Tag Archives: facebook

To Direct Link or Not To Direct Link?

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It’s one of the oldest questions in Affiliate Marketing: to direct link or not to direct link? Google made their stance on the issue pretty clear when they all but banned direct linking on AdWords. Now they don’t even like so-called “bridge pages” which lead to affiliate offers with little content on them.

But still, traffic sources such as Facebook and PPV still allow for direct linking. I get asked almost every single day whether you should direct link a campaign or create a landing page for it. Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast answer. The truth is (and has always been) that some campaigns work better direct linked and some work better with landing pages. Neither method works better all of the time. You need to test it out.

That being said, a strategy that I have seen work well for affiliates is to direct link a campaign to quickly evaluate whether or not it has potential before they go to the trouble of building out a landing page. Especially if it is in a brand new niche that you have not promoted before, where you don’t have any creatives or landers sitting around ready to be used.

It’s easy to throw together a direct link campaign on PPV or Facebook. Run some traffic to it, and if you are getting enough conversions to break even, or even just under, it’s a good sign that the offer has some life to it. That’s when you can buckle down and put together a landing page to bring the ROI into the black and start making money.

 

5 Things I Love About PPV

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After I wrote my post called 5 Things I Hate About PPV, some people asked me to write about what I love about it. So here it goes.

1. You Can Bid On Anything

Any keyword or website that exists, you can bid on it. There is no other traffic source that allows you this type of freedom. For example, if you want to advertise on Wikipedia.org, you can. There’s no ads on it, so you can’t buy media on it and Google can’t serve AdSense on it. The only way to do it is with PPV. This allows you to get really creative and think outside the box with your campaigns to break away from the pack.

2. There Is Less Competition

Even though PPV has been one of the most talked-about and blogged-about traffic sources of the last couple of years, there are still far fewer advertisers utilizing it than PPC or traditional Media Buys. Less competition means more inventory and lower bid prices for the rest of us.

3. You Can Direct Link All You Want

Direct Linking has been all but impossible on Google for a long time now. This makes it hard to throw up a quick test campaign and see how an offer will convert. Even though usually Landing Pages beat out Direct Linking in the long run, it is definitely nice to have the option. I always split test a Direct Link versus a Landing Page to see what does better for each offer. You can never be sure until you try it.

4. Incredible Freedom With Your Ads & Creatives

It is super easy to get your ads approved. The only reason they disapprove ads is if they have prohibited content (see the Terms for your PPV network). There are no character limits, or size limits on images (other than the size of the entire browser window that pops). This means you can do things you can’t do on any other traffic source. On Google or Facebook you are limited to a short headline, a short description, and a tiny image (on FB). With PPV you can make the entire ad a big image with all the words you want on it and make the whole thing clickable. You can also add audio and video, which is unique to PPV as well.

5. There Are Less Copycat Advertisers

Even though there are now tools available that let you spy on some PPV campaigns, there is still way less copycatting going on than on practically any other traffic source. On Google, Facebook, Plenty of Fish, or anything else I can think of, you can just go to the site and see the ads that other people are running. This is why dating ads are so often copied on Facebook and then re-submitted ad infinitum (see what I did there?). It is still quite difficult to systematically spy on PPV campaigns, and you will have things run for much longer without getting copied.

Checking In: Location Based Affiliate Programs?

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Location based services have been all the rage lately.  What was started by Foursquare and others has been expanded upon by Twitter and now Facebook.  Now it seems like every social media website out there wants to know where you are located at all times.  Personally I think it’s a bit odd that people are willing to share all that info with the general public.  How long until thieves just sit on Foursquare and wait for people to check in at the local bar for the evening then head straight over to their house to rob the place?  But that’s neither here nor there.

Four Square

Remember playing the actual game of four square when you were a kid? Good times at recess.

All of the coverage about these services and seeing the shiny Check-In button on my Facebook Mobile app has got me thinking: will we soon see Affiliate Programs that take advantage of these services?  Right now mobile and local advertising are still trying to gain traction with a larger number of advertisers in the industry.  We have mobile pay-per-call campaigns like those provided by RingRevenue, so the check-in based offers can’t be far behind.

It would definitely lead to an interesting challenge.  Not only do you have to get the consumer to click on an ad, but also follow through by going to a physical location and checking in?  It all seems like a lot of work.  But it could be worth it if advertisers are willing to pay for that kind of user engagement.  Current ad campaigns that stores are running on Facebook Places and Foursquare are offering things like 20% of your total purchase at an H & M store if you check-in first.  That’s a pretty significant value for the consumer as well as the store.

To me this just illustrates why I love this industry so much.  There is always so much going on right at the cutting edge of technology that can give us new and exciting ways to make money and market products.  Some may see this new location-based world as being a little too similar to the ads that Tom Cruise experienced in Minority Report, but I think we are a long way off from that.  Besides, who cares?  I’d rather see ads about things that are actually targeted to me and my interests any day.

Were MMORPGs The First Social Media Platform?

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For the uninitiated, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs for short) are a type of computer game that is played over the Internet with a large number of fellow players who take on character roles in a fantasy or science-fiction based universe.  The most well-known and commonly referenced MMORPG is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, which has roughly 11.5 million players worldwide at last count. Each one of those players is paying $14.95 per month to Blizzard for the pleasure of continuing to play the game. Talk about the ultimate rebill, how would you like to have approximately $171,925,000.00 coming in to your company’s bank account each and every month? Granted, that is just revenue, not profit. Even so, revenue of over $2 billion per year is enough to make even Warren Buffett stand up and take notice. But I digress…

World of Warcraft vs FacebookEarlier today I was talking to an affiliate friend of mine and World of Warcraft came up. Being a recovering WoW addict myself, it got me thinking about the concept of why these games are so popular. The gameplay isn’t entirely original, they use the same basic mechanics of the Role Playing Games that have been a video gaming staple ever since the original Nintendo Entertainment System was released. It’s also not that they are the latest and greatest games out there. In fact, most of these games (including WoW) have been around for many years. It is certainly not the allure of the best graphics and technological breakthroughs that makes these games so addicting. So what is the secret sauce?

The social interaction.

It’s not the endless quests or the epic boss battles or even the pursuit of better and more powerful gear. The ability to spend time online engaging and interacting with your peers is what keeps people coming back. In fact, the effect of the social interaction in these games is what keeps people so glued to them that they forget to eat, sleep, or go to work. It’s not just a set of computer-manufactured goals that are in play, you are constantly seeking the approval of your fellow players. Since there are so many people playing online at the same time, there is no pause button. You can’t just walk away when the phone rings or when the pizza guy comes to the door, if you do that then your character will simply stand still in the online world and most likely will be killed and/or cause the deaths of everyone in your group.

My point is this: even though the world at large is just waking up to the wonders of “social media” and how much it transforms the lives of everyone that uses it, gamers have been experiencing and subscribing to the very same thing for years and years now. The first MMORPG was called Ultima Online, and it was released on September 25, 1997. The creator of Ultima Online, Richard Garriot, even coined the term MMORPG himself. The most amazing part about this pioneering game is that it is still active and running online today, almost 13 years later. I’m not sure how many of you remember the internet circa 1997, but there was no MySpace, no Facebook, and definitely no Twitter.

The funny thing about all this to me is that today we are seeing social media heading right back to where it started, with games. Just look at the success of Farmville and the other games being created and pushed on Facebook and beyond by companies like Zynga. You can’t even get a Slurpee at 7-Eleven right now without being bombarded with advertising for social games, and now that Google has invested some major capital into Zynga, we are only going to see these games evolving further and further into the mainstream.

So were MMORPGs the first social media platform? In my opinion the answer is clear.

Affiliate Marketing Is Dead, Everyone Move On

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How many times have you heard someone echoing this doomsday sentiment lately?  People act as if this has never happened before.  I can hear them now… “But Facebook ads are way harder to get approved now!  Plenty of Fish doesn’t have enough traffic!  Nobody believes offers anymore, they are getting too smart!  There are too many competitors on PPV!”

Oh noes! Aff mktg is dead!

Oh noes! Aff mktg is dead!

Maybe you got into affiliate marketing by accident.  Maybe you fell into your first profitable campaign and haven’t been able to duplicate it.  Maybe you’ve been sitting on autopilot spending all of your Acai money.  Whatever the case, these next few months are what separate the men from the boys.

This entire industry goes in cycles.  Much like the stock market.  There are bear markets and there are bull markets.  Can people make money in both?  Absolutely.  But not by doing the same thing.  Take a look around.  What are people talking about?  What are the fads now that you can make money off of?  What are the new traffic sources or affiliate offers that are popping up?

There is opportunity everywhere, but it is going to take some work to monetize it.  Let’s face it, the “work” that we have to do in this industry is not that bad.  We are not grabbing our shovels and pickaxes and going back into the coal mine.  We sit here in front of our computers every single day and make a lot of money for it.  The only thing that changes is you are actually doing work instead of screwing around on forums and wasting time all day.

To all the whiners out there, I hate to be harsh, but shut up and get back to work.

60% of the Time, It Works Every Time

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There’s no such thing as a surefire winner in Affiliate Marketing. That hot campaign that you have making $1,000 a day right now? It won’t last. The vertical that you have been tearing up for the last two years? It won’t last. Markets change. Audiences get wiser. Traffic sources dry up. There are about a million things that could go wrong at any point in time in this industry, and if you don’t have your income diversified, you will get stung sooner or later.

Are You Diversified?

If this is your business strategy, you are in trouble.

Diversification is something that you hear a lot about in the Investing world. Your broker will tell you, “You don’t want to put all of your money in stocks, or in bonds, or in cash alone. You want to have an even mix so you are both protected against loss and also maximizing your gain.”  Truer words were never said for Affiliate Marketing as well.

The absolute worst position to be in is one successful campaign on one traffic source.  That is an empty bank account waiting to happen.  Most affiliates know well enough that they shouldn’t just sit back and be lazy with one campaign, but I know at least some don’t. Avoid this at all costs.

Another thing you need to watch is when you are running multiple campaigns, but they are all on the same traffic source.  At least you are safe if one of your campaigns goes down. But what if the traffic source dries up?  Then you are back to square one.  Many affiliates were really slammed when Facebook tightened up their restrictions, you can learn from that.  Don’t put all your eggs in the Facebook basket, the Google basket, or even the PPV basket.  What if your network suddenly tells you that they aren’t going to accept any PPV traffic anymore on any campaigns?  These are tough questions that you need to be asking yourself on a regular basis if you want to survive in Affiliate Marketing.

The best thing that you can do to protect yourself from a bad situation is to build up an asset that belongs to you completely.  Create a content-based website in a solid niche that’s been around forever, or just that you can get a lot of traffic from a certain demographic and then sell the traffic.  Or you can build an email list.  An email list is an asset that you can take with you and keep promoting to no matter what happens to your offers, your networks, or other traffic sources.

The number one thing to remember here is that when you are buying traffic from someone and then selling it to someone else, you are the most vulnerable link in the chain and you can be replaced or eliminated at any time.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have job security by arbitraging, even for one second.

Are You Serious Facebook?

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I know I’m a few days late in writing about this one, and I was going to let it go. But every time that I read or see a link to that recent letter from Facebook it just burns me up. You know, the one where they say, “CPM ads will continue to get impressions but may receive less clicks.”  Wait, what?!?

Here are my questions to you based on that letter, dear Facebook:

  1. How are you going to make CPM ads get less clicks? Does this mean that you are going to stop people from clicking on my ads somehow? I’d really like to know what you mean by that.
  2. What makes you think that other performance marketers and I are going to sit around and suddenly be okay with paying double the cost for our ads? There are plenty of other places out there to buy traffic, and now more than ever I am going to be moving campaigns over to them.
  3. Do you really compare yourself to Google as a traffic source now that you are the #1 site in the US for monthly visitors? I’ll make it easy for you: don’t. Google can charge $14 a click on top keywords because it’s worth it. People that are searching for a Mesothelioma Lawyer are worth thousands and thousands of dollars. People that are browsing a social media site looking for ways to waste the rest of the hours in their work day are not.

In conclusion, Facebook has made another major play to screw affiliate marketers and anyone that knows how to arbitrage traffic. Sooner or later, they are going to realize that it will hurt them in the long run when they have completely eliminated a massive source of advertising revenue. The real question is, by the time they figure this out, will affiliates have moved on?

This one has.

MyAds Minimum Bid Price Is Now 1 Penny

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MySpace MyAds has never been as popular as Facebook Ads.  One of the major reasons is that overall, the traffic quality doesn’t seem to be as good as Facebook.  That, coupled with a $0.25 minimum CPC on MyAds, led to Facebook taking the lead early on.  But the times, they are a-changin’…  I personally am sick of getting my ads rejected under Facebook’s stricter policies, and will definitely be giving MyAds another try.

Now that the minimum bid price is only $0.01 on MyAds, with the right targeting and a high CTR, it should be more than possible to get a very positive ROI.  Keep in mind that a lot of MySpace users these days are of a younger age, since most adults have moved on to Facebook. Try promoting offers that would appeal to the youngsters.

Also, don’t use the banners that your affiliate network has available for you on MyAds.  CTR is everything, and 9 times out of 10 those default banners bite the big one.  They aren’t split-tested and optimized, they are just thrown together by some graphic designer making $25 an hour that has no clue how to market things online.

And there you have it!  Let’s make some monies.

Ad-Tech SF 2010: I Can Has Traffics?

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As I walked through the Exhibit Hall of Moscone Center West for Ad-Tech San Francisco 2010, I got the feeling that I was one of many.  Many affiliates and advertisers that have been scorned by Google and, most recently, Facebook.  Many people that were looking for the next big thing, or even better, the traffic source with killer ROI that nobody knows about.  You probably won’t hear a lot of people blogging or tweeting about what they found, but based on my experience I would say that most people got their money’s worth.  Especially if they knew what they were looking for.

For me, the real value was in the three events that I attended on Tuesday. First was the AffBuzz meetup at ‘Wichcraft, an excellent sandwich shop just a couple blocks from the convention center.  This was a great event because there was nobody sponsoring it, it was just affiliates and bloggers chilling and talking shop over lunch (that we paid for ourselves). I hope Justin decides to continue the meetup at future shows.

The second event was the Meetup202 event put on by Bloosky / Tracking202.  Say what you will about Bloosky and their nefarious schemes to make money off the of 202 users, they do know how to throw a good event.  I’m not just saying that because I walked away with a free iPad either, although it rocks (I’m sure I’ll post about that later).  All of the Meetup202 events I have been to at conferences have been the highlight.  I would travel just to go to the meetup, because the caliber of the people there is second to none.

I got to chat with Jon Shugart, the creator of Keyword Rockstar.  He’s a cool guy, really sharp and excited about his product.  I use it myself and I would definitely recommend checking it out. I’ve been meaning to do a review, maybe I’ll get around to it next month.

Finally, the PPC.bz / EWA Network party was definitely real.  They chose to have it at a full on concert venue instead of the typical tiny club or packed out hotel suite.  I personally liked this approach, as it gave everyone a little bit more room to spread out, mix, and mingle.

There wasn’t really anything spectacular or memorable that stuck out to me about the Exhibit Hall.  However, I did leave with the feeling that this was a good show and that I am going to make more money because of it.  And that’s all these things are really about, right?