Archive for December, 2009

How to Fix a Google Adwords Slap

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Hi Ben,

Hope you had a good Christmas.

Mike and I were running adwords search traffic to our web site. Google came through and slapped the campaign. I have modified the ad, changed the landing page, but it still won’t run. Am I better off scrapping the domain and starting over or is there something else I can do?

Thanks,
Brianne

Hi Brianne -

I had this happen to my campaigns too. However, the main keywords that got dinged were the brand related keywords. The more generic keywords are still ok and the content traffic is still steady. Did you experience this as well or did you get the full blown slap where it appears as though a human went through and disabled your entire account?

In any event, here is my advice:

- Scrap the domain. I’ve battled with this a lot. On several occasions I spent hours and hours and money revamping a slapped domain. I added articles, content, blogs, etc. but could never revive a slapped domain.

It seems as though Google has handed down a life-sentence for that domain.

- Set up your landing page on a new domain. I’ve had better luck the second time around if I select a very keyword rich domain. Specifically, if you look at your heavy volume keywords and then select a domain with those keywords in it. That usually goes a long way with your quality score.

You may also consider this:

(a) add content to your landing page – on your new domain. Specifically, I suggest adding tons of content below your main above the fold landing page area. This usually won’t hurt conversions – and may actually improve them – and is adhering to quality guidelines. So, for instance, perhaps write a half – dozen paragraphs and place that content below the fold.

(b) consider installing a wordpress blog on the domain too. This shouldn’t take too long. I can’t find where this helps in the quality score guidelines, but I’ve seen it improve things. Considering google’s love affair with Wordpress, it may be worth the 30 minutes it takes to install it and post once in a while.

(c) upload your new campaign with adwords editor. I’ve seen my *initial* quality scores be higher by 2-3 points when I use the editor as opposed to the keyword tool or a manual upload. What happens after that is unpredictable, but at least you’ll start off with a slight advantage.

I hope this helps. Don’t be afraid of the slap. Most Adwords marketers consider it a badge of honor these days :)

-Ben

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Getting Traffic But No Sales

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Hi Guys,

Jerry, one of our members, has been busy working on his site since he got back home from our Chicago “Tell Your Boss to Shove it Seminar“.

He is getting plenty of traffic but no sales. I reviewed his site and
adwords campaign and gave him my suggestions. I copied the email
string below:

Hey Ben,

I know you said I could call you anytime during business hours but I
wanted to give you a heads up so I can make the most of your time.
I’ve been working several hours every day on my campaigns in addition
to my new corporate job, to keep educating myself and increasing my
knowledge of this industry.

After returning home from Chicago, I started a google adwords
campaign, implemented negative keywords, am running separate parallel
campaigns for content network and search and have been split testing
ads. I have a $20 daily advertising budget ($10 search / $10 content).
I have approximately 140,000 impressions, but only 300 clicks.

Once on my site, I had 1200 impressions and only 34 click throughs to
merchant sites and no sales to date.

I need some guidance here. I have a Siberian Husky website and my
keywords are focused on that subject. My affiliate programs range from
pet medication to pet friendly hotels and everything in between.

Can you take a look at my website www. and give
me your input? I’d be happy to provide log in info for CJ, Google
adwords acct, etc. I have some theories but need some confirmation. I
need to make this website work or set this one aside and try another
project. Is my niche too narrow? Does it not generate enough traffic?

I really need your help. If you need me on the phone, if you want to
take a look first yourself, whatever it takes. I’m committed to making
this work. Please take a look and give me your input and let me know
what you need me to do.

Hi Jerry,

I spent some time reviewing your website, Google adwords account, and
ran a few reports – which you can find in the “Reporting” section of
your website. A couple observations/comments/suggestions for you:

1. First, the good news is that you know how to operate Google Adwords
pretty well. Your campaigns are set up just the way I would set up a
campaign. It’s not that easy to operate a decent adwords account so
congrats on that step.

Accordingly, you are getting some good relatively inexpensive traffic.
Your keyword search and content campaigns are both getting traction on
clicks that will not break the bank.

Your ad copy is pretty good with a decent click through rate. It could
be better but it’s a good start and it is nice to see that you are
split-testing ads. In sum, Traffic looks steady so now we have to look
at the conversion side of things.

2. Second, with respect to affiliate website conversion, I looked at the message to
offer match. In other words, what do the keywords tell us the person
is looking for AND, are you giving them what they want with your
landing page.

This is critical.

I ran a keyword report to see exactly what people searched for when
they landed on your website. Since you are bidding on the broad match
version of your words, you are getting all types of searches relating
to “siberian husky”.

The report is there for you to review, but my point is that with the
broad match enabled on the keyword “siberian husky”, you could get the
following searches on your ad:

- “buy a siberian husky”

- “siberian husky breeder rochester ny”

- “sell siberian huskies”

- “siberian husky diet”

Do you see how each of these people would want/need something TOTALLY
different?

With that being said, it seems like the main message of your landing
page is about giving advice on getting a siberian husky for new
siberian husky dog owners, correct?

Assuming that’s the case, that is totally ok. There are probably lots
of people looking for the great information you are offering. However,
that doesn’t make for a good match to the affiliate offer on your
landing page. The offer is probably better suited for CURRENT owners
who are looking for a discount on ped meds.

If I owned your website, I would do the following:

(a) figure out exactly WHY people are coming to your site. Obviously
this is a hungry market because you can easily get hundreds of
visitors per day, which is very exciting. You just need to find out
WHY/WHAT information they are looking for, etc.

(b) let’s assume they are looking for info on getting a siberian
husky. You may consider doing your own ebook and offering that for
sale INSTEAD of affiliate links – unless you can find an existing
ebook for sale that you can promote as an affiliate.

You could produce a great ebook probably within an afternoon. You’d
have your own product and could make money on the ebook, develop/
cultivate a list of avid siberian husky owners which you could later
market to – via autoresponders, etc.

Those are my initial thoughts in a nutshell.

A few other random notes – I created a content report for you in your
adwords account. You can see which urls displayed your ads. Google is
showing your own ads on your own website – oops!

In other words, you
are paying for clicks on your site for people to go for your site – or
paying google double for the same person. I would exclude your site
from your content placements. Also, review the list of sites and see
what else is irrelevant that snuck into your ad serving.

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How to Get Approved for Affiliate Programs: Chicken versus Egg Problem

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

I got this question from a member of my online mastermind group of affiliate marketers:

I’m encountering the following barrier:

Whenever I wish to review products/brands offered on a new affiliate
partner site, I cannot view them unless I sign up.  To do that, I need
an active website with a history of traffic and relevance.  I have one
site active, but I still get denied.  Then, I move on and try another
affiliate partner site.

So how can I get started and build an attractive site if I don’t know
what products/brands that a potential affiliate partner program
offers?  Just keep moving on to different partner programs until I get
accepted.

I do belong to CJ.  So, should I just stick with that program until I
build a successful website to demonstrate to others?  Receiving
commissions so long after the fact is not attractive.  So, I’m more
interested in partner programs with shorter payout time frames.

I believe that most new affiliates run into this problem. To
understand this problem, let me give you a 30 second history of
affiliate marketing:

You may have heard people refer to affiliates as “publishers.” The
reason why is because the earliest affiliate marketers were
“publishers” in the sense that they published content about a certain
topic, e.g. news, hobbies, etc.

The publishers were publishers before they were affiliates.

Advertisers knew that the  publishers already had traffic and tons of content and
basically purchased advertising space from the publishers.

Affiliate Marketing has evolved since then of course. Nonetheless,
many advertisers still expect the same standards when they accept new affiliates.

In other words, advertisers expect you to already have good relevant
content on your website which matches their offers. This makes sense
for those new affiliates who are fairly sure about the field you want to
get into.

If you want to quickly become “legitimate” in the eyes of the
advertiser, here are some ways to beef up your website and have a
better shot at getting approved:

1. Post articles on your site. You can get free article feeds from a
lot of the article directories so long as you leave the resource boxes
intact and give proper credit to the author;

2. Post relevant videos from Youtube and other video sites. These
sites offer an “embed code” so you can cut and paste a video in no
time flat

3. Post testimonials about a product or service. You can use your own
or see what other people are saying online

Finally, one more tip on getting approved:

See whether the offer is available outside of Commission Junction. An
advertiser is often partnered with several networks. Sometimes I’ve
been rejected for an offer in Cj, but approved in a different network
like ncsreportng.com.

Oh yeah – make certain you always include all the necessary
formalities on your site, e.g. privacy policy, contact info, etc.

And if all else fails, you can always go out of your way to get an
advertiser’s attention. (I used “snail mail” before to get the
attention of an advertiser who was totally inundated with applications
and it worked!)

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Hydra Affiliate Network Announces Earnings of $100 M

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

I just got an email from my account rep at the Hydra Affiliate Network (http://www.hydranetwork.com/) who announced they will conclude 2009 with $100 Million in revenue.

Congratulations to Hydra Media!

I always find it amazing that many affiliates have never ever heard of this network…while it quietly generates 100 Million in revenue each year!

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Posted in Affiliate Networks | No Comments »

A Story of Success and Failure

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

You may not know that when Dave and I got started
with our businesses we were complete computer
idiots. We painfully struggled to do the simplest
tasks. We quite literally had to build our
businesses from scratch.
Even when we figured out enough to bang out a
basic website, we still struggled because we had
no idea what to promote on our websites.

The first product I promoted was a video game
called “Halo.” I’m not a “gamer” but I
heard that the market was hot for this game so I
gave it a go.

Big Mistake.

I did get a sale or two….but dumped a few
hundred dollars in the process.

For a guy working on a shoestring budget, this
hurt. Nonetheless, I kept plodding forward.

My problem was that I had no idea what to make my
websites about! I designed close to 300 different
web pages without a whole lot of success.

(My friends and family secretly wondered when I would
stop pissing away all my time and money on this
Internet pipe dream.)

I refused to quit.

Then something big happened one day in March of
2006. FINALLY! I found something that worked. At
the time it was rare to get more than one sale in
an entire day. However, with this product I got 3
sales inside an hour!

I remember checking my stats and seeing those
sales and it was a thrill. I felt like I had won
the damn Olympics!

There was a good reason why that product worked
while others were utter failures. (The thing that
worked was a financial product that I had used myself and I knew how it
worked inside and out.) I put all that  information on the website and the people loved it…which is why I got the flood of sales.

Let’s recap as to why this worked while so many
other products failed:

First, I knew the product inside and out.
(Nowadays I don’t promote ANY product without
using it first.)

This is a really good idea. It is very difficult
to promote a product that you haven’t used
yourself.

Your customers are pretty good at sniffing out BS
so if you try to fake it, you’ll be facing an
uphill battle.

On the other hand, if you know a product
intimately, you can share your experiences about
that product and your customers will actually
feel a bond with you.

For example, I am creating a new site where I am
promoting a product called the “Kindle” which
is a hand held reading device. I like to read
books, try to read 2 books per month, and I feel
like the Kindle is the “bees knees” for
people who like to read.

I take the thing everywhere I go and I find
myself telling random strangers how cool it is
and how they need to get one.

The Kindle is the Bees Knees for people who like to read!

The Kindle is the Bees Knees for people who like to read!

From my experience I am able to tell you all the
following things about the Kindle:

-    I can tell you that it takes approximately 60
seconds to download a 200 page book

-    I can tell you how to transfer your ebooks and
mp3 files from your pc to the Kindle

-    I can tell you that the battery lasts forever
– but only if you disable the wireless device

I could go on with dozens of little tid bits of
information which you won’t find on the
manufacturer’s website. However, potential
customers LOVE this info.

Ok back to the story. The second reason why I
started getting sales on that financial product
is that I worked PERSONALITY into the website.

This financial product was for people with a large amount of student
loans. So, I told my story about my student loans and how it was difficult
to pay them back since my salary was so low, but
then I talked about the company and how they helped consolidate
the loans.

People responded to this PERSONALITY because it
was coming from another person – not a big
corporation.

Do you see how this works?
Who would you trust more – a friend
who used a product you might buy, or
the company who is trying to get your money?

With that being said, if you’re struggling to
find your place as an Affiliate Marketer,
remember two pieces of advice:

1. Consider promoting those products you know
well or have a real interest in (if you think you might
promote a product you have NOT used, buy and try
it first. Just use your own affiliate link :) )

2. Work personality – Your Personality – into
the website This type of advice is just a snapshot of the
material we covered in Chicago.

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Greetings from Chicago Seminar!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

We had a great group for our seminar in Chicago this year.

Where else can you learn about Affiliate Marketing, network with some of the brightest minds in the industry, AND have a bonding experience like this?

Ganga Ramdas, Andy Greene, David Blough, Janus Gorzawski, Steve Goyette, Simon Strachan, Nancy Ngyeun, Dave Clabeaux, Ben Moskel

Ganga Ramdas, Andy Greene, David Blough, Janus Gorzawski, Cambiz Gholamshahi, Steve Goyette, Simon Strachan, Nancy Ngyeun, Dave Clabeaux, Ben Moskel, Rick Bewick,

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Posted in Events | 1 Comment »

How Can I Improve my Website?

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

We get this question quite a bit. I discovered that people are totally clueless when it comes to getting started.
Unfortunately, rather than focus on one topic, new affiliates often put up sites with dozens of completely unrelated offers (it’s probably not a good idea to sell web hosting and adult toys on the same site – true story by the way!)

Here is a question from Brian who is struggling to get started:

A brief introduction of me. In August of 2006 I lost my job of 19 years due to the company I worked for closing its doors, after giving my fellow employee’s and myself a 35% cut in wages and no formal warning that they were closing their doors for good. In October of that same year I got married to a girl I have know since kindergarten. We both had some debt and it only increased when we had to put her twin boys through a 9 month trade school, and we will be adding more to it in another year when her daughter graduates and goes to Ohio State (GO BUCKS!!!), sorry had to say it. I have borrowed money from friends and my parents from time to time just to pay the bills. It is almost 4 years later and I am not even close to making the money I was when I lost my job and now I am stuck in a job that I don’t like with an obnoxious illmanered ass for a supervisor.

I came across your program and watched your introductory video and was immediately impressed with what I saw and heard so I signed up. I am not the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to designing ad’s or web pages. I am trying to design my website www.shoperzone.com  to cater to the crossover between home and business but am now wondering if I should scrap the whole thing and start over. I have quite a bit of knowledge of raising domestic rabbits, since our daughter is in 4-H and I also spent 12 years as a city fire fighter. I haven’t found to many affiliates in these areas. This is why I am writing to you for a little guidance and constructive criticism. I have three Google ad words campaigns, have left two voice mails with Pulse 360 and no replies yet.

I want this to succeed so that my wife and I can quit our jobs and spend more time with each other and the kids, have less stress and not have to worry about if we will have enough money to cover this months bills.  We are living paycheck to paycheck and I could not come up with the money for your most recent seminar or to even purchase the DVD’s when they come out. I will not give up until I am making a six figure income.

Ben and Dave I want to thank you for your continued e-mails and supporting words of encouragement they mean a lot to me and I view them frequently.  I will not give up until I am making a six figure income. If you know of anyone in the Canton Ohio area that might be able to help I would appreciate a heads up.

-Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the note and the info. I am also an Ohio State fan. My relatives live around Columbus and we visit each year for Thanksgiving. (We ran the Turkey Trot around the campus this year in the cold!)

IN any event, I checked out your website. My suggestion is to make the site more specific. I’m not sure about affiliate programs in your niche, but you may consider writing your own ebook and selling it rather than send people to an affiliate program.

In other words, perhaps you write an ebook about raising domestic rabbits and keep ALL the commissions rather than share with an affiliate.

It is really easy to do an ebook. You can basically write it in Microsoft Word and then convert it to an ebook format with a free download. Or, give the Word file to a worker on elance.com (you might pay $100) and have them design a cover and do all the conversions for you.

You can them sell it with Paypal, paydotcom.com, or clickbank.com.

This is just an option, but probably a good one since:

(a) you know about the product and
(b) there are probably very few affiliate offers in that niche

I hope this helps,
Ben

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Yahoo! PPC Making Strides – Thank GOD!

Friday, December 11th, 2009

I love Google Adwords.

I love Yahoo! sponsored search.

I love the price I pay with Yahoo! sponsored search even more!

I have always found the click costs are way less expensive in Yahoo! as compared to Google. Lower CPA’s, bid prices, great customer support are all reasons I love Yahoo! and am always sitting in their corner rooting them on to be a real competitor with Google.

They are finally making some great strides. Here are a few new things -

Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop – this is like Adwords Editor

Yahoo's Search Marketing Desktop for quick/bulk ppc campaign changes

Yahoo's Search Marketing Desktop for quick/bulk ppc campaign changes

Search Query Reporting – so you don’t have to use a third party interface and you can quickly mine out negative keywords.

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Can You Still Make Money from Credit Card Affiliate Programs?

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Lots of people ask about the health of the credit card affiliate market. So few people have good enough credit to get cards these days, banks are tightening lending, and fewer people have jobs. All of these things may have certainly changed the industry. It is different. The easy money is not as easy but there are still opportunities.

Here is my answer to a question from a member with a credit card site who used to make good money but it has dried up.

Ben,

When I was making money it was a different site that had only all of the American Express credit cards I could find. Most commissions were from the Gold Card.
But, the commissions dropped off before I took the other site down. It made good money from June 2007 – October 2007.

It became very difficult to keep updating the offers so I moved to the template driven site that I have now. I think maybe I am finding trouble finding keyword phrases
to drive traffic to such a wide variety of credit cards and keep the bid price low.

Plus, I asked Dave about the Google Adwords tracking and he said that the credit card company(s) would have to add the tracking code for each card separately, I wonder
if they would be willing to do that on such a large scale? Would I be better off creating sites with fewer focused products?

I know there is at least $20,000 per month to be had from credit cards, correct me if I’m wrong. It just seems like a great product to offer since there is nothing to purchase.

My Answer:

Hi Rick,

Yes – you are correct! Credit cards are a great market. Actually, I’m sure you can do more than $20,000 per month. Call up your rep at NCS and they’ll tell you they have some 100k+ per month earners.

Yes also to your question about being specific. The more specific you can be, the better. With respect to credit cards, this would be my suggestion:

- Find some specific niche brand keywords and drive those people to the relevant landing page directly. (I assume you’re not sending all your traffic right to your home page, right?!)

For instance, send your “Delta skymiles card” people directly to that page. I know you have several cards on the same url, but perhaps you can use anchor text to get them in front of the right offer. (not sure if you can incorporate anchor text into the destination url, but the bottom line is that there needs to be a match here when the person reaches your website)

Trust me – this method works!

- I also would focus on long tail and perhaps go in yahoo and bing only for now. You get some bargain clicks and don’t have to rebuild when google slaps you with a bad quality score.

With this approach you would go very broad – many long tail keywords for many products. Set the bids low.

I assume what will happen is you’ll have at least 3-4 good performing “mini-niches” here. You can start with that and then build from there.

Where you go from there is up to you…you can build out other sites, expand kw list, or do another product altogether.

There are TONS of cpa offers other than credit cards – take a look at Hydra Media and see the many, many cpa offers they have.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing | 1 Comment »

Networks Now Using FTC Guidelines in Terms and Conditions

Monday, December 7th, 2009

This morning I got an email from my rep at The Hydra Network. I learned they have now included the new (vague and ambiguous) FTC guidelines on testimonials into their terms and conditions.

This means that ignoring those guidelines could get your affiliate account suspended and/or forfeit your commissions! Ouch!

Here are the new ts and cs:

  • Advertisers may no longer tout unusual or extraordinary results in testimonials by including a disclaimer such as “results not typical”.  Ads that feature a consumer and convey his/her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case need to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect, in addition to being truthful.
  • “Material connections” between advertisers and endorsers — connections that consumers would not expect — must be disclosed.  This means that if an endorser receives payments (e.g. a CPA payment from Hydra for a campaign promoting that product), or even free product or services, from an advertiser or the seller of the product or service, that fact must be disclosed.
  • A blogger, reviewer or “word-of-mouth” marketer who receives payment (including CPA payments from Hydra for promotion of a product), or even free product samples, to review a product or service is considered an “endorser” and, therefore, must disclose that a material connection with the seller of the product exists.
  • A paid endorsement — like any other advertisement — is deceptive if it makes any false or misleading claims.
  • Both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement — or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers.
  • If an endorser claims to be an expert with respect to the endorsement message, then he or she must be qualified with sufficient expertise to offer the endorsement.

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