I have zero interest in running the mainstream CPA offers so this could be interesting.
Update: I'm in photoshop designing really basic pages for the funnel. I'll have my lander designer give everything the magic touch later. As in my list above I'll use InVisionApp to preview the funnel before coding.
Great, can't wait to see your results 
I am particularly interested in what kind of creatives you'll be using... In my very limited CPM experience getting a high CTR has been the biggest challenge and I can't imagine how you will be able to get a profitable CTR with ads about blogging, so please do keep posting here.. I will be launching some new media buy campaigns soon as well with other lesser "attention-grabbing" niches so can def use all the ideas I can get!
Well, I won't be able to buy traffic on the same properties the CPA guys are buying - those are remnant inventory on general demo sites usually, so it makes sense that they only do well with super high conversion too-good-to-be-true stuff because the people viewing the ads are generally unmotivated to do any specific thing. (my opinion)
I've noticed ads on buysellads inventory are usually very nice graphically, and kinda all blend in. I'll try the nasty banners and nice banners too, while using the "impossible situation" theory to get high CTR.
My goal overall here is to make money, but I want to test various offers that are webmaster/blogging/online marketing/SEO related. I want to develop various services and build a long term B2B company out of it. I'd prefer it to be mostly apps rather than manual labor by odesk employees.
One thing I'll probably need your help with here is staying focused on 1 effort at a time and making something work even if it takes a while and I think of supposedly better offers to sell.
Gotcha. Sounds like a good plan, actually very similar to what I used to do with my various web app/social app businesses, though I got my traffic from search engines rather than ads.
I'm loving not dealing with clients now though !!! 
I will stay tuned here! 
Fuckin' awesome man. It seems unrealistic for newbs like me but good luck! I'll def stay tuned.
Just curious. Have you ever come anywhere close to generating that type of profit with anything else before?
I think I saw another post of your's on another thread.
You're pushing your own offer correct? Something you developed?
Should make profitability more likely. My only concern is your target market. Obviously they are much more savvy than most when it comes to everything online.
Good luck.
Yeah, but the target market for that offer you saw is different. In this thread, my target market is noob bloggers basically, and I'm trying to generate leads from media buys, by giving them awesome value in the form of a great bundle of stuff to get them started right, and in the process want to sell them other stuff like hosting, SEO/link blasts, etc.
What i'm most worried about is that all the media buy inventory will be taken up by guys pushing bizopps which obviously will convert better since it applies to a more general audience. We'll see though. I may be able to get a small stream of income going from this but not scale much.
I ended up spending around $1k to make about $100-$200. I do have a few campaigns that are doing very well there now, but it took a lot of creativity to make them work, and it's a vertical where I can use ads that will get a very high CTR. CTR is obviously what drives media buys, if you can't get a CTR above 1.0% I can't imagine how you will make money there unless your LP is absolutely killer and gets a insane CR.

Wow, thanks for the advice. You saved me a lot of time. I agree - when I looked through sitescout recently I couldn't find any sites with demos/content that would work for what I'm trying to do. I'll probably test on BuySellAds as they have a lot of blogs like webdesignledger.com for example, where I can buy banners. I just don't like those tiny 125x125s... Definitely 300x250 is what I'm looking for, for the most part. Most sites offer them.
Regarding your FB suggestion - that's something I wanted to do but wasn't sure how. I'm imagining like this:
1. User clicks ad
2. My lander contains actual fb like button, standard code.
3. Question: How do I redirect the user to a page to input their email address and get the free content?
I tried some PPV with those types of sites and after minimal testing didn't back out - I think the demo isn't into technical things but it could have been my lander. I'll test more.
Yeah I've always had the best luck with 300x250 too... 125x125 is definitely tiny!
About the FB suggestion, here is the code you need to redirect the user after clicking Like:
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js"></script>
<script>
FB.init({
appId : 'YOUR APP ID',
status : true, // check login status
cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session
xfbml : true // parse XFBML
});
FB.Event.subscribe('edge.create', function(response) {
// do something with response, like redirect
if(response){
window.location = 'http://yoururl.com';
}
});
</script>
Ianz,
Most of the buying inventory is taken up by brands (on network buys) RTB wise, yes it's harder for a niche product to compete with mainstream biz opps, what I'd suggest is using adbeat (or whatrunswhere *cough promotion cough*) to scope out some sites your competitors are on, go direct with those sites and lock in your inventory for a test, you can start small there and just direct site buy on a few different ones while optimizing your creatives/landing page. Don't start general, start super niche, get it working on a small scale and work on scaling it out to other related microniches that make sense from there..
Big Tip:
You can buy placements on Warrior Forum and Digital Point. Huge inventory and pretty much spot on for your target market.
Might try direct placements on sites like problogger.net and copyblogger. Maybe even johnchow.com / shoemoney if your offerings don't step on eachothers toes too much.
If there is one thing that CPA marketing has taught me, it's to look at the demo behind the demo. It freaking blows my mind on this niche though, I did a little research and every blogging site I looked at had incredibly flat index values. This is obviously a good thing as it means your best converting demographic may be extremely broad.
Are you planning on offering a free bundle of blogging goodies in exchange for an immediate lead generation, or is your plan to sell the bundle itself?
@duballa - hey mate, I thought I had replied here but I don't see it. Thanks for the fb info - I found OptinApp and will be using that in some testing. Thanks for writing the code out though.
@mattaw - I confirm this too - I won't have a chance of being in the black if i try to run on anything high-traffic/network, as i'll be competing with brands and rebills/socials. I need to go very niche. The suggestion below about warriorforum was a great one as those people are easy customers. I'll do my best to provide something of value for them and hopefully profit.
@hd2010- yeah mostly, what frustrates me most is I've not managed to turn it up to 10k/day by now. Hit $2669 June 30th, but next day was $740.. So it's an average thing... I got my ass handed to me for my money pages of my authority sites in Google on June 16th so will be seeing probably 500-1k instead for a while. I REALLY need to stop depending on G. You guys are already helping me get on my way to accomplishing that goal.
@deondup - spot on, i hadn't thought of that and i REALLY need to test those.
@pathenon - thanks for your suggestions of placements. I am going to offer a free bundle of blogging goodies exchange for them buying hosting through an affiliate. I'm not sure how to explain that to them though. Maybe I should just get them to connect with facebook using optin-app and then redirect them to a download page which also recommends hosting... Sounds like it won't convert at all though... Any better ideas?
Bundle:
1. Blog SEO plugin pack/setup/config
2. 2-3 wordpress themes
3. 30 minute consultation with me?
4. Recommended developer/provider rolodex (PDF or online)
5. Free download of my seminar from 2010 (tactics that still make me 2k+ in a day)?
6. My simple conversion tracking software (self-hosted... i want to turn this into an SAAS soon.)
7. Beta invitation for a free lifetime account on my upcoming SEO SAAS.
FREE use case example:
1. User clicks ad
2. Landing page shows benefits with a button saying connect with facebook for instant access
3. Next page thanks them and displays a "one-time-offer" type sales letter (not really long though), to get them to buy hosting for their blog? Sounds like a low conversion idea... need to think of better process.
4. at the bottom of that there's a link that says no thanks, take me to my download.
PAID use case example:
1. User clicks ad
2. Landing page pushes benefits and $1.99 price. First step facebook connect? Next: Payment and instant access
3. Next page reinforces benefits and is typical checkout page with order form etc...
4. After payment, user sees one time offer recommending hosting and a coupon code to save. Scroll down to bottom and it's a link to proceed to download, or a button to get hosting.
5. Email marketing will commence.
To target the people who don't have hosting yet... I will call the bundle something like "Blog Startup Success Bundle" etc.. Any ideas appreciated.
Placements I will test:
warrior forum
digital point
problogger.net
copyblogger
johnchow
shoemoney
Please critique my plan
Make sure you pay attention to the licensing on the items you plan on bundling do you don't get your ass handed to you in court. Workaround for this is to use at as lead-bait and offer it for free if they are GPL and allow distribution.
Capture the lead first and foremost, it doesn't matter if you do it through FB connect or a squeeze page, but get the lead first. Obviously you will need more metrics before you can be sure, but I honestly believe if you're monetization is correct that you'll be able to get an average lifetime value of more than $1.99 per lead so you'd be cutting your legs off if you didn't get the lead first.
As much as I hate to say this, you might want to use a separate email address and opt-in to John Chow's auto responder to see how he monetizes his leads because it is a very similar concept and his target market is people wanting to start blogs and make money from them. From talking with him I know a huge portion of his passive income is based on him coaxing people into HostGator hosting with his own coupon codes (JOHNCHOW15 or whatever) and the same with aweber and other services. He also mentioned the average LTV per lead and it was very high, something like $8-$10 IIRC.
What type of average LTV were you planning for based off backend offers?
My approach would be to reduce the value of the initial offering and make it free in return for their email address (build huge list quickly), then immediately after they opt-in, redirect to a page with your coupon code and hosting offer.
First letter in autoresponder chain would be a "Getting started" type of letter that will explain all the things that came in the bundle and upsell that includes the 30-minute consultation, seminar download, and beta invitation, etc.
Alternatively you could redirect after optin to a page asking if they have hosting. If Yes >> Straight to Upsell Page, if No >> Hosting Offer >> Upsell.
Hell you could probably even offer the hosting discount as part of the upsell.
Unlimited options here, only testing will tell.
UPDATE:
I looked through the past month of domain names purchased by my visitors and almost everything is a business. Almost all brochure sites or if it's a blog, it's a record label for example.
So, I think it'd be best to retune my campaign to focus on businesses. I should also refocus my marketing on my sites to businesses instead of saying it's "good for bloggers and businesses."
I think I can boost my conversion rate on my current sites, PLUS give my media buy a fighting chance by focusing this way.
@parthenon - wow. This is some great info.
I'm hoping for at least a $5 avg LTV, based on this from SiteScout's calculator:
Campaign Duration: 30 days
Daily impressions: 10,000
Average CPM: $5
Average CTR: 0.2% (is that probably wayyyyy to optimistic?)
Average LP CTR: 30% (again, optimistic? even for a facebook connect?)
Average conversion rate: 4%
Offer payout: $190
LP Clicks (click on facebook connect): 240
Estimated facebook "allows" converting them to leads: 180
Conversions on upsell page: 9
Revenue from just hosting upsell: $1710 per month
Spend: $1500 per month
Profit: $210 per month
So, it's up to selling more through the backend to make this worth my time, it seems.
If any of my numbers were FAR off what you'd expect, let me know. I'm new to media buys for sure. Also if my calculations don't make sense, or I should calc another way or other data, please point it out.
I'm wireframing now and will post the share links here when finished.
Here's the first version of the wireframe experience on invisionapp.
http://invis.io/U39YKKA
Please critique.
Looks good!
The front end margin is fairly thin but the fact that you're capturing the lead first will make all the difference.
I know that you just through that together as a visualization but based on what I'm seeing I have the following advice, I hope it doesn't offend.
You need to give people a reason upfront to download the pack even if they don't already have hosting. Nobody who doesn't even have hosting knows wtf Akismet or W3 Total Cache is. Obviously this depends entirely on what your target is. Assuming you want to sell hosting to try to be profitable ASAP, you're going to want to make sure that you're hitting the right people. I'm finding it hard to explain what I mean so here is an example.
You're interested in maybe running a website or blog to make some money online but you're a complete noob. You're faced with the following two offers. Which sounds better?

These are people who have no clue what the plugins are or what they do, so don't tell them WHAT they are getting, tell them WHY they need it.
Thank you Parthenon! This is really an eye-opener about how I've been failing to cater to my target demo's mindset. I'm adjusting the lander now!!
How's the update? http://invis.io/U39YKKA
Looks basically like the better lander on the right. Do you think I should remove the descriptions of the items?
Visualwebsiteoptimizer.com ... just saying... USE IT...
Ok I updated - please check out the lander now and rip it apart. I think I'm close to going live.
http://invis.io/EJA27AT
I also attached two versions of the first lander - Checkboxes and no checkboxes.
hmm I guess it's great then, :P
Any suggestions for social proof pics?
Looks good so far. What I dislike is that ther is NO CTA above the fold. I shortly shopped something together maybe worth a split test, who knows.

Looks great, especially with the addition ppvnewbie made.
Wordwrap that top call to action so it flows a little better and give it a shot IMO.
I really like that you stay at a personal level and introduce yourself on all the stuff you do, great touch.
The more I look at the lander the more I think you should keep it simple. Why have the person to choose from the options he would download? Why not give him straight out everything? If you go that route I would redesign the lander complete and add a video (video squeeze page) and split test that one as well. People probably aren't familiar with that graphical checkboxes and a lot might not even know that they can click on them so basic (system) checkboxes would be do better?
I didn't realize that was the idea there.
I would test it but I don't think making them check more than once (YES I want ALL THIS) would be particularly beneficial.
Audio/video like ppvnewbie said goes a long way too depending on if it's compliant for your traffic source.
BUT imo...
You don't want to spend a week setting up stuff that at the end of the day is still not going to convert, so see if it sticks before you start adding all kinds of crazy shit and breaking out the video equipment and such.
Thanks Parthenon. It means a lot because sometimes I feel like I must be doing it wrong if I'm trying to be real at all, since almost nobody is.
I have been busting my ass for a week straight trying to get this path designed out right. I hate to spend so long on something but I've tried the lazy route and I don't have enough experience to break even if I build a funnel without thinking about it much.
I'm getting very tired and 4th of july sales have me kinda feeling down. Tired of being stuck around $1k/day for real. I hope I can make a difference in someone's life and at least do another $1k/day from this.
I got very passionate about working from home stuff and it all came out in some copy. So, I'm trying another angle that is more general. I'll still test what you've seen so far on blogging-related traffic, but I'm also going to test general bizopp. I ended up being really creative in many ways on the lander, plus I took advantage of Lorenzo's tip about adding a facebook profile badge on flogs. Mine isn't a flog though, just a blog.
So we'll see..
I'm kinda at a loss for what offers to put on the frontend wall though... I mean... how can I tell these people to go fill out forms applying for "jobs" that cost them $200 and it's just instructions on how to sell stuff on ebay, etc.. I dunno... Traffic is so expensive I know I'll need to do all i can to break even, so I thought maybe I could say "visitor-submitted work at home jobs"..
Whew... gotta get the landers coded and start writing emails. AND my freaking Quick Start Guide.. I don't have any of the stuff I'm offering them put together yet. Man, it's such a pain doing this shit for real - be so much easier to sell something when I actually HAVE something to sell. #webappftw
@PPVNewbie: I agree, all should be split tested of course but making them check stuff I'm already giving them probably won't help. Ace tip on system checkboxes too. They won't know graphical checkboxes. I should really try to make things look more like their iphone or something.. familiar UX = higher conversion. It's all good with everything does what users expect it to do.
@Parthenon again: Tell me about it... I was about to break out the camera and then I realized I was putting way too much into it before I've even tested at all.
Ok my 2 cents on this.....
test basic stuff before you goto all that work....
setup a FB app.....capture email, name on accept
inside the app have whatver you want a....a free video.....reports...etc.....you set the tone.....make them want to learn more....
after you get there info via the app accept you have a email sequence setup......
apps convert really well on FB traffic for obvious reasons.....I have had apps convert at over 30% on app accept.....so you capture the partial right of the bat.......you could prob spend 1k and get a small but solid list this way and see how things back out.....if it looks promising then expand and test other stuff......
with the added bonus if you use fb's targeting correctly you can prob define your demo.....then take that to a display network.....and work that demo.....
#2 added bonus just thought of.....after the app accept (or even before) set a retargeting cookie....from your favorite media network.....
I'm totally new to using fb apps for leadgen.
I'm thinking a survey app? Right now that would be extra work to set up it seems, as I already have a lander and frontend offer wall ready. I just need to write my email followup sequence/quick start guide.
When they click on my ad do they have to hit accept to see my app and use it? I'm not sure how that all works. It can probably work a lot of ways and I don't want to do the way that will kill my conversions.
Can you outline it for me and others who are reading?
Ace tip on retargeting after app accept.
Really running into a wall here with iContact saying "your email address is not formatted properly."
I hate icontact.
Waiting for support to fix the issue. It was working fine a couple days ago.
Also, i'm really running into an issue of feeling like this is going to fail because i'm going after stupid people who will waste my time and bitch. I am going to continue working on it and test at least. But I just can't wait till i figure something out that I can sell to much higher quality customers.
welcome to stm
Here's what's left in my pre-test checklist:
1. Design another offer wall page with more proof images. Current one has almost nothing. Split test.
2. Set up tracking.
3. Launch campaign on 1 placement to start with and then test others.
What tracking setup should I use if i'm on a self-serve platform and don't need an adserver? Just 202?
If you don't mind spending a little... CPVLab all the way. Use it for everything. I don't even think I'll ever use 202 again after this. There are some functions from 202 I miss, like spy view and such... plus it's not as pretty, but the tracking accuracy and metrics viewing are much better IMO. Way too easy to set up LP's.

Protip: Go to discounts section of the forum and grab one of the stacks coupons 
Yeah. I've just started using CPVLab only yesterday and it's 'bye-bye prosper/tracking 202' for me too. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better.
Previously I used posper together with my own app, which showed me, superimposed on a Google map, where the clicks/conversions were coming from and what was the user's local time when they clicked/converted. This revealed 'pockets of interest' allowing me to reduce my spend with more targeted purchasing. Speaking to CPVLab about this they will add something similar soon. Woot!
Good luck with this campaign. Looking good ...
Thats funny since I already have CPVLab
Great I can use it for this
Hey ianz-
I'm really impressed with you balls out methods on this. I have been quietly reading and watching the forum.
I wanted to ask you a question... from what I understand you are going to create a $200 buyer with your PKG is that right?
Your looking to make money of the "backed" with a few offers once you have the list ready.
So I can get you $75-$100 more per buyer if that's what you are doing. I'm not sure the full extent of how you are looking to monetize the back end BUT this is what I do. I may have read the thread wrong BUT you buyers if that is the case will be VERY valuable if done clean & right.
@FatGiraffe: PM me details of what you want to put in my path or do with my data - I'm interested.
Ok so Reddit rejected my ads saying they don't allow anything remotely related to bizopp. Funny.. My offer doesn't even involve a credit card. If you guys can suggest other traffic sources to test I'd appreciate that. I honestly get rejected everywhere I've ever tried to run anything remotely related to bizopp thanks to the scam offers ruining it for everyone.
As my real way to move forward, I think I should take another angle for this and focus more on the higher quality customers in the process. I'll target businesses only. So I'm going to try a "Business Accelerator Kit" or something to that effect.
http://ian-mason.com/HomeIncomeKit that's the current version and I was starting to work on one to split test but fuck I can't get any traffic so what's the point.
Any suggestions? I felt like I was almost 'there'.... This is what always happens with me when I try to do an offer. I build it out, then I can't get traffic and I quit because it wasn't congruent with me anyway and every day the offer would be running, I'd be scared FTC was gonna lump me in with scammers.
Man, i don't know what to do right now. I'm really pissed. I just want to do something on paid traffic involving helping people set up websites and make money from them... That's something I really can do for them...
Fuck man... I've been trying to get something running since Dec 2009.... I keep ending up right here again and again.

Some ideas...
- You have to carve out a small "niche" within this space. Make money online is a too broad a focus. Find a specific audience to market to.
- Be 200% authentic. Are you a stay at home mom? Sell yourself. Look at what the gurus are doing (but don't do what they are doing). They sell themselves and not so much the products - check Frank Kern.
You might be struggling for traffic because of the above. Once you know that you will start seeing much more opportunity for traffic. JV's are gold in this space. Think of what you can offer to guys with BIG lists and approach them. IMO you'll be far more successful with that approach than to buy cold traffic.
Trust is the biggest barrier when selling those products which is why email works so well.
Thank you for your help.
Unfortunately because of the amount of work I'll have to put into this just to be satisfied that I don't feel like I'm scamming people, I must attend to growing other current business. It really is so much more work to try to teach people than it is to make software they need, for example. I'll stick to my guns and things that are already 99% there for now.
I learned a lot though.
Hi Mattaw
Thank you for the post. I am totally confused about split testing.
There is optimize press and premise ( Word press)
-google optimizer and visual website optimzer
- instapage and unibounce to create and test landers
- also jquery etc… so which one would you use and how could you test many variations of a landing page with minimum cost … any advice will be greatly appreciated
By the way guys, I stopped this - was not willing to subject myself to the stress of running a bizop type path/offer. If I'm not willing to play dirty, there's no way I can make money. So I've moved on to other projects and thankfully that was a good decision
@bhaskar - I know you're talking to Matt, but I would advise testing with VisualWebsiteOptimizer since you're new to testing.
Thanks Ianz63...i bought optimize press for word press....unbounce ,instapage and could not figure out... have you got any experience in those... as you said i will try visualwebsiteoptimizer... but the upfront costs are so high with all these ... please help
There are a lot of tutorials for these online, many from the companies themselves. I'm not sure what instapage is though. What's your plan for them? I'd invest in creating a product and generating some sales first before trying to do the "go big or go home" thing.
Sorry I can't be of more help but I stopped this project due to not wanting to run anything bizop.
Good luck and may your revenue and happiness be double compared to last year 