problems should NOT be happening to someone who shelled out $2,000 and is in the 30-day trial period.

But my criteria still holds true: If I can use the tool to make at least 166.44 per month, I’ll keep it.

But so far it does not look promising.

I also noticed my credit card was charged 547.00 instead of 499.25 (the total price of 1997.00/4 installments).

Posted by susb8383 under Google Cash Detective | No Comments »

Well the product I tried yesterday was a flop. So it’s back to the drawing board.

I browsed through the Clickbank marketplace again. This time I found a sports-related webpage that guarantees to increase your vertical jump.

It was a very compelling web page. It has a video of a 5′5″ guy dunking and attributing it to this product. And the author has taught professional dunkers and Olympic athletes.

Hey, I don’t shoot hoops but I was ready to buy it! And it has a lot of content so I don’t think I’ll have the same problem I had with the product I was promoting yesterday (Google told me the landing page wasn’t relavant enough to my keywords/ads).

So I set up a campaign with lots of good keywords. Within a few minutes I had impressions and clicks. A few hours later I eagerly logged into Clickbank.

You know how many sales I had?

zero.

Well, come to think of it, Clickbank’s gravity rating on this product was only in the 30s. And again I didn’t exactly use the Google Cash Detective tool. I just went with a landing page that appealed to me.

Ok, after 2 failed attempts at finding profitable products, I’m going to use the tool. I did after all spend $1997.00 for it (well, not yet. I signed up for the installment plan).

So using the tool, I found a different product for exactly the same niche. I spyed on an affiliate who had a good profitability index (that’s the Cash Detective’s rating system) so I know he’s making money at it.

The best thing is that I can use the same keywords from yesterday’s product and just change the urls.

So I made the changes and waited. Then checked my Clickbank account.

Sales? 1!! Yippee! My first sale!

But I got $16 in commissions and I spent $25.00 on Adwords to get it.

Ok, that’s not going to let me quit my job!

Then I remembered something Chris Carpenter said in his training video. He never goes after any product that pays less than $25 in commissions for a sale.

Ok, maybe there’s something to that.

Posted by susb8383 under Google Cash Detective | No Comments »