We all know that landing pages are a very important part of PPC marketing, but it is important to realize that they can have a huge effect on your PPV (Contextual) campaigns as well. It seems like most people that start PPV are just doing it to direct link. It is quite attractive to forget about all the variables except the offer and the URLs you are targeting, but you might be hurting yourself in the long run by doing this.
For example, I was experimenting with a ringtones campaign on Media Traffic. I had about 1,000 URLs setup for my targets, and I decided to just start with direct linking by grabbing my Contextual Affiliate Link for the campaign (it was Ringtones.net at affiliate.com). It started getting traffic immediately after I set it live, and before the day was out I had about 1,000 views (displays) on the offer. To my dismay, there wasn’t a single lead showing!
What I didn’t realize initially is that Media Traffic only displays a 750 by 550 window for your ad. Once I tested it, I realized that with the smaller window size a good portion of my ad was being obscured. No wonder it wasn’t converting very well, they were only looking at half of a landing page! I asked my account rep, and he confirmed that 750 by 550 is the max for MT as of now. They are considering going to 800 by 600 (like Zango) sometime in the future.
This was what led me to create my first landing page for a PPV campaign. The main reason was so that I could control exactly what was being viewed by the user when my ad pops up. For starters, I made sure that the LP I created was exactly 750 by 550. There would be nothing obscured this time. Also, with PPV you don’t have to worry about putting a bunch of arbitrary text on the page, because there is no Quality Score issues or “User Experience” to worry about. The results to my initial LP were very promising. I put it up on Friday night, and by the end of the day Sunday I had generated a 20% profit. Not too shabby for the first try.
I quickly realized that one of the other benefits to having an LP is that you can tell how many people are clicking on your ad and determine your click-thru ratio. If you are just direct linking to the Contextual link then you will lose all your click data, and impressions and leads alone are not enough info to tweak your campaign for the maximum profit. On my page for example, I found out that I was getting about a 2.3% CTR. The next step would be to play with the ad copy & images on the landing pages to get a higher CTR. For PPV, it needs to be something eye-catching so they don’t just immediately close the window when it pops up. Consider what page they are going to be viewing already when the ad pops up, and consider modeling it after the design of that page.
Whatever you do, testing is the key. The right ad, displayed to the right people, is what creates a killer campaign. Now go make some money!
I don't get it – the media traffic lander was optimized for a 750 x 550 screen? seems odd. are you tlaking about popup traffic maybe? or cpm ads? never heard of ppv except in tv.
Yes I am talking about popup traffic. If you are new to PPV, then check out my first 2 posts about promoting with PPV / Popups here and here.
Hey JT, thanks for another great post on PPV…quick question though,
How did you go by creating a 750×550 LP?
Did you use Dreamweaver and set the webpage size to 750×550?
I’m a noob to PPV and didn’t notice MT only displayed a 750×550 window…could be the reason why my PPV venture been sucking 😛
What I do is use Photoshop to create the 750 x 550 image, then use File, Save For Web to create the HTML and export the images. Then I open up the new HTML in Dreamweaver and add hotspots for the links where I want them. You could also just use Dreamweaver if you want, especially if you are trying to setup some type of form for collecting your own data, but that’s another post…
Ahhh I see…thanks!
I’ll give this a try
Keep up the good work…you got a very informational blog, also PPV has always been a “hush hush” subject.
Thanks again JT!
"What I do is use Photoshop to create the 750 x 550 image, then use File, Save For Web to create the HTML and export the images. Then I open up the new HTML in Dreamweaver and add hotspots for the links where I want them. You could also just use Dreamweaver if you want, especially if you are trying to setup some type of form for collecting your own data, but that’s another post…"
Definitely wouldn't mind seein that post 😉
Great tips, will definitely be put to use when I get into PPV.
Hey Josh,
Dumb question, but when I create my landing page in Photoshop, and then slice it up, export, etc…..when I try to add text (to the landing page) in Dreamweaver, it makes the image slice automatically white. Is there any way to do this without making the image slice white, besides making the text an image?
I’m not exactly sure what is happening, but I usually just make the text in an image.
If the product comes with a standard 430×600 size add, can you just take it and resize it to fit the dimensions according to Media TRaffic? Do you recommend making your own? What works best?
You can actually change the size of the popup window in the Media Traffic settings, so if it's smaller than 750×550, you can make it fit perfectly.
I'm not sure if this matters but if your whole page is an image the search engine spiders will see you as just an image with no content. Shouldn't you have some sort of on site SEO also. So if you make the page in dreamweaver to you apply your page image then add content around it? Probably doesn't matter if you just add the keywords to your alt text. Just wondering.
You are correct, search engine spiders will not be able to see your page, but that's fine because it doesn't matter. Most people exclude their landing pages from the indexing with a robots.txt file anyways. You are going to be sending traffic directly to the page, so no SEO elements are required.
but wouldn’t getting spidered help with the rankings? Why would they exclude their LP’s from the spiders? Is there any advantage to this?
Rankings don't matter. You are sending traffic directly to the LP with PPV, and that is the only reason you created the LP in the first place. People exclude their LP's from the spiders because they don't want other affiliate marketers to see their hot landing page and copy it.
OK that makes sense. So you're using your network to send traffic to your LP. I was intrigued so I tried making a .JPG that looks like a webpage created a link map in dreamweaver but I can't control the overall size of the page. Do I place the whole page into a layer or table?
I promoted some CPA offers in convert2media after a while it converts.. But suddenly they banned me without clear explanation..
I emailed them, and they just ignoring me..
So guys if you wanna run PPV traffics just make sure you make your AM know about what're you doing…
Oh right.. maybe C2M didn't have any AM..
Ah well…
go try cpaflash, they have lots of email submits with even above $2 payout! I used ppv pomote their offers, paid bi-weekly… Maybe you can try it too…
One thing that puzzles me about PPV marketing is the use of pop-up windows. Do people STILL click on pop-ups?
Given their bad rep, I'm surprised pop-ups are still being used at all.
Yes, they do. Besides, PPV is a little different than the pop-ups that prompted every browser to add Pop Up Blockers. It's not a little ad, it is actually a full browser instance that is opened by the software, so it looks much more legit than a spammy little pop up window. And it pops up on the top.
Hey Josh i am starting PPV marketing but i am low on budget what do u suggest should i Direct Link or should i make Landing Pages for List Building?
Direct Linking works fine to get started. Try something like Dating that has a lot of potential targets.
I created a page with Nvu. I uploaded it to my hosting site. I formatted it 750 by 550 with Nvu but it shows up as a whole website on my hosting account. Is this normal? And when i do my PPV campaign will it automatically reset to 750 by 550?
Yes the window size will automatically be 750×550 by default on Media Traffic and most other PPV networks. Just make sure your creative (site) fits within that and you should be fine.
Josh, nice pages!
So, on "most networks" the max window size is 750×550.
Is this the inside or the outside?
What's the biggest image size that fits the window?
Generally, can I bid any exact URL? Can I use regular expressions?
Can I bid URLs thru which a page is redirected?
Can I bid the URL of an image on the page?
Do any of the networks offer serving the LP so that I can do
CPC bids instead of PPV? Would this be more expensive?
2.3% CTR would be 0.65 CPC if a view is 0.015. How low can you go
without huge effort?
So, on "most networks" the max window size is 750×550.
Is this the inside or the outside?
This is the inside of the browser window, just the content. It doesn't include the address bar or the status bar at the bottom of the browser window.
What's the biggest image size that fits the window?
750×550
Generally, can I bid any exact URL? Can I use regular expressions?
Yes, you can bid on any URL, unless it is not approved by the PPV network. I'm not sure what you mean about regular expressions.
Can I bid URLs thru which a page is redirected?
Yes
Can I bid the URL of an image on the page?
No. It has to be a URL that people visit with their browser address bar. Images are just loaded by the HTML in the web page.
Do any of the networks offer serving the LP so that I can do
CPC bids instead of PPV? Would this be more expensive?
I don't know of any network that does pop up windows on a PPC basis. This would defeat the whole purpose of the PPV model.
2.3% CTR would be 0.65 CPC if a view is 0.015. How low can you go
without huge effort?
Your mileage may vary, you just have to test it out. There are too many factors to each campaign to give a general answer to this question.
What URL matching options are there? Will http://www.domain.com/dir/*
match everything in the directory?
Okay, so I can bid on a URL which is in the middle of a series of redirections,
but will it trigger the popup?
What type of URLs do not get approved? Will every bidded URL have to
be reviewed?
These are all good questions, but they are going to vary for each PPV Network, and would best be answered by an Account Manager for the network.
Hey Todd,
When I use PS to photoshop a 750×550 image and save it for web then hotlink certain part of the image with DW.
Will MT auto-adjust to the 750×550?
Just curious because when I view my LP its just a 750×550 image on the top left corner of my LP with white space.
Haven't tried seeing how it pop up as when a viewer has that Adware install on their computer.
@GMGP Yes, with Media Traffic the default window size will automatically be 750×550. If you want to see what it will look like yourself, you can do a test click. To do this, go into the Edit Campaign screen, and under Current Destinations, click the Modify button to the right of your LP Destination. This will bring up an Advanced Features menu where you can confirm the exact window size, and click the Test It! button to see what it looks like.
When I click the "Test it" button in MT, is it suppose to simulate an 750×550 pop-up?
Because when I clicked it, it opens another tab on my browser with my LP but instead of just showing my 750×550 LP, it shows the my LP with a lot of white space to the left of it, like a full page.
Is there a certain code I have to include in to my LP to just open as a 750×550 webpage?
TIA
GMGP!
Hmm, I believe you can mess with the options, such as selecting "Landing Page" and whether or not it has scroll bars. See if that works. If not, you might want to contact your AM at MT.
I have done the direct linking, but know struggling with the landing page, where does it go, do you create a subdomain or a directory to put it on, I use hostgator, wpd, I tried both, but on the directory it shows up with the wpd theme? I have done it in dreamweaver, then uploaded to hostgator on the subdomain, still no joy.
You will need to have a domain name first, and have the nameservers for the domain pointed to your hostgator account. You also need to make sure the domain has been created on hostgator. From your cpanel, go to Addon Domains and create it. Once that is done, you should have a new directory in your FTP for the new domain. Upload your landing page to this directory and you should be good to go.
For simple landers that look the part and convert like crazy, you could check out getlandersgetpaid.
Here are the pop-up/pop-under sizes for each of the PPV networks…
Media Traffic: 750×550
Lead Impact (formerly Zango): 800×600
Traffic Vance: 800×600
This info should help people when creating LPs for each network.