Advanced Pay Per Click Techniques (how to get the most out of your more popular keywords);
The search marketers who are getting the most out of their pay per click campaigns are utilizing syndication, geo-targeting, keyword match type and day parting.
Lets take the example of the keyword phrase “online dating” to show the benefits of multi-variable targeting. Say you’re running an online dating site and you want to see, how well that term performs in various cities. You can go ahead and do all the traditional testing but that’s not going to help you drill down your campaign. You need to know how well that term does in various cities because the bid rates and conversation rates may be drastically different.
Once you have the city information identified, you’ll want to segment based what search engine you’re using for that city (Google in New York, Yahoo in San Francisco, MSN in Boston), and then by what time of day offers the best conversion rate. Are lonely people searching for dates on Friday night in New York using Google or at work on Monday morning on Yahoo after a sad, lonely weekend? We don’t know but we also don’t run an online dating site.
Here is some information on the various types of targeting we can perform:
• Geo Targeting: Works using the user’s IP address. Country mapping is very accurate, while state mapping is accurate up to 50 percent of the time and city mapping is accurate approximately 30 percent of the time. Users can also do location mapping using Latitude & Longitude coordinates and a radius. There is some Geo targeting that is based on cookies.
• Syndication Targeting: You can split the traffic that comes to you from Google. For example, you can elect to have ads only show up on Google’s SERP, syndication sites (like AOL search) or on content sites.
• Day Parting: Track the results for each day. Focus on the conversion rate. You can look not only by day, but by time as well. Do customers search in the morning, afternoon or at night? Once you track the conversion rates, you can tell Google to only run your ad on certain days and/or times. You can also change the bid price up or down per day.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Tools for Spying on Your Competitors
1) Domaintools.com: Collects a bunch of information about a Web site, like is it listed in Yahoo directory, registration details, etc. It also tells you other sites that are on the same IP. Some SEO companies put their clients on the same IP.
2) ranks.nl/tools/spider.html: Check out keyword densities for your competitors. Breaks it up into 2 word, 3 word and 4 word combinations
sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com: Check backlinks for your competition. Yahoo puts the most important backlinks first.
3) seomoz.org/tools: Page Strength Tool – You can see how many times they’ve been put on Digg/Delicious/etc
4) soloseo.com/tools/indexrank.html: Allows you to see how many pages are being indexed by Google over the past year, 6 months, or 2 weeks for a site. You can see how strong the site is.
5) copernic.com: Track site changes.
6) Technorati.com: Find out who’s talking about your competition.
7) google.com/alerts: Use Google News to monitor references.
8) searchanalytics.compete.com: You type in the domain name and Compete will give you an approximation as to what key phrases are bringing traffic to your competitors Web site.
9) touchgraph.com: Helps you find your competitors’ hubs. Visually shows you where their links are coming from.
10) google.brand.edgar-online.com: Keep tracking of public companies’ FCC filings.
11) seekingalpha.com/transcripts: Scan through transcripts.
12) google.com/patents: Keep track of patents of your competitors.
13)oodl.com: Keep an eye out on whether or not your competitors are hiring and where.
Keep an eye on your competitors employees. Watch their blogs. They may reveal a lot of information about what’s going on internally.
2) ranks.nl/tools/spider.html: Check out keyword densities for your competitors. Breaks it up into 2 word, 3 word and 4 word combinations
sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com: Check backlinks for your competition. Yahoo puts the most important backlinks first.
3) seomoz.org/tools: Page Strength Tool – You can see how many times they’ve been put on Digg/Delicious/etc
4) soloseo.com/tools/indexrank.html: Allows you to see how many pages are being indexed by Google over the past year, 6 months, or 2 weeks for a site. You can see how strong the site is.
5) copernic.com: Track site changes.
6) Technorati.com: Find out who’s talking about your competition.
7) google.com/alerts: Use Google News to monitor references.
8) searchanalytics.compete.com: You type in the domain name and Compete will give you an approximation as to what key phrases are bringing traffic to your competitors Web site.
9) touchgraph.com: Helps you find your competitors’ hubs. Visually shows you where their links are coming from.
10) google.brand.edgar-online.com: Keep tracking of public companies’ FCC filings.
11) seekingalpha.com/transcripts: Scan through transcripts.
12) google.com/patents: Keep track of patents of your competitors.
13)oodl.com: Keep an eye out on whether or not your competitors are hiring and where.
Keep an eye on your competitors employees. Watch their blogs. They may reveal a lot of information about what’s going on internally.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Yahoo Panama - Setting Max Bids for Your Ad Groups and Keywords
Setting Max Bids for Your Ad Groups and Keywords in Yahoo Panama
You can use the following steps to set a maximum bid for your ad groups and keywords:
To set an Ad Group bid for one or more ad groups:
1)Click the Campaigns tab.
2)Identify a campaign with optimization off and click its name.
3)Click the checkboxes that correspond to the ad groups you would like to update.
4)Click the “Bid” button. In the Set a Bid dialog box, specify an ad group bid for Sponsored Search, Content Match, or both.
5)For Sponsored Search, specify an ad group bid. This will serve as the default bid for Sponsored Search keywords in your ad group
6)For Content Match, specify an ad group bid.
7)Click the “Submit” button to apply the new bids to the selected ad groups.
Remember, campaign optimization must be turned off to set an ad group bid.
To set a bid for multiple keywords:
1)Click the Campaigns tab and then the Summary subtab.
2)Identify a campaign and click its name.
3)Identify an ad group and click its name.
4)Click the checkboxes that correspond to the keywords for which you want to set bids.
5)Click the “Set Keyword Bids” button.
6)Enter a new bid or bids.
7)Click “Save Changes” to apply the new bids to your keywords. You’ll be brought back to the ad group details page, where your new bids will appear in the table.
Always remember that higher quality ads may add extra value to your campaigns and can help control your costs.
You can use the following steps to set a maximum bid for your ad groups and keywords:
To set an Ad Group bid for one or more ad groups:
1)Click the Campaigns tab.
2)Identify a campaign with optimization off and click its name.
3)Click the checkboxes that correspond to the ad groups you would like to update.
4)Click the “Bid” button. In the Set a Bid dialog box, specify an ad group bid for Sponsored Search, Content Match, or both.
5)For Sponsored Search, specify an ad group bid. This will serve as the default bid for Sponsored Search keywords in your ad group
6)For Content Match, specify an ad group bid.
7)Click the “Submit” button to apply the new bids to the selected ad groups.
Remember, campaign optimization must be turned off to set an ad group bid.
To set a bid for multiple keywords:
1)Click the Campaigns tab and then the Summary subtab.
2)Identify a campaign and click its name.
3)Identify an ad group and click its name.
4)Click the checkboxes that correspond to the keywords for which you want to set bids.
5)Click the “Set Keyword Bids” button.
6)Enter a new bid or bids.
7)Click “Save Changes” to apply the new bids to your keywords. You’ll be brought back to the ad group details page, where your new bids will appear in the table.
Always remember that higher quality ads may add extra value to your campaigns and can help control your costs.
Google Content Network Tips: Part 3 – Optimizing your keyword...
In this third post of our content network series, we would like to share some content optimization tips for your keywords and ad text.
Contextual targeting on the content network happens at the ad group level, not at the keyword level. That means all the keywords in an ad group, along with the ad text, are evaluated when Google is deciding whether to show your ad on a specific content page. In other words, it's important for all the keywords in an ad group to belong to a common theme.
We recommend keeping separate campaigns for advertising on content and search. Please keep in mind that these tips below are specific to contexual targeting and advertising on the content network and may be different from your search network strategies.
1)Create a manageable, targeted keyword list.
Advertisers have found most success on the content network with ad groups of around 15 to 30 keywords.
2)Use tightly themed ad groups.
For contextual targeting, we look for pages that match most of the keywords in your ad group. For example, if your ad group has a number of keywords about lilies and tulips, we try to find pages about these two topics together. If you have an ad group with diverse keywords on different themes, it may decrease the number of pages on which your ad is likely to appear. When picking keywords, imagine what keywords would likely appear on the pages that you are trying to target, and create tightly themed ad groups around those keywords.
3)Use duplicate keywords for appropriate ad groups.
To continue the previous example, let's say you were creating a campaign for flowers and had ad groups for lilies, roses and tulips. Unlike search, we would recommend that the general keyword flowers be included in all three ad groups to help establish a floral theme.
4)Use ad group level URLs instead of keyword level URLs.
Because no one particular keyword is used to trigger your ads on the content network, keyword level URLs are not relevant. We recommend using ad group level URLs instead.
5)Measure content performance at the ad group level.
We've found that measuring your performance on the content network at the ad group level offers a better gauge of what strategies work best.
6)Build a comprehensive negative keyword list.
The more negative keywords you include on a particular topic, the less likely your ad is to appear on pages that match that topic. If a page is predominately about your negative keywords, while partially about your positive keywords, our system is not likely to show you on that page. If a page is principally about your positive keywords, but mentions a few negative keywords, then your ad may still appear on this page. We recommend that you include multiple negative keywords on topics you would like to avoid. If you sold camera film and wanted to reduce the likelihood of your ad showing on movie-related pages, you should include multiple negative keywords like -movie, -movies, as well as synonyms like -cinema, -cinemas.
We hope you found these tips useful. As always, we recommend that you track performance of your content network ads using Placement Performance reports and set up conversion tracking or use Google Analytics.
Contextual targeting on the content network happens at the ad group level, not at the keyword level. That means all the keywords in an ad group, along with the ad text, are evaluated when Google is deciding whether to show your ad on a specific content page. In other words, it's important for all the keywords in an ad group to belong to a common theme.
We recommend keeping separate campaigns for advertising on content and search. Please keep in mind that these tips below are specific to contexual targeting and advertising on the content network and may be different from your search network strategies.
1)Create a manageable, targeted keyword list.
Advertisers have found most success on the content network with ad groups of around 15 to 30 keywords.
2)Use tightly themed ad groups.
For contextual targeting, we look for pages that match most of the keywords in your ad group. For example, if your ad group has a number of keywords about lilies and tulips, we try to find pages about these two topics together. If you have an ad group with diverse keywords on different themes, it may decrease the number of pages on which your ad is likely to appear. When picking keywords, imagine what keywords would likely appear on the pages that you are trying to target, and create tightly themed ad groups around those keywords.
3)Use duplicate keywords for appropriate ad groups.
To continue the previous example, let's say you were creating a campaign for flowers and had ad groups for lilies, roses and tulips. Unlike search, we would recommend that the general keyword flowers be included in all three ad groups to help establish a floral theme.
4)Use ad group level URLs instead of keyword level URLs.
Because no one particular keyword is used to trigger your ads on the content network, keyword level URLs are not relevant. We recommend using ad group level URLs instead.
5)Measure content performance at the ad group level.
We've found that measuring your performance on the content network at the ad group level offers a better gauge of what strategies work best.
6)Build a comprehensive negative keyword list.
The more negative keywords you include on a particular topic, the less likely your ad is to appear on pages that match that topic. If a page is predominately about your negative keywords, while partially about your positive keywords, our system is not likely to show you on that page. If a page is principally about your positive keywords, but mentions a few negative keywords, then your ad may still appear on this page. We recommend that you include multiple negative keywords on topics you would like to avoid. If you sold camera film and wanted to reduce the likelihood of your ad showing on movie-related pages, you should include multiple negative keywords like -movie, -movies, as well as synonyms like -cinema, -cinemas.
We hope you found these tips useful. As always, we recommend that you track performance of your content network ads using Placement Performance reports and set up conversion tracking or use Google Analytics.
Not seeing your ad on Google.com?
One of the most common questions advertisers ask over Google support team is "why can't I see my ad on Google?" While it may seem like a good idea to monitor your ad by searching for it, here's a list (in no particular order) of possible account issues that are difficult, if not impossible, to troubleshoot by simply looking for your ad on Google.com:
1)Your ad has been disapproved.
2)The keyword you used to search for your ad is not performing well and has become inactive for search.
3)Your ad rank is not high enough to allow your ad to show on the first page of search results.
4)Your ad is showing, but in a lower position possibly due to a shift in the competitive landscape.
5)Your regionally targeted ad doesn't include the region (e.g. city, state, or country) associated with your computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address.
6)Your ad is targeting a language that's different from the language you've selected for your Google.com preferences.
7)Your daily budget has been exhausted and your ads are no longer showing for the day.
8)Your daily budget is lower than the recommended amount and Google is spacing the delivery of your ads to ensure you receive traffic throughout the day.
9)You're using ad scheduling and your ads are currently not scheduled to run.
Your account hasn't been activated.
AdWords is all about results and we understand that you want to monitor your ads. However, searching for your ads on Google can lead to a diluted clickthrough rate (CTR) as well as account changes based on results that may not represent what the average user sees (more on both points later). For these reasons, we strongly recommend against monitoring your ads solely based on a Google.com search. Below, we've highlighted three great tools to help you monitor your ads quickly, accurately, and without negatively impacting your performance:
1. "Search" using the Ad Preview page rather than Google.com
For those of you who search for your ads simply to monitor their positions on Google.com, the Ad Preview page is a perfect alternative. The Ad Preview page enables you to view ads (and search results) as they would appear on a regular Google.com search results page to most users, without accruing extra impressions for your ad. Remember, anytime you or your colleagues search for your ad on Google.com, the keyword associated with your ad accrues an impression. Over time, this may decrease your CTR (as the number of impressions increases but the clicks do not) and, in turn, may lead to a lower Quality Score.
In addition, if you search for your ad multiple times on Google.com (not using the Ad Preview page), our system may adapt the results you see. This means you may begin to see your ad in a lower position than before.
You can access the Ad Preview page by adding "/adpreview" to the end of the usual Google URL - http://www.google.com/adpreview. Here's an example of a search using the Ad Preview page:
2. Use the Ads Diagnostic Tool
For ads that don't seem to be showing at all, the Ads Diagnostic Tool is a good place to start. Located within your AdWords account, the tool can tell you if your ads are not showing due to approval status, cost-per-click (CPC) and budget price settings, ad and keyword performance, ranking status, geo-targeting settings, etc.
You can access the Ads Diagnostic Tool information two different ways - for a quick diagnosis, point your mouse at the magnifying glass icon next to any keyword in your account. A help bubble will appear with information about that keyword. For a more thorough analysis, go to the tool itself by clicking Tools on the Campaign Management tab.
3. Account statistics and reporting
Your best bet when monitoring or troubleshooting your ad activity is reviewing the statistics in your account. Unlike searching for your ad, your account statistics provide a comprehensive overview of how your ads are performing overall. These statistics can provide you with the average position of a keyword that's calculated, not estimated, across all the geographic locations, languages, network sites, etc. that you're targeting.
In addition, your account offers numerous reports that you can run as needed, or schedule to run and have emailed to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis - this means you get all the data without even having to log in to your account!
We understand that it's natural to search Google.com when curious about how your ads are performing; however, we hope you'll keep in mind that how your ad appears, or in some cases doesn't appear, for you, may not reflect how it appears to the vast majority of people who are searching for your product or service each day.
1)Your ad has been disapproved.
2)The keyword you used to search for your ad is not performing well and has become inactive for search.
3)Your ad rank is not high enough to allow your ad to show on the first page of search results.
4)Your ad is showing, but in a lower position possibly due to a shift in the competitive landscape.
5)Your regionally targeted ad doesn't include the region (e.g. city, state, or country) associated with your computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address.
6)Your ad is targeting a language that's different from the language you've selected for your Google.com preferences.
7)Your daily budget has been exhausted and your ads are no longer showing for the day.
8)Your daily budget is lower than the recommended amount and Google is spacing the delivery of your ads to ensure you receive traffic throughout the day.
9)You're using ad scheduling and your ads are currently not scheduled to run.
Your account hasn't been activated.
AdWords is all about results and we understand that you want to monitor your ads. However, searching for your ads on Google can lead to a diluted clickthrough rate (CTR) as well as account changes based on results that may not represent what the average user sees (more on both points later). For these reasons, we strongly recommend against monitoring your ads solely based on a Google.com search. Below, we've highlighted three great tools to help you monitor your ads quickly, accurately, and without negatively impacting your performance:
1. "Search" using the Ad Preview page rather than Google.com
For those of you who search for your ads simply to monitor their positions on Google.com, the Ad Preview page is a perfect alternative. The Ad Preview page enables you to view ads (and search results) as they would appear on a regular Google.com search results page to most users, without accruing extra impressions for your ad. Remember, anytime you or your colleagues search for your ad on Google.com, the keyword associated with your ad accrues an impression. Over time, this may decrease your CTR (as the number of impressions increases but the clicks do not) and, in turn, may lead to a lower Quality Score.
In addition, if you search for your ad multiple times on Google.com (not using the Ad Preview page), our system may adapt the results you see. This means you may begin to see your ad in a lower position than before.
You can access the Ad Preview page by adding "/adpreview" to the end of the usual Google URL - http://www.google.com/adpreview. Here's an example of a search using the Ad Preview page:
2. Use the Ads Diagnostic Tool
For ads that don't seem to be showing at all, the Ads Diagnostic Tool is a good place to start. Located within your AdWords account, the tool can tell you if your ads are not showing due to approval status, cost-per-click (CPC) and budget price settings, ad and keyword performance, ranking status, geo-targeting settings, etc.
You can access the Ads Diagnostic Tool information two different ways - for a quick diagnosis, point your mouse at the magnifying glass icon next to any keyword in your account. A help bubble will appear with information about that keyword. For a more thorough analysis, go to the tool itself by clicking Tools on the Campaign Management tab.
3. Account statistics and reporting
Your best bet when monitoring or troubleshooting your ad activity is reviewing the statistics in your account. Unlike searching for your ad, your account statistics provide a comprehensive overview of how your ads are performing overall. These statistics can provide you with the average position of a keyword that's calculated, not estimated, across all the geographic locations, languages, network sites, etc. that you're targeting.
In addition, your account offers numerous reports that you can run as needed, or schedule to run and have emailed to you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis - this means you get all the data without even having to log in to your account!
We understand that it's natural to search Google.com when curious about how your ads are performing; however, we hope you'll keep in mind that how your ad appears, or in some cases doesn't appear, for you, may not reflect how it appears to the vast majority of people who are searching for your product or service each day.
Pay-Per-Action Beta Expanding Globally
In March, we launched the pay-per-action (PPA) beta in the United States. Today, we're pleased to announce the worldwide expansion of the PPA beta.
Starting today, advertisers who use AdWords conversion tracking and receive more than 500 conversions from their pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-impression (PPM) campaigns in the most recent 30-day period will be invited to join this beta test, on a rolling basis. Eligible advertisers will see an alert in their AdWords account informing them that they can now try the PPA beta.
As a refresher, pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows you to pay only for completed actions that you define (such as a lead, a sale, or a page view), after a visitor has clicked on your ad on a publisher's site. With PPC and PPM campaigns, advertisers need to continuously monitor and tune their campaigns to meet their target CPA (cost-per-action). With pay-per-action campaigns, advertisers only need to set their desired cost-per-action and pay for completed actions to hit their CPA targets.
PPA ads will appear on publisher sites in the Google content network. Publishers are free to choose the PPA ads most relevant to their site and run them in new ad units.
Starting today, advertisers who use AdWords conversion tracking and receive more than 500 conversions from their pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-impression (PPM) campaigns in the most recent 30-day period will be invited to join this beta test, on a rolling basis. Eligible advertisers will see an alert in their AdWords account informing them that they can now try the PPA beta.
As a refresher, pay-per-action advertising is a new pricing model that allows you to pay only for completed actions that you define (such as a lead, a sale, or a page view), after a visitor has clicked on your ad on a publisher's site. With PPC and PPM campaigns, advertisers need to continuously monitor and tune their campaigns to meet their target CPA (cost-per-action). With pay-per-action campaigns, advertisers only need to set their desired cost-per-action and pay for completed actions to hit their CPA targets.
PPA ads will appear on publisher sites in the Google content network. Publishers are free to choose the PPA ads most relevant to their site and run them in new ad units.
What are the most important practices to keep in mind when optimizing your PPC ad copy? (16 Techniques)
The most important element of your PPC ad copy is the heading or title. The more potential customers identify with your heading, the more likely they will be to click your ad. The number of characters allowed in your heading is quite limited, so optimizing the best possible combination of words is of utmost importance.
Using relevant keywords in the ad title usually work very well. This technique captures the attention of users by putting their search terms in the most prominent position in the ad.
1)To match your title keywords to search terms, you will have to set up individual ad groups for important search terms. On Google AdWords, you can use automatic keyword insertion, which will save a tremendous amount of time when setting up campaigns spread over numerous keywords. For example, if you have 1500 keywords and want to put all of them into a single ad group, you can set up your account to automatically insert the search terms into your title (as long as they don't exceed character limitations).
2)If your prices are the lowest or close to the lowest in your industry, placing product prices in the ad title can boost CTR and skyrocket conversions.
"Free" add-on offers work well in the ad title. For example, if you offer free shipping, free bonus software, or a free 30-day trial, try mentioning that in the ad title and the primary offer in the body.
3)Make sure the "display URL" is the shortest possible URL. Display URLs are basically free brand exposure for your domain name. Even when no one clicks your ads, you are still receiving exposure. If your site domain is www.MarketingExperiments.com, do not use http://www.marketingexperiments.com/adcopy_article/ as the display URL. Make it as simple, uncomplicated, and memorable as possible.
4)It is best to display URLs with the "www" in front of them rather than simply marketingexperiments.com. Although it might not be necessary to use the "www" to reach your site, it lets customers clearly know that they are seeing a website URL. It thus becomes more likely that they will remember your site.
Google will let you use some capitalization in the displayed URL. So using www.MarketingExperiments.com instead of www.marketingexperiments.com may make your URL more memorable.
5)When possible, try to quantify your ads. If you have the most or greatest variety of products in your niche and you believe that gives you a competitive advantage, use that in the ad. If the price of your service is relatively low compared to alternatives, advertising the price in the ad copy – or even in the ad title – can be quite effective.
6)Avoid using hype in your ads. This is especially true for those products and services whose potential customers may be inherently skeptical. For more on an honest approach to writing copy, review the article Transparent Marketing.
Create a sense of urgency in your ads if it can be done without hype. Rather than using words like "amazing" or "unbelievable," try "limited-time offer" or "available for overnight shipping."
7)Use clear, precise sentences, not just keywords.
8)When space is available, always add a credibility indicator. Examples of these include: 30-day money-back guarantee, 5-star rated merchant, etc.
9)Be aware that CTR is not the only important factor in a highly effective PPC ad. Conversion rate is also very important. The temptation on PPC engines is to use highly specific ad copy to pre-qualify your clicks. This may allow you to pay for less clicks while achieving a higher conversion rate.
10)However, Google has minimum CTRs that must be maintained for your ads to remain active. The minimum CTR varies by keyword. In addition, a high CTR will also positively influence your ad placement in Google, so sacrificing CTR to increase conversion, while it could save you money, is often quite risky.
11)Create a unique approach that focuses on the opposite or reverse of what your competitors are advertising. As we saw in Test Site A above, a reverse-psychology approach can often outperform the expected approach for some ad types.
KEY POINT: You cannot write PPC ads in a vacuum. Testing is essential. Furthermore, you must pay attention to what your competitors are doing in the PPC engines. Study your competition's ad copy to determine how your own marketing voice can be distinctive from that of your competitors.
Using relevant keywords in the ad title usually work very well. This technique captures the attention of users by putting their search terms in the most prominent position in the ad.
1)To match your title keywords to search terms, you will have to set up individual ad groups for important search terms. On Google AdWords, you can use automatic keyword insertion, which will save a tremendous amount of time when setting up campaigns spread over numerous keywords. For example, if you have 1500 keywords and want to put all of them into a single ad group, you can set up your account to automatically insert the search terms into your title (as long as they don't exceed character limitations).
2)If your prices are the lowest or close to the lowest in your industry, placing product prices in the ad title can boost CTR and skyrocket conversions.
"Free" add-on offers work well in the ad title. For example, if you offer free shipping, free bonus software, or a free 30-day trial, try mentioning that in the ad title and the primary offer in the body.
3)Make sure the "display URL" is the shortest possible URL. Display URLs are basically free brand exposure for your domain name. Even when no one clicks your ads, you are still receiving exposure. If your site domain is www.MarketingExperiments.com, do not use http://www.marketingexperiments.com/adcopy_article/ as the display URL. Make it as simple, uncomplicated, and memorable as possible.
4)It is best to display URLs with the "www" in front of them rather than simply marketingexperiments.com. Although it might not be necessary to use the "www" to reach your site, it lets customers clearly know that they are seeing a website URL. It thus becomes more likely that they will remember your site.
Google will let you use some capitalization in the displayed URL. So using www.MarketingExperiments.com instead of www.marketingexperiments.com may make your URL more memorable.
5)When possible, try to quantify your ads. If you have the most or greatest variety of products in your niche and you believe that gives you a competitive advantage, use that in the ad. If the price of your service is relatively low compared to alternatives, advertising the price in the ad copy – or even in the ad title – can be quite effective.
6)Avoid using hype in your ads. This is especially true for those products and services whose potential customers may be inherently skeptical. For more on an honest approach to writing copy, review the article Transparent Marketing.
Create a sense of urgency in your ads if it can be done without hype. Rather than using words like "amazing" or "unbelievable," try "limited-time offer" or "available for overnight shipping."
7)Use clear, precise sentences, not just keywords.
8)When space is available, always add a credibility indicator. Examples of these include: 30-day money-back guarantee, 5-star rated merchant, etc.
9)Be aware that CTR is not the only important factor in a highly effective PPC ad. Conversion rate is also very important. The temptation on PPC engines is to use highly specific ad copy to pre-qualify your clicks. This may allow you to pay for less clicks while achieving a higher conversion rate.
10)However, Google has minimum CTRs that must be maintained for your ads to remain active. The minimum CTR varies by keyword. In addition, a high CTR will also positively influence your ad placement in Google, so sacrificing CTR to increase conversion, while it could save you money, is often quite risky.
11)Create a unique approach that focuses on the opposite or reverse of what your competitors are advertising. As we saw in Test Site A above, a reverse-psychology approach can often outperform the expected approach for some ad types.
KEY POINT: You cannot write PPC ads in a vacuum. Testing is essential. Furthermore, you must pay attention to what your competitors are doing in the PPC engines. Study your competition's ad copy to determine how your own marketing voice can be distinctive from that of your competitors.
Search Marketing Research for UK Small Businesses
Nigel Leggatt, one of the Trade Marketing Manager based in London office, recently commissioned some research into how small businesses are embracing PPC and online advertising.
The research which questioned 400 UK SMBs, reveals 44% of SMBs not doing search marketing think it is too time consuming; 56% think it is too expensive; and 33% too complicated. However, 76% of SMBs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales.
The research also revealed three common misconceptions:
Myth 1: Over a third (34%) of respondents think it would take a day or more to set up a campaign. In reality, the time taken from opening an account to it going live can take as little as 15 minutes.
Myth 2: Some 56% cite cost as a top reason why SMBs will not invest, with a quarter of all SMBs thinking the best keywords are already taken. Actually, SMBs can invest as little as 10-20 pence per click or a monthly budget of around £5.
Myth 3: Many are put off by the idea that it sounds too complicated – with the overwhelming majority (89%) thinking it was more difficult than online banking. However, SMBs can easily manage accounts from their desk and are likely to see immediate results from just a few simple keywords.
To advise SMBs on how to get started with search marketing, the Microsoft adCenter report provides key guidelines to ensure the process is quick, simple and cost effective:
· Keep your ad copy short and descriptive, while avoiding empty promises.
· Investigate what your competition is doing online (try a few searches).
· Choose the right keywords - the Microsoft adCenter Keyword Generator (which finds similar keywords to the one you enter) and the Keyword Research Tool (which reveals the typical profile of the people searching on your keyword) will help.
· Make your keywords relevant – speak the same language as your customers. They will type in brand names when looking for products, like ‘Hoover’ when they mean 'vacuum' or ‘Kleenex’ when they mean 'tissue'. They could misspell words, use abbreviations or try unexpected variations on the actual names of what you’re selling. Try to cover them all off!
· Keep your keywords updated - raise your bidding on some keywords with a low position and delete poorly performing keywords or ads
· Estimate the cost of recruiting a new customer (or the cost of losing an existing one) then set aside a fixed keyword budget and timeframe to assess results
· Think about the seasonality of your business or the time of day/week when potential customers will be looking for your business
· Think about the best time of day, day of the week and location to advertise in
· Know your target audience – choose to up-weight your bids for certain genders, ages and places. For example, spending more on searches conducted by men over 25 during, say, lunch breaks in Birmingham.
· Add local keywords to the phrases you bid on – for example 'florist Newcastle'
The research which questioned 400 UK SMBs, reveals 44% of SMBs not doing search marketing think it is too time consuming; 56% think it is too expensive; and 33% too complicated. However, 76% of SMBs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales.
The research also revealed three common misconceptions:
Myth 1: Over a third (34%) of respondents think it would take a day or more to set up a campaign. In reality, the time taken from opening an account to it going live can take as little as 15 minutes.
Myth 2: Some 56% cite cost as a top reason why SMBs will not invest, with a quarter of all SMBs thinking the best keywords are already taken. Actually, SMBs can invest as little as 10-20 pence per click or a monthly budget of around £5.
Myth 3: Many are put off by the idea that it sounds too complicated – with the overwhelming majority (89%) thinking it was more difficult than online banking. However, SMBs can easily manage accounts from their desk and are likely to see immediate results from just a few simple keywords.
To advise SMBs on how to get started with search marketing, the Microsoft adCenter report provides key guidelines to ensure the process is quick, simple and cost effective:
· Keep your ad copy short and descriptive, while avoiding empty promises.
· Investigate what your competition is doing online (try a few searches).
· Choose the right keywords - the Microsoft adCenter Keyword Generator (which finds similar keywords to the one you enter) and the Keyword Research Tool (which reveals the typical profile of the people searching on your keyword) will help.
· Make your keywords relevant – speak the same language as your customers. They will type in brand names when looking for products, like ‘Hoover’ when they mean 'vacuum' or ‘Kleenex’ when they mean 'tissue'. They could misspell words, use abbreviations or try unexpected variations on the actual names of what you’re selling. Try to cover them all off!
· Keep your keywords updated - raise your bidding on some keywords with a low position and delete poorly performing keywords or ads
· Estimate the cost of recruiting a new customer (or the cost of losing an existing one) then set aside a fixed keyword budget and timeframe to assess results
· Think about the seasonality of your business or the time of day/week when potential customers will be looking for your business
· Think about the best time of day, day of the week and location to advertise in
· Know your target audience – choose to up-weight your bids for certain genders, ages and places. For example, spending more on searches conducted by men over 25 during, say, lunch breaks in Birmingham.
· Add local keywords to the phrases you bid on – for example 'florist Newcastle'
Adwords: The Bottom Line - Profitability
Keep in mind that analytics do not track all sales and a very large percentage of sales will not be attributed to the correct source. Installing much better methods of tracking the correct source of conversions is critical to successfully using analytics on e-commerce sites.
Here are some key points to consider:
1)Phone sales - most companies do not track their phone sales through analytics but they can be a significant source of revenue. Because those who are less comfortable using computers and searching online are more likely to call to order, these sales are often driven by general keywords that may never show conversions. Deleting your high volume, general keywords can make your phone stop ringing and seriously reduce your phone orders.
2)Conversion source - most buyers will view multiple sites and compare your prices to your competitors’ by using popular price comparison sites such as Shopping.com, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, MySimon, and some of the lesser known sites that compare price. Google Analytics and many other analytics programs indicate that the last site a visitor used before buying is what generated the sale. Hopefully anyone reading this is wise enough to realize that is simply not true - especially for small businesses.
Would you like to prove the above two points for yourself? If there are enough searches for any of your high volume keywords you can prove the first one by pausing and resuming those ads or raising and lowering the bids to move them up and down the results page, and noting the effect those actions have on your phones ringing and total phone sales during the test period. [This will only work if there are sufficient searches for what you’re advertising for you to notice or measure the difference.]
To prove the second point, create a new ad campaign for a product that has not been selling. The product could be something new or one that has poor organic listings. Ideally you can use something that you have offered for sale for a long time and have zero sales. Do select profitable products to advertise online so you can make money while you’re testing. If you suddenly sell numerous items that have never sold before just after starting a new campaign to advertise them, to what source will you credit the sales?
KEY POINTS TO UNDERSTAND:
There is always a trade-off between maximum number of sales / maximum revenue and increasing ROI.
Increasing ad spends by raising bids or using higher traffic / higher cost keywords will increase sales and revenue at the expense of ROI.
Tightening up ad spends by lowering bids or deleting keywords will increase ROI at the expense of overall sales and revenue.
Here are some key points to consider:
1)Phone sales - most companies do not track their phone sales through analytics but they can be a significant source of revenue. Because those who are less comfortable using computers and searching online are more likely to call to order, these sales are often driven by general keywords that may never show conversions. Deleting your high volume, general keywords can make your phone stop ringing and seriously reduce your phone orders.
2)Conversion source - most buyers will view multiple sites and compare your prices to your competitors’ by using popular price comparison sites such as Shopping.com, Shopzilla, PriceGrabber, MySimon, and some of the lesser known sites that compare price. Google Analytics and many other analytics programs indicate that the last site a visitor used before buying is what generated the sale. Hopefully anyone reading this is wise enough to realize that is simply not true - especially for small businesses.
Would you like to prove the above two points for yourself? If there are enough searches for any of your high volume keywords you can prove the first one by pausing and resuming those ads or raising and lowering the bids to move them up and down the results page, and noting the effect those actions have on your phones ringing and total phone sales during the test period. [This will only work if there are sufficient searches for what you’re advertising for you to notice or measure the difference.]
To prove the second point, create a new ad campaign for a product that has not been selling. The product could be something new or one that has poor organic listings. Ideally you can use something that you have offered for sale for a long time and have zero sales. Do select profitable products to advertise online so you can make money while you’re testing. If you suddenly sell numerous items that have never sold before just after starting a new campaign to advertise them, to what source will you credit the sales?
KEY POINTS TO UNDERSTAND:
There is always a trade-off between maximum number of sales / maximum revenue and increasing ROI.
Increasing ad spends by raising bids or using higher traffic / higher cost keywords will increase sales and revenue at the expense of ROI.
Tightening up ad spends by lowering bids or deleting keywords will increase ROI at the expense of overall sales and revenue.
Adwords Editor Advanced Bid Changes
The Adwords Editor makes it fairly easy to do advanced bid changes by searching for adgroups or keywords that meet criteria you specify for a certain date range and allowing you to increase/decrease bids by specific amount or percentage. For example, say you have a lot of data at the adgroups level and want to sort through your data to raise bids on better performing adgroups. Your target cost per conversion is $30, so you want to find all adgroups that have generated 30 conversions or more at a cost per conversion less than $30. What you do is this:
Start the Adwords Editor and get a copy of your account.
1)Click the "Ad Groups" tab.
2)Click the menu item for "Showing stats for:" There's a pie chart icon next to the text. It is next to the "Post Changes" item.
3)Input the date range over which you're checking your account.
Wait, the Adwords Editor should start filling in data next to all your adgroups with conversion data. (I believe Adwords will edit this a bit in the future. It takes a long time, it's not clear when the account is gathering data, and it's not clear when the account is finished gathering data.)
4)After all of the Adgroups show information, click the "Advanced Search" link at the top right. Set the criteria in the bottom of the window that pops up for "Conversions greater than 30" and "Cost per conversion less than $30."
5)A filtered list of adgroups should show up. Click the first one, scroll down to the bottom one, hit "shift + click" and it should select all of the adgroups (if you're using a PC).
6)Click the "Advanced Bid Changes" link in the section underneath the adgroups list. Be careful there is also an "Advanced Content Bid Changes" link - you probably don't want that one. (Another thing that sucks about the Advanced Search feature is you can't separate out data for the search and content networks if you have them turned on at the same time within the same campaign. Hopefully Google will do something about that.)
7)Choose how much you want to increase bids (20%, $0.20, whatever).
8)The editor will increase those bids, and then all you need to do is post your changes.
Start the Adwords Editor and get a copy of your account.
1)Click the "Ad Groups" tab.
2)Click the menu item for "Showing stats for:" There's a pie chart icon next to the text. It is next to the "Post Changes" item.
3)Input the date range over which you're checking your account.
Wait, the Adwords Editor should start filling in data next to all your adgroups with conversion data. (I believe Adwords will edit this a bit in the future. It takes a long time, it's not clear when the account is gathering data, and it's not clear when the account is finished gathering data.)
4)After all of the Adgroups show information, click the "Advanced Search" link at the top right. Set the criteria in the bottom of the window that pops up for "Conversions greater than 30" and "Cost per conversion less than $30."
5)A filtered list of adgroups should show up. Click the first one, scroll down to the bottom one, hit "shift + click" and it should select all of the adgroups (if you're using a PC).
6)Click the "Advanced Bid Changes" link in the section underneath the adgroups list. Be careful there is also an "Advanced Content Bid Changes" link - you probably don't want that one. (Another thing that sucks about the Advanced Search feature is you can't separate out data for the search and content networks if you have them turned on at the same time within the same campaign. Hopefully Google will do something about that.)
7)Choose how much you want to increase bids (20%, $0.20, whatever).
8)The editor will increase those bids, and then all you need to do is post your changes.
Adwords' Recent Changes to Broad Matching - What You May Not Know
Adwords will now display your ad on keywords that are a combination of consecutive searches. This means if you do a search for "pools" and then do a second search for "hats" you will see the top ad for PPC is an ad for "swimming caps."
What does this mean for you? It means that if you have a variable text ad triggered by a keyword, your ad may be displaying text that you never intended it to display. It also means that you may want to opt for phrase matching with most keywords if you are on a tight budget.
Chances are very high this is costing you money right now. Do a search query report in Adwords and look at the long tail of strange keywords that show up.
What does this mean for you? It means that if you have a variable text ad triggered by a keyword, your ad may be displaying text that you never intended it to display. It also means that you may want to opt for phrase matching with most keywords if you are on a tight budget.
Chances are very high this is costing you money right now. Do a search query report in Adwords and look at the long tail of strange keywords that show up.
Flaunting Affiliate Network Rules with Blackhat PPC
I thought I would write about a few other sneaky tricks used within PPC affiliate marketing space. Affiliates in competition with other affiliates, the merchant’s internal marketing department or agency, the affiliate network over merchant terms and of course the paid search system itself.
One of the most common PPC policies to flaunt many affiliate programs terms & policies is to disallow affiliates from bidding against merchant brand terms, as the merchant will generally get that sale 99% of the time anyway not having to pay a premium to an affiliate for it. From the other side, obviously it makes sense for an affiliate to bid against brand as it cuts away the hard work of finding a niche as & they know it will convert. It’s a low hanging fruit.
Another popular affiliate network policy is to ban affiliates from sending traffic direct to a merchants site because the merchant or ad agency are already running a paid search campaign, the merchant does not trust affiliates to uphold their ‘brand image’ within adverts or perhaps for a variety of other reasons.
So, how do affiliates bypass these rules, working within the ad platforms own system while keeping under the radar of the merchant, the affiliate network and perhaps an ad agency keeping an eye on the SERPS? The price of getting caught might be a loss of commissions, getting kicked off the affiliate program or even the network all together.
Let’s look at some of the methods used -
1) Bidding At Certain Times – Brand bidding at certain times of the day or week when they know there is less chance of someone in-house, agency or affiliate network seeing the offending adverts. Evenings & weekends are the obvious choices or a couple of minutes here and there will often go unnoticed. Advertisers don’t even have to be at their computer to do this with Google kindly providing ad scheduling.
2) Geo-targeting – Geo-targeting of smaller individual locations or those where the merchant, their agency or affiliate network are not based. Advertisers can custom geo-target away from those areas, again thanks to Google’s ever increasing Adwords tools inventory.
3) IP Exclusion - As Google explains “refine your targeting by preventing specific Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from seeing your ads”. Find out the IP of those you don’t want to see your ad and ban them so they can’t see your advert.
4) Advert Tricks - This only happens if the merchant is running their own adverts against their own branded terms. The affiliate simply copies the merchants advert EXACTLY and bids higher to gain a higher ad rank that will replace the merchants own advert. At a glance the merchant will believe their advert is still running, although obviously it’s that of the affiliates. If the merchant digs a little deeper and views the destination url the affiliate might get spotted, but this method is generally used intermittently. If the merchant/ad agency notices they are no longer receiving clicks for there core keywords it will raise suspicion - so this is often used with 1, 2 & 5.
5) Masking Affiliate Urls - I have heard of software from some of the affiliate networks that claim to detect brand bidders by scraping the search engines and monitoring ad urls. (Although this is of course, depending on whether this detection system is not blocked by either 2 or 3 above in the first place). How do naughty affiliates attempt to protect themselves so their affiliate url is not spotted in adverts immediately? Well, by masking the url & affiliate ID within a url redirect. In fact, the affiliate might be using multiple redirects to make it a little harder again to be identified without proper investigation that might confuse the average merchant or online marketer.
6) Sending Traffic To A Different Domain - This is not rocket science. This can even be accomplished without setting up redirects, just a little understanding and knowledge of how the automatic and manual ad approvals work at the search engines. Advertisers can take advantage of the time between automatic approval and a manual review (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626830 ), but it’s actually even simpler for affiliates to trick the system after the manual review period.
As an example, let’s say an affiliate wants the advert display URL to be affiliatename.com, but they want to send traffic direct to a different domain, merchantssite.com. By playing nice at first, affiliates can simply set up their advert with the same display URL and destination URL to affiliatename.com. The affiliate can allow their advert to go through manual approval. It takes roughly 48hrs (in the week) for the advert to pass through manual approval in Adwords (ads can even be paused during this period) before the affiliate can whip in a keyword level URL for the real destination they want to send traffic to. Keyword level URLs take precedence over ad level URLs and they do not go through manual approval like adverts do.
Another method that is frequently used to get past the one display URL per SERP policy from the search engines is to simply send traffic to affiliatename.com and after the manual approval throw in a server side redirect over to the site of choice. That way the advert has not been amended and will not get manually reviewed again.
7) Using Broad Match To Bypass Trademarks – Here in the UK, businesses can protect their trademark brand names in both adverts and keywords on Google by submitting an application. While this method can be very effective for some brands, it can also sometimes be bypassed by the use of broad match. Take the well known car company ‘Land Rover’ as an example. For sometime they protected their band online on Google and hence the keyword ‘Land Rover’ was a trademarked term and would not display ads when used as a keyword. An easy way to get around this was simply having the keyword ‘Rover Land’ on broad match and sure enough it would trigger the advert against a search for ‘Land Rover’. It can be as simple as that. So while trademarking can work great for some businesses, it can easily be bypassed for others.
These are just some examples of blackhat PPC in the affiliate marketing space. All of the above tricks can be spotted if you know what you are doing.
One of the most common PPC policies to flaunt many affiliate programs terms & policies is to disallow affiliates from bidding against merchant brand terms, as the merchant will generally get that sale 99% of the time anyway not having to pay a premium to an affiliate for it. From the other side, obviously it makes sense for an affiliate to bid against brand as it cuts away the hard work of finding a niche as & they know it will convert. It’s a low hanging fruit.
Another popular affiliate network policy is to ban affiliates from sending traffic direct to a merchants site because the merchant or ad agency are already running a paid search campaign, the merchant does not trust affiliates to uphold their ‘brand image’ within adverts or perhaps for a variety of other reasons.
So, how do affiliates bypass these rules, working within the ad platforms own system while keeping under the radar of the merchant, the affiliate network and perhaps an ad agency keeping an eye on the SERPS? The price of getting caught might be a loss of commissions, getting kicked off the affiliate program or even the network all together.
Let’s look at some of the methods used -
1) Bidding At Certain Times – Brand bidding at certain times of the day or week when they know there is less chance of someone in-house, agency or affiliate network seeing the offending adverts. Evenings & weekends are the obvious choices or a couple of minutes here and there will often go unnoticed. Advertisers don’t even have to be at their computer to do this with Google kindly providing ad scheduling.
2) Geo-targeting – Geo-targeting of smaller individual locations or those where the merchant, their agency or affiliate network are not based. Advertisers can custom geo-target away from those areas, again thanks to Google’s ever increasing Adwords tools inventory.
3) IP Exclusion - As Google explains “refine your targeting by preventing specific Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from seeing your ads”. Find out the IP of those you don’t want to see your ad and ban them so they can’t see your advert.
4) Advert Tricks - This only happens if the merchant is running their own adverts against their own branded terms. The affiliate simply copies the merchants advert EXACTLY and bids higher to gain a higher ad rank that will replace the merchants own advert. At a glance the merchant will believe their advert is still running, although obviously it’s that of the affiliates. If the merchant digs a little deeper and views the destination url the affiliate might get spotted, but this method is generally used intermittently. If the merchant/ad agency notices they are no longer receiving clicks for there core keywords it will raise suspicion - so this is often used with 1, 2 & 5.
5) Masking Affiliate Urls - I have heard of software from some of the affiliate networks that claim to detect brand bidders by scraping the search engines and monitoring ad urls. (Although this is of course, depending on whether this detection system is not blocked by either 2 or 3 above in the first place). How do naughty affiliates attempt to protect themselves so their affiliate url is not spotted in adverts immediately? Well, by masking the url & affiliate ID within a url redirect. In fact, the affiliate might be using multiple redirects to make it a little harder again to be identified without proper investigation that might confuse the average merchant or online marketer.
6) Sending Traffic To A Different Domain - This is not rocket science. This can even be accomplished without setting up redirects, just a little understanding and knowledge of how the automatic and manual ad approvals work at the search engines. Advertisers can take advantage of the time between automatic approval and a manual review (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626830 ), but it’s actually even simpler for affiliates to trick the system after the manual review period.
As an example, let’s say an affiliate wants the advert display URL to be affiliatename.com, but they want to send traffic direct to a different domain, merchantssite.com. By playing nice at first, affiliates can simply set up their advert with the same display URL and destination URL to affiliatename.com. The affiliate can allow their advert to go through manual approval. It takes roughly 48hrs (in the week) for the advert to pass through manual approval in Adwords (ads can even be paused during this period) before the affiliate can whip in a keyword level URL for the real destination they want to send traffic to. Keyword level URLs take precedence over ad level URLs and they do not go through manual approval like adverts do.
Another method that is frequently used to get past the one display URL per SERP policy from the search engines is to simply send traffic to affiliatename.com and after the manual approval throw in a server side redirect over to the site of choice. That way the advert has not been amended and will not get manually reviewed again.
7) Using Broad Match To Bypass Trademarks – Here in the UK, businesses can protect their trademark brand names in both adverts and keywords on Google by submitting an application. While this method can be very effective for some brands, it can also sometimes be bypassed by the use of broad match. Take the well known car company ‘Land Rover’ as an example. For sometime they protected their band online on Google and hence the keyword ‘Land Rover’ was a trademarked term and would not display ads when used as a keyword. An easy way to get around this was simply having the keyword ‘Rover Land’ on broad match and sure enough it would trigger the advert against a search for ‘Land Rover’. It can be as simple as that. So while trademarking can work great for some businesses, it can easily be bypassed for others.
These are just some examples of blackhat PPC in the affiliate marketing space. All of the above tricks can be spotted if you know what you are doing.
Ad Copy Changes 1
A tiny change from “Changes” to “Change” resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Here’s why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself.
Ad Copy Changes
The increase in CTR & Conversion Rate, when … (dot, dot, dot) is included in the ad copy.
Why? Because it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the ad copy, and this tiny change of adding … to the end of my winning ad boosted the results by another 135%+!
Free PPC Learning Resources
Here is the list of PPC Blog Resources. The links below lead to a wealth of free information focused on paid search marketing.
1)Inside AdWords-The official source for information about AdWords
2)Yahoo Search Marketing Blog- The official source for information about Yahoo Search Marketing.
3)The official blog for the Live Search team at Microsoft
4)Search Engine Land – Danny Sullivan’s post-SEW publication features amazing SEM industry news, insight, and tips. If you can only read one blog, this is it.
5)SEO Round Table - The pulse of the search marketing community
6)Search Engine Watch – The house that Danny Sullivan (and a lot of other talented folks) built still offers great articles and insight.
7)Search Engine Guide- Jennifer Laycock, master mommy linkbaiter, publishes this definitive small business SEM blog
8)Bruce Clay Blog- Internet business consultants
9)Cape Cod SEO - SEO and PPC for small businesses plus along with Cape Cod info from Derek Edmond
10)Elixr Systems Blog - SEO, PPC and online PR from James Peggie and Dylan Downhill
11)eWhisper.net – Advertising-think, the web, and PPC from Brad Geddes
12)Eyefall Search Marketing Blog – A London blog regarding PPC, affiliate marketing, and advertising
13)Joe’s Sem Blog – UK blog writing mostly about PPC, from Joe Williams
14)Joe Whyte – Social media, PPC, and industry news
15)Net Business Blog - eBooks, CPA, PPC, SEO/SEM, domaining, and web dev discussion from Matt Coddington
16)Organic Search Engine Marketing Strategies - PPC traffic and organic thinking from Hendry Lee
17)PPC Blog - Dan Sharp is a UK PPC practitioner who offers articles, news, discussions, and everything pay per click.
18)PPC Discussions – Paid search with particular focus on Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter from Jeremy Mayes Search Marketing Sage - Advice on SEO and PPC from Janet Driscoll Miller
19)SEO Chicks – Rockin’ SEO chicks Julie Joyce, Lisa Ditlefsen and Anita Chaperon write about SEO and PPC.
20)Shimon Sandler – PPC, SEO, & Internet marketing tactics
21)Sponsored B2B – A research based PPC site with an emphasis on best practices from Rick Tobin
22)The Lonely Marketer - Patrick Schaber posts about small business PPC, SEO, and Internet marketing
23)The PPC Book – PPC from the client side from Jeff Hudson
24)ppcThink-Master Stumbler Rose Sylvia weighs in with this a new PPC blog that rocks.
1)Inside AdWords-The official source for information about AdWords
2)Yahoo Search Marketing Blog- The official source for information about Yahoo Search Marketing.
3)The official blog for the Live Search team at Microsoft
4)Search Engine Land – Danny Sullivan’s post-SEW publication features amazing SEM industry news, insight, and tips. If you can only read one blog, this is it.
5)SEO Round Table - The pulse of the search marketing community
6)Search Engine Watch – The house that Danny Sullivan (and a lot of other talented folks) built still offers great articles and insight.
7)Search Engine Guide- Jennifer Laycock, master mommy linkbaiter, publishes this definitive small business SEM blog
8)Bruce Clay Blog- Internet business consultants
9)Cape Cod SEO - SEO and PPC for small businesses plus along with Cape Cod info from Derek Edmond
10)Elixr Systems Blog - SEO, PPC and online PR from James Peggie and Dylan Downhill
11)eWhisper.net – Advertising-think, the web, and PPC from Brad Geddes
12)Eyefall Search Marketing Blog – A London blog regarding PPC, affiliate marketing, and advertising
13)Joe’s Sem Blog – UK blog writing mostly about PPC, from Joe Williams
14)Joe Whyte – Social media, PPC, and industry news
15)Net Business Blog - eBooks, CPA, PPC, SEO/SEM, domaining, and web dev discussion from Matt Coddington
16)Organic Search Engine Marketing Strategies - PPC traffic and organic thinking from Hendry Lee
17)PPC Blog - Dan Sharp is a UK PPC practitioner who offers articles, news, discussions, and everything pay per click.
18)PPC Discussions – Paid search with particular focus on Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter from Jeremy Mayes Search Marketing Sage - Advice on SEO and PPC from Janet Driscoll Miller
19)SEO Chicks – Rockin’ SEO chicks Julie Joyce, Lisa Ditlefsen and Anita Chaperon write about SEO and PPC.
20)Shimon Sandler – PPC, SEO, & Internet marketing tactics
21)Sponsored B2B – A research based PPC site with an emphasis on best practices from Rick Tobin
22)The Lonely Marketer - Patrick Schaber posts about small business PPC, SEO, and Internet marketing
23)The PPC Book – PPC from the client side from Jeff Hudson
24)ppcThink-Master Stumbler Rose Sylvia weighs in with this a new PPC blog that rocks.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
10 Best Affiliate Networks
list of the 10 Best Affiliate Networks will give you a general rundown on these affiliate networks and how they operate.
1. Commission Junction (www.cj.com) Now owned by ValueClick, Commission Junction was one of the first affiliate networks. It is also one of the most important with many of the Top Fortune 500 companies listed here. CJ is an international network with excellent stats and tracking (some of the best you will find), along with regular monthly payments makes this the obvious first choice for anyone wishing to try affiliate marketing. For those new or old at affiliate marketing, CJ also holds regular seminars and training sessions. Most merchants offer pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale, one of the best features is the performance bonuses and incentives. As most experienced marketers will know, selling 50k to 100k each month for merchants will bring in the big incentives or bonuses. Commissions run as high as 50% but most are in 3% to 15% range. You have the option of direct deposit for your payments. One major plus, CJ will tell you which merchants and ads are earning the most revenue for affiliates so you can easily choose which merchants are worth promoting.
2. ClickBank (www.clickbank.com) ClickBank is another professional affiliate network with excellent stats and tracking. Easy to use and pays every two weeks. ClickBank is slightly different from the other networks in that it deals mainly with digital download products. The commissions from ClickBank are usually much higher than the other networks, around 40% to 50% or more. ClickBank has over 10,000 products but keep in mind, info-marketing products will have stiff competition from all the savvy and well established Internet marketers promoting these same products. Consider youself warned! The most successful marketing tactic here is to first dominate your targeted niche with your blogs and sites, then find affiliate products to match your content or niche subject matter, whether it be gardening equipment, gaming laptops or Mediterranean cruises!.
3. LinkShare (www.linkshare.com) LinkShare is another excellent affiliate network. It is one of the oldest affiliate networks on the web. LinkShare was recently acquired by the Japanese Portal Rakuten, with a price tag of $425 million. Very good stats and reporting with their Synergy Analytics system. Many Top Fortune 500 companies are presented here so you will no trouble finding products and services to romote. LinkShare pays commissions as they receive them from merchants - monthly checks.
4. Affiliate Window (www.affiliatewindow.com) Affiliate Window is an UK based affiliate network which offers top brand companies and good commission rates. Pays once a month and has excellent stats. Savvy affiliate marketers know promoting in other countries can be much easier than promoting in the American market place. Mainly because these other countries haven't become saturated with online marketers, little competition means more sales.
. Amazon (www.amazon.com) Amazon is another excellent affiliate network to join if you want to sell products from your site or blog. Amazon has excellent stats and the links are very easy to create and place on your web pages. You also have the option of creating your own store with Amazon aStores. Amazon also now has context link ads and Widgets! Commission rates are somewhat lower than the other networks but making sales thru Amazon is much, much easier. You will make more sales mainly because Amazon is a well known and trusted online company. Amazon now pays monthly.
6. Shareasale (www.shareasale.com) Shareasale is yet another easy system to work with good stats and simple to create links. With 1,700+ merchants to choose from, Shareasale is another good affiliate network to promote. The control panel is easy to use and the reporting is very good. Usually pays the month following your sales.
7. Google (www.google.com/adsense/) Many won't think of Google as an Affiliate network but it does run affiliate products thru its Adsense program. Very few products but like everything from Google it is professionally run and top caliber all the way. Please note, top marketers know affiliate links/products on their content pages will return 10 times what Google Adsense will give them. However, these marketers will also know using Google Adsense on less targeted pages throughout your sites or blogs will give you a healthy return. Besides receiving that monthly check from a multi-billion dollar company like Google will put a smile on your face every time.
8. LinkConnector (www.linkconnector.com) LinkConnector is a relatively new affiliate network which launched in 2004. It has Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead. Good stats and reporting. Worth checking out for their different types of new affiliate technology such as Direct Linking which passes pagerank along to the merchant's site.
9. CPA Empire (www.cpaempire.com) Great CPA (Cost Per Action) network especially if you do a lot of email marketing and promotions. Geared towards acquiring leads and sign-ups but does offer other merchants as well. Good stats and reporting.
10. Independents Individual affiliate deals with different companies which may or may not be listed with the major networks above. Your independent affiliate deals will be some of your most lucrative since you can sometimes work out separate private commission rates and bonuses. Aim for residual income here. Don't ignore this aspect of affiliate marketing as it will pay the highest dividends. Keep in mind, all the above affiliate networks are iddlemen, they come between you and the merchant you're promoting. For affiliates with a proven track record, who have shown they can deliver the customers and sales, a private deal cutting out the middleman/fees can prove very beneficial for both parties. If you're fortunate enough to become known as a super affiliate, these private deals will become more common and more profitable. Professional affiliate marketers use all of the above networks to create multiple income streams from their marketing efforts. In the process, they build a healthy monthly income for themselves and their families. There is no reason why you can't do the same.
Friday, December 14, 2007
How an Affiliate Marketing Works?
These days, it's remarkably easy to set up your own Web site. If you have a computer connected to the Internet, you can simply go to a site such as GeoCities or AOL and use their ready-made Web design templates to construct a simple personal page. These sites will give you a URL, store the content of your page and slap on some advertisements. Just like that, in an hour or two, your page is on the Web!
But what if you want to take your site to the next level? If you have a content-driven Web site, how can you make money off your traffic? If you are an online merchant, how can you get people to your site to buy your products? One popular option that serves both of these functions is an affiliate program. In this article, we'll examine affiliate programs to find out what they are, how they work, who they are for and how you can use them to benefit your Web site.
But what if you want to take your site to the next level? If you have a content-driven Web site, how can you make money off your traffic? If you are an online merchant, how can you get people to your site to buy your products? One popular option that serves both of these functions is an affiliate program. In this article, we'll examine affiliate programs to find out what they are, how they work, who they are for and how you can use them to benefit your Web site.
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