Tag Archives: google

Google Launches YouTube Video Targeting Ads

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YouTube Video Targeting

Google has just launched a brand new type of ad unit for AdWords that is now in Beta, called the YouTube Video Targeting Tool.  Every time there is a new ad marketplace that opens up, there is a massive displacement that can be taken advantage of by savvy marketers.  The people that jump in early are going to have a definite advantage in this game.

One of the coolest things about the new YouTube Video Targeting Tool is that you can get very specific with your targeting, right down to selecting individual videos.  You can also target by demographics, channels, and some other methods.

You can choose from two different ad units, InVideo Overlay and In-Stream Video.  The InVideo Overlay can be setup as Text Ads or 468×60 image ads.  The In-Stream Videos are a “15/30 second in-stream video + image companion”.  I’m not exactly sure what that boils down to, since I haven’t had the chance to actually put any ads live yet.

People have been marketing via YouTube for quite a while now, especially in the Ringtones space.  The tried-and-true method is to rip the music video of your favorite artist, put a watermark on it with your Domain leading to the Ringtone offer, and try to get as many views as possible through both natural and artificial means.  This method has become less and less effective as YouTube has been getting wise and closing some of the loopholes used to inflate views to videos and game the rankings.  This new Video Targeting marketplace could be a game-changer for people that have been looking for a way to have a sustainable business model on YouTube without worrying about the impending Account Bans and Video Bans that come with the old method.

The only odd thing I noticed when playing with the interface is that when I searched for some of the YouTube mega-hit videos like the “JK Wedding Dance” and the infamous “Leroy Jenkins” video, they didn’t appear in the list.  Also, most of the videos that were in the list seemed to have relatively low view counts.  I’m assuming that this is because the program is in Beta still, and hopefully the big videos will be fair game once the program has the kinks worked out.

So what are you waiting for?  Head over to http://google.com/videotargeting and check it out!

The Curve Ball

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In the affiliate marketing game, you get thrown some major curve balls.  Usually these only happen once or twice a year, sometimes more in a really bad year.  It’s when the status quo gets shaken up.  Things that you took for granted are either gone or severely changed, and suddenly your income is taking a major hit.  Usually the curve ball happens when a traffic source dries up or gets wise to the ways that you have been exploiting it.

Google loves to throw curve balls in the form of “quality score updates” that destroy your campaigns and take up a bunch of your time.  The latest one was thrown by Facebook after the Techcrunch Scamville Post (sorry Arrington, no link love here) and the follow ups that have been the talk of the industry this entire month.  It’s one thing to hear about it on a blog, and it’s another thing entirely to have it affect your business in a very real way.  As a network owner, the Facebook shakeup certainly put a large dent in our bottom line.

But that’s where my favorite part of the affiliate marketing business comes in: adapting to change. The people in this industry have an uncanny ability to adapt and update their business models to deal with the ever-changing online landscape, and this is no different.  Sure things will be slow for a while, but unlike your Average Joe in a 9 to 5 job, we have power to do something about it.  When Average Joe gets sent a curve ball, like getting laid off for example, it is devastating.  Suddenly his income is gone and he is completely at the mercy of somebody else to get it back.  He has to find another company to hire him and demonstrate to them that he is worth the risk.  All affiliates have to do is reach inside themselves, grab the motivation it takes to get things going again, and get back to work.

That’s why I love this business.  Sometimes it takes a curve ball to realize that there is a whole new opportunity right around the corner, or an income stream that you may have overlooked when your steady campaign was rolling.  At the end of the day, you are in control.  It’s your business and you are the boss.  Even if you are working 80 hours a week for yourself, that’s better than working 40 for someone else.  Next time you are thrown a curve ball, remember the alternative.

How To Write A Post About Local Affiliate Marketing

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During the last few months, there has been a rash of blog posts cropping up left and right about local affiliate marketing.  There have been good ones and bad ones and then all the guest posts by Dennis Yu.  All of that aside, if you are an affiliate blogger then you owe it to yourself to write one of these bad boys.  Here’s how it is done…

1. Tell your readers how there is a whole new world of affiliate marketing right in their backyard, where they can be their own boss and not have to worry about the big bad networks and advertisers scrubbing all of their leads.

2. Make sure to mention that Dentists, Lawyers, Massage Therapists, Insurance & Real Estate Agents and anyone else who commonly works off of referrals are the best worst possible candidates because they understand the value of a good lead.

3. Explain to them that this is going to take some good old fashioned salesmanship on their part, because they most likely have not harnessed the power of the internet yet. If that doesn’t scare them away, then mention that there will always be squabbles over what counts as a lead at the end of the month.

4. Bring up the fact that Google Voice is amazing and that you have been using it for local lead gen forever, even though 99% of your readers can’t get an invite.

5. Throw some massive numbers around, like how the keyword “San Francisco DUI Attorney” is going for over $20 per click on the search engines.  If you have the stones, substitute in your own keyword or niche to scare them away from competing with you.

6. ???

7. Profit!  Enjoy shooting fish in a barrel until the next wave of young pups learns what you have been up to and spoils all the ROI for you.

PPV Network Review: DirectCPV

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If you’ve read my other posts on PPV, you know I’m a fan of Media Traffic and their PPV network.  This is the place that 90% of the people I talk to start out with PPV.  That being said, there are other options out there.  A newer network that I heard about recently is DirectCPV.  Since I had a few people asking me about it, I decided to give it a test run to see how it stacks up to the other guys.

First of all, the interface may look familiar to you when you log in and setup a campaign.  This is due to the fact that DirectCPV is white labeling the CPView platform.  This does not mean that DirectCPV is the same thing as CPView, they have a different user base with the adware installed so it is a completely different network.

It is relatively simple to get a campaign set up with the interface, you put in your Landing Page url (affiliate link), give it a name, and then you add in at least one type of targeting (URL, keyword, or category).  I put in about 20 URLs from a quick Google search and decided to try out a couple keywords as well.  One thing to note here is that DirectCPV does not have anywhere near the number of adware users that some of the bigger networks have, so you might be a bit safer testing out new keywords here (keywords on the big networks can mean your whole budget gone in the blink of an eye).

I let it run for a few days and when I came back to check my stats (using Prosper202) I was pleasantly surprised that my campaign was profitable right off the bat.  It wasn’t a home run, but it did make money.  I decided to make a couple of minor tweaks at that point.  The first thing was checkout my Prosper202 to see what URLs were converting.  As is often the case, all the conversions were coming from one URL.  I noticed that some of them were coming from the Keyword that I had put in instead of the direct URL.  The problem with that is that the bid price for the Keyword was 0.08 (8 cents) and the bid for the direct URL was 0.01 (1 cent).  Simple fix there, I paused the Keyword and added the URL to my targeting.  After that the profits were decent.

The main gripe I have about the DirectCPV interface is that you have to click “Check Bid” on each URL individually to see if you are in 1st position.  Other networks have done this better, but you can take some of the hassle out of it by setting the bid mode to Auto and then setting it at 1st position.  This will automatically increase your bid if somebody is above you.  Also if you want to Geo Target your campaign, you have to do it after the campaign is setup, you can’t do it during the campaign creation.  This stumped me the first time.

Final word?  I like DirectCPV.  I think it’s worth a shot especially if you have a profitable campaign on another network that you are looking to expand.  It can also be good for testing out a new campaign to if it converts without blowing your budget since there is a smaller installed user base, there is less competition, and the bid prices start at 1 penny (at MT it is 1.5).  It doesn’t have as much traffic as the bigger guys, but from what I saw it can definitely be a good source to add to your repertoire.

If you signup through my affiliate link here you can get a $25 credit by using the promo code “BR25”.

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5

SiteSnatcher Has Landed

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If there’s one thing that Internet and Affiliate Marketers can’t get enough of, it is tools & shortcuts.  Every process that can be automated gives us more time to focus on being creative and the next big idea.  A good friend of mine launched his own set of tools this week, and it is called SiteSnatcher.  I immediately signed up and gave it a test run, so I thought I would share my first impressions.

The first tool I tried was the Blog Commentor.  When you are trying to get a new site indexed and get some link juice to it, one of the easiest ways to do that is to comment on related blogs using your URL to link back to your site.  The Blog Commentor will take any keyword that you choose, such as “golf”, and come up with a bunch of direct links to the posts that you can comment on.  It also has a built in iFrame so that you can just load the blog inside of SiteSnatcher, submit your comment, then hit “Next” and it loads the next blog into the window.  This makes the blog commenting process a breeze, you can knock out 100 comments in short order.

Next I tried out the Site Targeting Tool.  This is designed for PPC guys that are looking for specific sites to target for the Content Network in their niche.  One of the best ways to make the Content Network profitable is to site target instead of just letting Google do it for you.  This can be a tedious process of searching for sites in your niche that are running AdSense so that you can target them.  This tool does it all for you.  Simply put in your keyword, hit go, and it will grab anywhere from several hundred to 1,000 sites in your niche that AdSense on the page.  This can also work as a URL scraper for finding sites to target with PPV.

One thing I will mention is that you need to wait a little bit for the results to come in.  These tools are doing real-time scrapes of lots of data, so when you hit go it can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes to see the full results.  It is all designed to run in the background, so you can set a couple different tools to run, or just work on something else and come back later.

The pricing is based on how much you want to use it.  On the basic package, you get 50 “credits” per day.  As you see in the screenshot above, the Site Targeting Tool take 25 credits to run.  You can run it (or any other tool for 25 credits) twice per day on the basic package.  I think it’s a cool way to test it out without spending a ton of cash.  If you start using it a bunch on a daily basis, then you can get a bigger package with more credits.

All in all I think that this is definitely going to turn some heads.  I don’t recommend products or services very often on this blog, so take it from me, this is a solid service that is only going to get better.   If you do PPC on the Content Network, or PPV, or if you do any type of SEO including the EPN / McJiffy / BANS method, then SiteSnatcher is a tool you will want to check out.

P.S. If you click one of the SiteSnatcher links above, you will go through my affiliate link.  If you don’t want to use my affiliate link, just go to http://sitesnatcher.com.

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5

Google AdWords Bidding Explained – Finally!

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There has always been an element of mystery to bidding for keywords on Google AdWords.  Finally, Hal Varian from the mighty Google speaks out on our behalf with this clear and concise video to explain exactly what happens when you bid on a keyword and how the ads are ranked.  If you haven’t seen this video yet, you need to take the 9 minutes and 12 seconds it takes to watch it.  If you spend any money on Google AdWords at all, it will be worth it.

See, I told you so!  Now go make some money.

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!

How To Direct Link On Google – Part 2

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My last post has generated a lot of response and questions from people, so I wanted to discuss a couple of other points about the method that I outlined in Part 1.

First of all, there is the question of whether this method could get you banned from Google AdWords.  I would consider this a gray-area technique.  It’s not something that is an instant ban, but if you exploit it to a huge degree, then yes, it could lead to your account being terminated.

The reason that I posted this method is that it can be a great way to test out a campaign, but I can’t stress enough that you should be building landing pages for offers that have proven successful with the direct link method. It is very hard to build a long-term, sustainable business on the internet without creating a website.

Second, some people have questioned the ethics of using another site that doesn’t belong to you as the display URL.  The easiest response there is, if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, then don’t do it.  An alternative to using someone’s website is that you can use a domain that you own as the Display and Destination URL to get your ad approved, then switch the link to your affiliate link with Edit Keyword Settings like I suggested.  This way you don’t have to spend the time to build out a full dedicated landing page, but you are still using your own domain so you won’t get any complaints from other webmasters or feel bad about doing it.

I would also like to stress that the tutorials that I publish on this blog are not meant to be the absolute blueprint to success with affiliate marketing.  There is no such blueprint.  The goal with this blog is to give you, the reader, some good tips & advice to get going with some campaigns and marketing methods, and then you can tweak them and customize them to find what works the best for you.

There is a lot of money to be made in this industry, and it’s not always going to be easy.  It’s a lot easier than working 60 hours a week in a job that you hate to bring home just enough to keep the bill collectors at bay though…  Anything with the kind of potential that you have as an affiliate marketer is going to take some time to become successful at, but the rewards are definitely worth the effort that you put in.

That being said, I will continue to offer more strategies and tutorials, and I will do my best to answer your questions & comments to steer you in the right direction.  So keep reading, and keep the feedback coming!

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.