When we want to scale a campaign, in most cases it means we want more volume to it. How do we expand on keywords?

More long tails.

More short tails.

Broad matching (make sure you have a good list of negatives).

Outside-the-box keyword ideas (similar industries but different niches).

There’s quite a few ways to expand on keywords if you put some thought into it.

Scaling Method #2 - New Traffic Sources

You have a campaign going solid in Yahoo, you’re profiting and everything is good. So why aren’t you testing out Google, MSN, Ask, LookSmart, etc? Going from Yahoo to Google alone will most likely triple your traffic if done correctly. MSN can also add a nice chunk of revenue in if the campaign is big enough. Expanding around to smaller search engines, banner traffic, and media buys can really scale up a campaign. Get creative with your sources of traffic and you’ll be on the road to more money.

Scaling Method #3 - Increase Bid Prices

Another way to scale a campaign is to get a higher ad position, more volume, and therefore more revenue. Your profit margins may drop due to the increased bid price, but if you’re getting 5x as much volume, in the end you could be profiting more anyways. Play around with bids and find a “happy place” where your volume shoots up and so does profit. Would you rather spend $100 and make $500, or spend $9,000 and make $10,000?

Scaling Method #4 - Work on Ad CTR

Work on always split testing adcopy to find the ad with the highest CTR. The higher CTR an ad has, the more clicks go to your landing page and through the offer.

Scaling Method #5 - Work on Landing Page CTR

Working with ad CTR, it’s realistic to get a percent or two more out of it, which can mean some nice volume. With landing pages, I think the potential is much greater. I’ve used a landing page for a long time and had a bad CTR, then designed something out of the box, threw it up, and saw a 10% increase in CTR. That is plain CRAZY. I saw a 10% increase in traffic which was a pure profit increase just due to the new page. Sit back and think a minute about your offer, and what would make your visitor want to click through. Increasing CTR is like seriously ramping up volume without paying an extra dime.

Scaling Method #6 - Negotiate Higher Payouts

Once you have scaled using all the methods above, your campaigns should be cruising pretty well. Now you go to your affiliate manager and tell them you’ve been working hard on scaling the campaign, and you want a payout increase on the offer. Shop around other networks that have the same offer and see how much they can give. Tell them you’re doing a lot of volume and will switch if the payout is right. A lot of times you can get an extra few bucks on an offer, which if you’re doing high volume can mean A LOT more profit.

Scaling Method #7 - Test Different Offers

You may have been set on one offer this whole time. Now that you have that working, try out some different offers in the same niche and see how they convert. You may find an offer that converts just as well, but has a much higher payout. This means mo’ money for you. Add in the whole “negotiate for higher payouts” thing, and you can be looking at a lot more profit just from changing a link.

Scaling Method #8 - The Whitelabel

The ultimate method of scaling…The Whitelabel. Once you’ve optimized, tested, and scaled your campaign using all the methods above, it’s time to contact the advertiser and negotiate a direct relationship. You’ll be able to host the offer on your domain and it will be a fully built site (which means a higher quality score). Conversion rates are generally higher and the biggest plus is the huge payout bump. A lot of networks take around 20% on certain offers, some even more. That’s 20% added to your revenue that again, is pure profit.

There you have it, the very methods I use to scale all my personal campaigns. Reading this article is one thing, and actually putting the advice into action is another. The cards are in your hand, make the right plays and you’ll win big.