I remember when Google first came out with their Adwords program. It was new, it was exciting and a lot of people lost their shirts because they didn't know how to effectively use PPC advertising. Still today many people using PPC (pay per click) advertising programs lose their shirt, but that is about to change this year.
There is new software programs just released that will actually let you see your ad results without spending any money first.
These new software programs allow you to track your affiliate links and campaigns to track your keywords so you know which ones are profitable and which ones are not profitable. Using the software is pretty easy, you just type in your keywords and keyword phrases related to your niche or product you are promoting then the software will analyze current keywords and campaigns used by your competitors and return to you easy to understand results for those keywords and active ads that are effective for those keywords.
The software programs will also provide details about how often your competitors ads were shown, how many times they were clicked on and the cost per click. This information will help you figure out the CTR (Click Through Rate) before you even start a campaign of your own.
The different software programs allow you to use different popular affiliate programs to track. The available software programsas of this writing are X-Ray Domination at a cost of about $1500 (sold out), Undercover Profits at a cost of about $291 a month ($3300+ a year) and AdSpy Pro for a one time $67.