“Automated Cash Machine” Can Be Built
Read this first : I’m NOT selling anything here. This post simply describes an amazing idea I had today.
Many authors have tried to sell an “automated profit-generating system” of some kind. Actually I’m sure there’s at least one e-book out there with that exact title. Needless to say none of these “systems” are actually completely automated and you’d be lucky to get something more than another rehashed “affiliate marketing for dummies” fluff-piece.
What most don’t realize is that with the recent technological advances and multiple internet marketing related tools appearing recently, we are now closer than ever before to a truly automated moneymaking system. Many typical tasks the affiliate marketer faces have already been automated to some extent - keyword research, conversion tracking, content creation, etc - and if those techniques were combined appropriately we might finally have the proverbial “cash machine” on our hands.
Below I’ve described a general outline of my vision of this ultimate system. It would be a highly complex piece of software consisting of multiple modules (each of which already has existing implementations) -
- Product Selection Module
This component would select “interesting” products worth promoting, like highly ranked products at ClickBank or products currently becoming more popular (determined by rankings changing over time).
Examples : CBTool, CBEngine and many others. - Keyword Extraction Module
This script would visit each product’s website and extract product-related keywords from it.
Examples : Google and most other search engines. - Keyword Research Module
Once the product keywords were found, they would be passed to a keyword research software that would find more related keywords. This can be done by accessing online keyword tools (like Google’s) or using natural language processing techniques (a subdiscipline of AI research rarely utilised for this task).
Examples : KeywordElite and many others. - Ad Spy Module
The extended keyword list would be fed to a “PPC spy” script. This script would track the ads appearing on search engine(s) for these keywords and determine- Profitable keywords.
- Profitable ad copy.
- Profitable products - this one is a bit tricky. You could either take the product already being promoted (could cause URL collisions and other trouble) or select a similar product from the list generated in the first step. Product similarity could be determined by them both having similar keywords (or more advanced techniques).
Examples : GC Detective, AdSpyPro (note : these don’t implement the product selection)
- Ad Rewriter Module
This doesn’t have to be a complex one - just replacing a word or two with synonyms and changing the URL/Title might be enough. You could also throw in some form of split-testing. This module would create modified ads for the keyword/ad/product combination selected by the previous module.
Examples : Content rewriting software. I can’t give any specific examples as I haven’t used it, but I know it exists. - PPC Interface Module
This component would set up the ads on the PPC engine of choice, e.g. AdWords. It would also extract various data like cost per click, average ad position and so on.
Examples : Various AdWords wizards and management software. - Keyword/Conversion Tracking Module
This one would track all clicks on the keyword level and find out which keyword/ad combinations convert to sales and which don’t. It would discard the non-performing ads and leave/improve the good ones (small automatic tess and improvements are possible with the help of Ad Rewrite Module discussed above).Affiliates usually can’t use Google’s conversion tracking effectively because they have no control over the vendor’s “thank you” page that is displayed on a successful purchase. So an alternative tracking mechanism is necessary - and many do exist.
Examples : X-Ray Domination, CBTool Keyword Tracking (free), Xtreme Conversions and many more. While the existing tools don’t automatically determine which keywords are profitable (just conversion rate & income/click) that feature could easily be added because this hypothetical system already includes a PPC Interface module making it possible to get the costs/click. This means it could calculate profits/click (or losses/click) on its own.
… and there you have it! A system like that would automatically find products to promote, create ads, track and improve the results. All you’d need to do would be to configure it (like set maximum ad expediture per day and such) and let it make money for you.
While it might seem unbelievable, everything described above is already possible. Of course it would require a truly tremendous amount of programming work and would need powerful server(s) to run on - but it can be done.
With that said, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a software like that anytime soon. Even if someone could afford to spend a fortune on having it developed - and I assure you the costs would be high- it would most probably be kept secret. This system relies on the existance of “normal” marketers whose ads are used for research so it simply cannot be allowed to spread.
Another problem is that creating such a system would require lots of knowledge, marketing skill and money (as already mentioned above), meaning the author must be pretty close to a “marketing guru”. And a guru doesn’t really need an “automated cash machine” - he’s doing well already. Why would (s)he spend a huge amount of resources on what is essentially a newbies dream? Creating it and selling it to newbies would not be possible due to the problems discussed in the previous paragraph.
While possible, and automated moneymaking system is very unlikely.
Feel free to comment on this craziness 
White Shadow :: Jun.26.2007 :: Rants ::
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Something like this may already exist or is in the works but we mere mortals will never know and will never get the chance to try it. It is an PPC marketers wet dream if you pardon the expression.