Affiliate Convention FAILS After 1 Year

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UPDATE: As several commentors have pointed out, it looks like what really happened is the partnership that created Affiliate Convention did split up, but Webmaster Radio is going to keep it going.  The new site is live at AffCon2010.com (which I’m not going to link to). False alarm on the convention being shut down, but I do still feel that it was a terrible show last year and they had better do something drastically different to steer the fail boat ashore this year.

Google Still Hates Affiliates

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This is old news. We’ve all received a slap or two from Google. But does that make it hurt any less? If you prick us, do we not bleed? It had been a little while for me, and this last week I got another middle finger from Google. Must be on the right path with that campaign, just need to try other traffic sources.  But it brings it all back around for me. I’m still aghast at how Google treats Affiliate Marketers.

I don’t think it’s possible to figure out how much money Affiliates spend (or at least would spend if they were allowed) on Google Adwords. It’s definitely in the seven-to-eight-figures-per-month range.  With all of that revenue floating around, why would Google (and Facebook for that matter) just decide to turn it away?

Google, like Facebook, likes to chalk it up to something they call the “User Experience”. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good that Google cares about the results that people are finding on its Search Engine. You don’t want people to be searching for “skateboards” and getting pages selling wedding dresses. But what really burns me is how Google has outlawed “bridge pages”.  They define a bridge page as any page that leads to another website without adding any value.

In its very nature, Affiliate Marketing is taking a user and sending them through your affiliate link and to an advertiser’s page. In almost all cases, your affiliate link is going to be found on a website that you own. It could be a blog, website, or landing page. The problem is that Google won’t allow you to advertise these so-called bridge pages on Adwords. So if your website sends traffic to another website, you are the enemy to Google. Now it’s up to them to decide whether or not your landing page adds any value to the product or sales process.

Shouldn’t it be up to the customer to decide whether or not my landing page added any value? If they bought from me, to me that says I provided a valuable page to them. Too bad Google doesn’t agree.

Apple’s iAd (Not iPad) Is The Future

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There have been rumblings for quite a while now about how Apple is making moves to be a competitor in the mobile ad space. And why wouldn’t they? It only makes sense, seeing as how they created the device that really launched the mobile ad space in the first place… But outside of blog posts and news reports, I hadn’t seen or heard what their ad platform was going to look like. That is until now.

Feast your eyes and ears on this video. Yes it is 10 minutes long, but it is a must-watch if you have any interest in the future of mobile advertising.

Frankly, I am completely blown away by what Apple is about to do here. They are taking a truly forward-looking and fully interactive approach to mobile advertising. This is going to be a completely new form of ad. The current mobile ads in the space are primarily served by Google, and they consist of text or image ads from the Content network that randomly get shifted into Apps with very little targeting at all. And, as Steve Jobs points out in this video, if you click on them you get rudely yanked out of your app and to the advertiser’s website. Also, a lot of times, this website hasn’t even been created or optimized for mobile browsers!

Apple is going to have a winner on their hands here, no doubt about it. The only question is, how easy are they going to make it for people to create these ads? Obviously the Toy Story 3 example that they gave was a very intensive and professionally created ordeal. Your average local business owner or affiliate is not going to have the ability and the resources to create something on that level. If they make some type of tool with templates, animations, audio, etc. that people can throw together in an ad, that could work. Who knows? Maybe a whole new niche will be born in advertising as design houses learn the iAd system and how to create for it.

The only thing for certain at this point is that iAd is going to be huge. And with the smashing success of the iPad and the huge outlook for mobile internet usage, the sky is going to be the limit.

The Secret To Getting Killer CTR

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Let’s face it: Click Through Rate (CTR) can either make or break your campaign. Whether you are doing PPC, PPV, or especially with CPM & Media Buys, your CTR is often the determining factor in whether you make money or not. Since this is the case, it never ceases to amaze me how many affiliates (myself included) forget to put hard work and thought into the #1 thing that affects your CTR: your ad copy.

Putting together a campaign usually goes something like this:

  • Spend several hours doing niche research
  • Spend a couple of hours finding the best keywords
  • Spend a few more hours creating your landing page
  • Ready to launch!
  • Oh wait, I have to put some ads up here… I’ll just copy & paste what the other guys or doing, or just throw in some text off the top of my head

And then you wonder why nobody is clicking through to see your awesomely designed landing page and your super-targeted offer… Guess what?  Ad copy has a massively huge part to play in your campaign’s success. Coming up with consistently killer ad copy and images is probably the most important skill you can have as a marketer. If you can’t do that, then what can you really do? Copy campaigns? Put tracking together? Load keywords into Google? That’s great, but that could all be outsourced to a monkey.

The real value that affiliates bring to the table is in our creative approach to campaigns and ad copy. You think that the company whose service or product you are promoting hasn’t tried direct-linking their website on the major search engines for their primary keywords? They have. They either have that on lock and therefore have those keywords blacklisted from you, or it doesn’t work and they turned to CPA Networks and Affiliates to think outside the box and get them leads from sources that they don’t know about or don’t understand well enough to do themselves.

Take some time to educate yourself on the basics of sales, marketing and advertising. All of the knowledge you can get from studying the fundamentals will go straight to your ad copy, and your CTR.  Even if some of the principles were created for print advertising, it still applies online. I don’t care if it seems like homework. If you want this to be a serious business for you then you need to treat it like one.  Read some books on marketing & advertising. There are literally thousands of them written. You will not regret the time you put into bettering yourself as a marketer.

Here are a few of my favorites to get you started (not affiliate links):

Read These Books

R.I.P. Facebook Ads – April 2010

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Well we had a good run. When I first met you Facebook, you were just a kid. You didn’t know what the true potential of your platform was worth, and you let me put ads on you for cheap! Those were the days. We made lots of money together. But now, you are all grown up. You have decided that it’s not me, no, it’s you that’s changed. You think I’m a nice affiliate, but you would rather not take my ads and my money anymore. Where you are going to get advertising dollars from now, I’m not sure. But you must have someone better in mind because you certainly don’t want to hang out with the likes of me anymore.

All kidding aside, Facebook has effectively given the middle finger to affiliate marketers with its latest update to their advertising policy.  Let’s look at what was actually sent out to affiliates from Facebook, and I’ll do my best to translate…

Improving Ad Quality
Ad quality and user feedback have always been important considerations for Facebook Ads, and are significant factors in  determining which ads we accept and display on the site. We’ve recently taken a close look at the ads that drive the most negative feedback, and identified four key themes behind ads that are detrimental to the user experience. As a result, we’re strengthening our Advertising Guidelines in these key areas to ensure that all Facebook Ads meet our high quality standards.

Translation: “We have decided that we would rather piss off our advertisers than explain to our users that Facebook is a free-to-use, ad-driven website that they choose to visit.”

Unexpected User Experience
Advertised products may not generate any unanticipated user experience. This includes, but is not limited to:
1 Computer performance changes, such as the unexpected installation of any secondary software or the overlay of advertisements on the user’s browser or operating system
2 Unanticipated recurring charges
3 Undisclosed sale or distribution of requested user information. Any distribution of user information must be confirmed through
user consent.

This part is actually not that bad. I don’t disagree with the new guideline. Advertisers shouldn’t be messing with users’ computers.

Unclear Recurring End Product
Advertisements must be clear and straightforward in describing any recurring end product to the user. The advertised offer must directly match the service being sold, and ads should provide the user with a clear understanding of what he or she is purchasing.
Facebook Ads for products with recurring billing cycles should not:
1 Focus on an advertised “hook” without disclosing the core subscription-based service.
Example: “Take a quiz!” (for a service that includes ringtones, wallpaper, or other undisclosed services)
2 Position a subscription-based service as a single product or billing interval.
Example: ”Try now for $2.95” (for a service that includes monthly billing intervals)

Translation: “Advertising may no longer be phrased to try and excite the user, encouraging them to sign up. In fact, ad copy must now do everything possible to discourage the user from clicking the ad and, God forbid, signing up for the offer. We now know that our users are too stupid to make their own decisions, so we are going to decide for them what they should or should not do with their money.”

Unsubstantiated Claims
Ads must not include unsubstantiated claims. Ads must clearly represent the offer, company, product, or brand that is being advertised.
Unacceptable claims include, but are not limited to:
1 Unrealistic prices or rates.
Examples: “$0.50 LCD TVs,” “$10/month health insurance”
2 Use of current events or news reports to create false associations with the advertised product. Political events or images may not be used for an irrelevant commercial agenda.
Example: “Breaking News: Great car insurance rates”
3 Use of false qualifications to create a sense of relevancy
Example: “If you are right-handed, you qualify for low premiums”
4 Implication of dynamic ad content
Examples: “7 minutes remaining,” “only (3) available”
5 Implied knowledge or passing of user data
Examples: “See who searched for you,” “you have been chosen”

Translation: “Advertising must not be creative whatsoever. If it is worded in a way that makes a user want to click the ad, then it is probably not going to be allowed anymore. We now prefer to present them with a list of products and services resembling a page in the phone book, and if they happen to be looking for ‘Reasonably Priced But Not Too Cheap Health Insurance’ while they are browsing through pictures of their ex, then they will surely respond to that ad.”

Unacceptable Business Models
Ads will not be permitted in cases where a business model or practice is deemed unacceptable or contrary to Facebook’s overall advertising philosophy. Unacceptable business models include, but are not limited to:
1 Lead generation offers which sell or distribute a user’s information to larger extent than indicated by the landing page
2 Offers that require a user to complete several hidden steps or make additional purchases in order to receive the promised product
3 Offers that require the input of user information for complete access to offer or product details
4 Ads promoting deceptive recurring billing services
5 Downloadable software that may affect the user’s computer or browser performance in unexpected or undesirable ways

Translation: “No affiliate offers from any CPA network will ever be allowed again.”

So there you have it. Facebook has decided that it no longer needs the advertisers that are paying them to keep the doors open. I don’t know what their plans for the future are, but they certainly don’t include us.

FTC Cracks Down On Free Credit Report Offers

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Free Credit Report offers have been a hot ticket for a long time. From the annoying FreeCreditReport.com jingles on TV to the hundreds (if not thousands) of websites and affiliate offers, people have been making money on this vertical.  However, it might get slightly tougher to convert these offers now that the FTC has passed down a new law.

Effective April 1, 2010, all marketers using the words “free credit report” in any creative (text ad, banner, landing page, email subject line, etc.) must include a large & prominent ( and clickable) disclosure across the top of each page mentioning “free credit reports” that states:

FTC Notice

Yikes.  This is pretty similar to when Google started forcing people promoting ringtones to put “$9.99 per month” right in their text ads.  It definitely hurt marketers, but they found other ways to market the offers.  I think this change is actually worse than that was, because you have to put it right on your landing page or the advertisers have to put it right on their offer page.  It will be there no matter what traffic source you use to get the clicks.

So, is this the end of Free Credit Report offers, or will it simply be another bump on the road to success for crafty marketers?

Hydra Dumps 100% Of Their Credibility

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I got an email this morning with an article from mThink (Revenue Magazine) about how Hydra is dumping 15,000 affiliates off of their network.  I’m sure that every network goes through a phase where they want to tighten up their ranks and get rid of the fraud affiliates that have penetrated the approval process, but isn’t this a bit excessive?  It seems to me that the only reason Hydra would do something like this is to get some free publicity.  Hydra (Sinking Ship)

The best part about all of this is that Hydra states they are doing it to separate themselves from “ad networks peddling nutraceutical diet remedies, cash grant opportunities, tooth whiteners and other non-branded campaigns of low consumer value.”  Oh, you mean the exact same type of offers that you made hundreds of millions of dollars on?  The offers that established Hydra as a force in the industry?  And now that the rug has been pulled out from under the rebill market you are focusing on other things?  How valiant of you Mr. Brandenburg!

I don’t usually post about things like this but the way that Hydra is positioning itself right now combined with their ongoing legal battles and the arrogance of their CEO has just really rubbed me the wrong way for a while now, and this new move is the icing on the cake.  I had to say something.

I feel much better now.  Back to the grind!

26 Yr Olds Getting Free iPads? Facebook Says No More

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How many times recently have you seen an ad like this showing up in your Facebook profile?

Age Targeted FB Ad

Unfortunately for marketers, the fun is over.  Facebook sent out the following email today:

Ad quality and user feedback are extremely important to Facebook. We’ve received significant negative feedback about ads that call out users’ personally identifiable information, especially when the information is not directly relevant to the ad’s offer. We take this feedback very seriously and are taking an active role in removing ads that are detrimental to the user experience. Some of your ads have been disabled for this reason.

Please delete any ads using this tactic that may still be running and do not submit new ads that call our user attributes unnecessarily and that are not directly relevant to the offer (including, but not limited to, age, gender, location or interest). This practice is prohibited by Facebook’s Ad Guidelines (http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php). Advertisers who continually engage in advertising practices that generate strong negative feedback will find that their ads are less likely to be shown to users and may have their ads disabled or face account penalties up to and including the permanent loss of advertising privileges.

Looks like people aren’t appreciating the laser-targeted ad text…  Oh well.  Back to the drawing board….

Affiliate.com T-Shirts for Haiti

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Affiliate.com is doing a blogging contest to raise money for Haiti (and for the winning blogger). To enter the contest you are supposed to take a picture of yourself wearing their latest t-shirt.  I figured, why do that when we could have a showdown of all the other guys that have posed for the contest!  Unfortunately, it appears that the only people that have actually taken a picture of themselves for this contest were Shoemoney and Ian Fernando.  Take your pick*:

Shoemoney rocks the Affiliate.com shirtIan fernando rocks an affiliate.com t-shirt

*There’s not a poll or anything, because polls are lame.

There were also blog posts by a number of the usual crew like Zac Johnson, John “I’m Gonna Lick His Neck” Chow, and Murray Newlands.  Instead of being creative, however, they simply chose to grab the image from the email that Affiliate.com sent out and post it on their blog.  Real creative guys.  If you don’t want to immortalize yourself by doing a gangster pose in an affiliate tee, at least come up with a nifty way to get around it…

On a serious note, if you haven’t donated anything to the relief efforts in Haiti, it only takes a second and you can do it by going to StillerStrong.org or texting “Haiti” to 90999 and charging $10 to your phone bill.  Every little bit counts.  We all make tons of money compared to people living in third world countries, let’s share the wealth a little bit.