David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Taking a small break from web design on Friday, I coded a PPC Maximum Bid Calculator. There are quite a few newbies out there who consistently ask for advice on calculating the maximum value they should be bidding and this calculator is designed to help.
 
The tool isn't stylish but it is functional. Here's what you do.

Enter your desired ROI into the first box as a percentage. Maybe you want to make twice as much you invest (100% ROI) or perhaps you want to make lower in order to drive more sales through higher bids.

In box 2, enter your conversion rate. This isn't your ad click conversion rate (i.e. the amount of clicks your ad gets in relation to total views) but rather how many people buy after landing on your landing page.

The last box is where you tell the calculator the typical payout. If you are advertising a product offering a fixed return, enter that amount here. If you are directing traffic to a merchant rewarding a percentage of the sale, enter your typical earnings per sale. If you are brand new to a program, try and work out the average basket content. For Amazon, this would be around £15 as the free delivery threshold is low and easily achieved. For those that offer free delivery on orders over £200, don't assume that everyone will do this as this is a high bar.

Once you have the average basket content (e.g. £15) multiply it by your affiliate payout (e.g. 5%) to get your average payout per order (e.g. £0.75).

The tool removes the need to number crunch for every campaign!

For those suspicious of my motives, the script was written in a couple of hours. It does not have any hidden tracking features, it doesn't log anything and it's completely anonymous. It doesn't record anything about your landing page, the affiliate program your using, the product your advertising, you or the merchant. So stop being suspicious and save your head from needless maths!

Once you have passed the bid determination stage, you may want to try my keyword misspellings generator or Kieron's Preview My PPC tool.