I don’t know about everyone else but I’m pretty sure that most people have encountered this. The other day I was talking to someone who was really eager to get started in Affiliate Marketing and PPC advertising. He has spend hours and even days reading blogs, forums and other resources. (yeah he probably read some ebooks too, sucker!)

He asked if I could go over one of my campaigns with him. We agreed I’d go over one of my campaigns which did well but is currently dying down. I believe in helping people, but I don’t agree with free hand-outs – it would only hurt both of us and possibly more.

So I pretty much went through start to finish on the campaign. I showed him some examples of keywords, ads, landing pages, php redirects, etc. At the end of the conversation – he started to tell me how I have done some stuff wrong and would be making tons more if I did it right. I asked him how he “knew” what I did was “wrong”. Turns out he READ it somewhere on a forum, so therefor it must be true.

I went into greater detail and showed how I did what he considered was “right”, then when I split tested what he said was “wrong”, my EPC and profit went up. He still would not believe me, according to him I should change this back to the way which is “the right way”.

Just because someone or some people say something, does not mean it’s true. You need to do your own testing. You need to figure things out for yourself. Really – if everyone says do something one way and you find a better way that will make you more money, which are you going to choose?

This is why experience and testing will always be better than any knowledge or “facts” you can read. Don’t be afraid to be different – you may loose some money testing it out, but you also may learn a new way to turn a better profit.