Category Archives: News & Updates

Can Ringtones Still Make Money On Google?

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If you are promoting ringtones offers, then you no doubt have been affected by the recent changes to Google’s AdWords policy regarding mobile offers.  The question is, how big of a hit is this to the Ringtones vertical?  Is it still possible to market Ringtones on Google?

One thing that can be said about affiliate marketers is that they are a creative bunch.  Anytime something like this happens in the industry, there is a few days of moaning and gnashing of teeth, but after that everyone gets back to work and decides that it’s just another obstacle to overcome.  Some of the big guys might even be glad for changes like this because it knocks the newbies out of the running for a while.  It will take some time for the effects to be fully felt, but perhaps the change could even result in lower click costs, due to less competition.

Google AdWords Machine

Grants? Nope. Acai? Nope. Ringtones? Hmm...

When you are thrown a curveball from the big G, it’s time to take a look at the variables and see what can be changed to increase conversions.  The glory days of 2002 are long gone, there will be no more promotion of ringtones on Google AdWords by telling people that it’s free, when it in fact costs money.  Now that you’ve got that ugly “$9.95/month” telling people not to click on your ads, you need to give them some other reason to.  Luckily you still have control over some of the most important aspects of your ads, the Headline and the Display URL.

SendMe Mobile recently sent out an alert to their partners pointing out the effect of changing the position of the carrier name in the Display URL has.  Most of the ads that you see will put the carrier after the slash, as in “URL.com/Verizon”.  SendMe suggests that they have seen an increase in CTR from putting the carrier as a sub-domain at the start of the Display URL as in “verizon.URL.com”.

This makes sense because it appeals to the people looking for a trustworthy source for their ringtones.  Now that the pricing is on all the ads, people are going to want to give their money to someone that seems legit, as opposed to “TonsOfFreeTones.com” ($9.95/month).

Of course there is the other alternative, which I’m sure many of you have thought about, which is to get your traffic from somewhere else.  I’ve heard more than once that Ringtones have been dead on Google for a long time, and while I disagree, this proves that people are not just relying on Google for 100% of their traffic.  It’s time to look at the alternatives, even outside the big 3 search engines.  There is lots of 2nd and 3rd tier search engines to be found, and there’s also PPV, not to mention doing specific Media Buys or direct ad placements on websites.

To answer the original question, yes, I think that Ringtones can still make money on Google, but it might be less and less a part of your overall marketing strategy for these offers.  It’s time to put on the thinking cap, go back to the drawing board, and get creative.

Now go make some money!

Server Change Successful!

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I made the transistion from WordPress.com over to a self-hosted WordPress installation today, and my database survived intact!  It was not my first time setting up a WP installation or anything, but it’s always nasty when you have to transfer databases…  Not too many changes on the blog for now, although I am looking forward to finding a theme that works better for me, so you might see some more drastic visual changes coming up.

Also, this blog is going to be more of a priority for me going forward.  So far I’ve done a few useful posts, but mostly industry news stuff.  I like doing the news stuff so I will keep doing that, but I am going to do my best to share my experiences on the affiliate side of the game.

I want to have the whole package.  I want to be a successful A.M. for affiliate.com, and I want to be a successful internet marketer by any other means possible as well.  I will be posting different marketing tricks and my experience with them to help save you time when you decide to get the ball rolling on a new traffic stream.

So grab a chair, stick around, and feel free to leave a comment once in a while.  If I know what you guys are dying to learn, then I can step up and take a swing at it myself.  First up, I am experimenting with the fascinating (and sometimes confusing) world of PPV, or Contextual advertising.  There will be a full post on this coming up soon.  I just need to do some fine tuning on my campaigns before I spill the beans.

Oh, and if I don’t speak to you sooner, Merry Christmas!

Don’t Spam Social Media Sites, Or Suffer The Consequences

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facebookIn case you were considering using a Botnet or an army of outsourced data entry workers to farm Facebook and/or Myspace accounts, don’t do it.  Today Facebook sent a sturn message to spammers everywhere by winning an $873 million judgement against a user named Adam Guerbuez that sent 4 million spam messages promoting marijuana, male enhancement projects, and other junk offers.

It wasn’t that long ago that the legendary Sanford Wallace pulled a similar stunt on Myspace, illiciting a $230 million judgement against him.  That figure seemed ridiculously high at the time, but here we are not more than six months later with a judgement almost four times higher.

Let’s look at the risk vs. rewards here.  According to recent studies, spam isn’t as profitable as it was thought.  People have wised up.  After all, how many ads for “Viagkra” have you clicked on when they show up in your inbox?  As fun as it seems to have a network of computers working for you 24/7 to beat the system and fill up your bank account with untold riches is, it just doesn’t happen that way.  With a response rate of 0.00001%, it would be hard to turn any profits, let alone bank it big.

Then you have the Terms & Conditions to worry about.  There are all sorts of Terms & Conditions involved with internet marketing.  The Terms of the ad networks, the Terms of the search engines, the Terms of the social media networks, etc.  If you violate any of these Terms & Conditions, then you are not going to get paid, and you might risk legal action.

How would you like to wake up with an $873 million dollar debt hanging over your head?  I didn’t think so.  So play it safe, there is plenty of money to be made in the legitimate world of internet marketing.  Trust me.

Obama’s VP Pick – Bad for Online Community?

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This is a very interesting angle to the 2008 Presidential Race.  John McCain could potentially get a leg up on the tech-savvy community by going after Barack Obama’s running-mate Joe Biden for his past Senate voting record against Net Neutrality.

According to CNET, “On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that ‘the chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.’ Obama, on the other hand, has been a strong supporter of handing pre-emptive regulatory authority to the Federal Communications Commission.”

In multiple cases, Joe Biden has also sided with the FBI, Hollywood, and the RIAA regarding Copyright law.  In fact, according to CNET, “Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA’s Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance…”

This is an issue that could have long-term repercussions in the online industry, even the affiliate marketing and online advertising industries could eventually feel the shockwaves.  If Biden starts pushing Bills to side with everyone but the little guy, who’s going to be next?  Affiliate Marketers?  Online entrepreneurs?  It’s a scary thing when you start to mess with Net Neutrality (which I am a big supporter of).

We need to take action to make sure that the free internet stays free in the years to come, especially as it becomes more and more a part of our daily lives and our livelihood.  You can read the more at Adotas and CNET.

New changes to Google AdWords Quality Score

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Google is doing it again.  Although they are sure to be controversial (they always are), these changes could benefit Affiliate Marketers a lot more than the last few rounds of changes.

Here are the changes:

  • Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query
  • Keywords will no longer be marked ‘inactive for search’
  • ‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’ in your account

The first point on the list is huge.  Instead of using a broad Quality Score to determine the placement of your ads, Google will be calculating the Quality Score on the fly based on a number of factors.  These factors include Keywords and Geographical Location.  In my opinion, it’s about time Google implemented an automatic Geo-Targeting method for ads, and it’s finally here.  How nice would it be to never have to worry about paying for clicks that get sent to a “country-specific redirect”.  There have been controls to specify what countries your ad gets placed in for years, but nevertheless it still happens.

The second change involves keywords no longer being labeled ‘Inactive for Search’.  This won’t necessarily be a huge boon to search marketers, but it does increase the overall pool of terms & keywords that can be targeted, even if they are extremely longtail.  More keywords equals more clicks and revenue for affiliate marketers.

Possibly the biggest change is the new ‘First Page Bid’ listing.  It has long been a guessing game to figure out the sweet spot between paying too much for clicks, and having your ads show up on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th page of results.  Some might say that this will cause an upward trend in keyword bid prices, because inexperienced marketers will now know how much they need to bid to get on the first page.  I don’t see this being a long term issue, because they will either run out of money or decide it’s not worth it to bid with the big boys because they can’t get the traffic to back out for them.

My feeling is, the more transparency that Google has, the better.  It’s no fun trying to guess what you need to do to be successful as a search marketer.  The more information we have about how the system works, the better that we will be able to use it and optimize our campaigns to be as profitable as possible.  It doesn’t matter how complicated the system is, the cream will rise to the top.  If you are a full time affiliate marketer, you should take these changes and run with them to gain a lead on the competition as quickly as possible.

If you want to read the changes for yourself, checkout the official post on the AdWords Blog.

Come on in…

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Welcome to Inside Affiliate.  My name is Josh Todd and I’m an Affiliate Manager at CPA Empire, a cost-per-action affiliate network.  This blog is going to be an outlet for all things Affiliate Marketing, whether it’s trends in the industry, new ideas, old ideas, gossip, hate mail, flame wars, the whole thing.

So pull up a chair, feel free to subscribe to the feed, and prepare to be amazed!  Ok, that was cheesy, but at least prepare to be occupied for 5-10 minutes whenever there’s a new article posted.  For free.  Normally you have to pay for that kind of entertainment, right?