With search arbitrage becoming more and more popular in recent years, you need to have a competitive edge to be profitable in this industry.
Optimizing your keywords has been proven to have a high impact on your campaign performance, but with most search feed providers only showing one side of the story, how do you know which keywords are winners and which ones to ditch?
This article covers how to accurately analyze keyword performance for search arbitrage to improve profitability.
Introduction to Search Arbitrage and Keyword Performance
If you’re new to search arbitrage, the concept is straightforward. You buy traffic from ad platforms such as Meta, TikTok, Taboola etc, and you redirect this traffic to a parked domain displaying relevant keywords. When a user clicks on one of these keywords, they will be directed to a search result page. Each time someone clicks on one of these search results, you get paid.
If you’re just starting out with search arbitrage and need more information, we recommend reading the Search Arbitrage Bible. It covers pretty much all you need to know.
Depending on your search feed provider, this flow might differ slightly. However, the one thing that remains the same is the relevant keyword block. The more users click on your keywords, the higher your chance of turning a profit will be.
This is why keyword optimization is considered the key to success with search arbitrage. You have to be able to accurately track the performance of your keywords, and constantly fine-tune them for better results.
How to Analyze Keyword Performance for Search Arbitrage
Analyzing keyword performance is trickier than it seems, because most search feed providers don’t offer reporting on keyword level.
This is why most search arbitrage marketers use third-party tracking tools. As of today, ClickFlare is one of the only tracking platforms that offers a powerful keyword builder, that allows you to split-test hundreds of keywords under the same link and delivers advanced data breakdowns on keyword level.
Within ClickFlare, you can see the total spend and revenue for each keyword set.
This feature is available for all major search feed providers, including Tonic, System1, Sedo, CrossRoads by DomainActive, Ads.com, Media.net, CodeFuel, and ExplorAds.
So, how does it actually work?
How to See Statistics by Keyword Set for Search Arbitrage
Because most search feeds display a keyword block with several results on each parked domain, you usually have to select multiple keywords within the same offer. This is often referred to as a keyword set or the served keywords, and it’s important to be able to see how each set is performing against each other.
Especially if you are running a split-test between two or more sets, you need to analyze which combination converts better. To do this, you simply need to go to a ClickFlare report and select Group By Keyword at the top left. Within this overview, you can see visits, cost, revenue and more metrics per each keyword set.
How to See Statistics by Unreplaced Keyword for Search Arbitrage
Many search arbitrage marketers are using dynamic keywords. Due to their personalized and interactive nature, dynamic keywords have a higher chance of being clicked. These are keywords such as {city} or {country}, which are automatically replaced based on your users’ information.
Here is a list of some of the most used macros supported by ClickFlare:
- {country_name}
- {region}
- {city}
- {device}
- {device_type}
- {device_brand}
- {continent}
- {language}
- and more.
If your unreplaced keyword is “Cheap Dental Implants in {city}”, a user who lives in Rome will see the replaced keyword version, “Cheap Dental Implants in Rome”.
The report we showed in the previous section will give you data breakdowns per replaced keyword. This is very important, because you can see how specific cities are performing (from the example above, Rome vs Milan).
But what if you want to see how the general usage of {city} performs compared to {country}? ClickFlare offers a unique option to see how these unreplaced macros perform by simply grouping your keyword reports by “Unreplaced Keyword”.
How to See Statistics by Keyword for Search Arbitrage
Once a user lands on your parked domain, they will click on one specific keyword. For each of these clicked keywords, you can see some data such as conversions, revenue and EPC (earning-per-click) on ClickFlare.
We get this data directly from your search feed provider of choice via postback. All you need to do is use our ready-made tracking and postback templates which already include the parameter you need. We also offer free setup calls where we will guide you through all these steps.
Generally, if you are using one of our templates, the single clicked keyword report can be found if you filter by Conversion Param 1:
This directly allows you to spot high-converting keywords and double-down on them for better results.
Apart from advanced reporting, ClickFlare also enables you to automatically rotate keywords within the same offer URL directly through our keyword builder. You can assign various weights for a smarter keyword testing, and you can also enable the built-in AI auto-optimization which detects the best performing keywords based on the earnings-per-click. We have a full guide on how to find profitable keywords for search arbitrage and simplify keyword optimization with ClickFlare.
Conclusion
Keyword optimization is crucial if you want to succeed with search arbitrage. However, analyzing keyword performance is trickier than it seems due to a lack of reporting across the industry.
ClickFlare offers several unique features that allow you to see detailed analytics on keyword level. With our three different types of reports, you can compare performance across different keywords, keyword sets, and group the data by replaced or unreplaced keywords to gain more insights.
Do you want to fix your tracking and take your search arbitrage campaigns to the next level? Book a free session with one of our search experts.
