Tag Archives: google

Google TV: Coming To Your Living Room

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Google is at it again. After dominating the search world, and making a play to dominate the mobile advertising world, now they are inviting themselves into your living room with a new product called Google TV.  It is a joint effort with Sony, and it is supposed to be way better than WebTV (remember that?).

The Big G definitely has their work cut out for them.  It’s been tried before, and it didn’t do too well.  Nowadays there are plenty of Media Center PCs about.  So if consumers want web on their TV, wouldn’t they just get one of those? Only time will tell.

Google TV

The interesting angle here is for marketers.  As with mobile, there will be a big opportunity for people who jump into this fast.  There’s a very strong possibility that if Google is the one behind it, there is going to be advertising involved.  What new types of ads and user engagement will Google TV provide?  Capturing someones attention while they are at home and relaxing could be a good thing for some offers, especially entertainment-based or even dating offers.

I haven’t heard anything yet on how the ads will work, and I’m only guessing at this point that there will even be ads.  Maybe the new device will just display the web we are all used to seeing, and there won’t be any platform specific ads.  Either way, new and different ways to connect with people online are springing up at a rapid rate, and the next ten years looks to be a good decade for the online world…

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.

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?

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

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?