“Have you ever considered advertising your website with an ad network?

Of course, with the New York Times reporting over 200 ad networks, it is increasingly difficult for agencies and marketers to make sense of this very crowded marketplace. So how can you be sure of which one will work for you?..”

Read Full Article : here

“Smart phones, tablets, laptops and mobile broadband cards have all changed the way we access the internet. According to Pew Research Center, 59% of adult Americans go online wirelessly.  With the proliferation of wireless connectivity and devices, online marketers have many more screens to worry about than just the standard computer screen….”

Read Full Article : here

“Sophisticated URL hijackers seem to have settled on a set of tactics designed to minimize the discoverability of their affiliate ID. They’ve learned that their ads are discoverable and have been investing in steps to prevent detection of their affiliate ID. While we have seen a wide range of skills, the use of disposable URLs and “front” websites has come to represent “best practice,” used by the most sophisticated hijackers…”

Read Full Article : here

“We have a number of affiliate marketing websites. These are a hangover from when we first came into affiliate marketing when we felt that having more websites meant making more money. If we were starting out now we would only have a couple as it is so much more manageable. But having lots of websites means we have lots of product reviews and we realized early on that if we were going to keep track of where sales were coming from that we needed to start using Amazon tracking ids….”

Read Full Article : here

“part-time and with flexible schedules focused on projects that they like and choose.”

Listen to the podcast : here

Read Full Article : here

“Every day I get emails from people asking me how to make money online? It’s an easy question, with a difficult answer. Many people will read blogs from internet marketers and think we are either lucky or just making easy money. The honest truth is, around 90% of people will fail when trying to make money. It takes a lot of time, dedication and persistence to success in this business…

Read Full Article : here

“if you don’t rank on the first page of search engines, chances that people will find you through search are reduced significantly. Data confirms that fewer than 10% of people even get to the second page of search engine results. Other data confirms that ranking #1 leads to four times more visits than even ranking #2…”

Read Full Article : here

“Whether you are just an affiliate, or a blogger, screen capture tools can be one of your best friends. Screen captures are useful for a ton of reasons, the most popular ones being to show a friend something on your screen, tweak an ad copy, or to simply post to your blog or send in an email to show example. In the past I would use the “Print Screen” button on the keyboard, paste the screenshot into Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, then made any necessary edits or changes. I’m sure many of you are still doing the same, and for those of you who still are, I wanted to introduce you to two programs I have been using for a while now….”

Read Full Article : here

“Finding good help: it’s like the great professional field leveler. No matter how good you are at doing what you do, it doesn’t really mean you’re gonna be great at finding someone else who is good at whatever you need them to do- and that’s an issue, because a terrifying percentage of important projects are contingent on everyone doing their business both correctly and intelligently…”

Read Full Article : here

“Adknowledge, a large-ish company in the online marketing space, has just acquired Hydra Network, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days…”

Read Full Article : here

Read Full Article : here

“Phone app developer Jason Ting is letting the world know: In just one day, iAds generated almost $1,400 in revenue for his free iPhone 4 app…”

Read Full Article : here

Read Full Article : here

“Google is pulling store ratings from Google Products and displaying the aggregate rating inline with ads….”

Read Full Article : here

“Affiliates were asked “Do you cloak links (CGI, .htaccess, meta redirect, etc.)?” for the latestAffiliate Summit AffStat Report…”

Read Full Article : here

“

Some highlights from the survey…

• Email marketing continues to bring significant value to businesses with more than 82 percent of respondents planning to increase their email marketing efforts over the next year…”

Read Full Article : here

“Every day, about 200 million people log onto Facebook, spending an average of 14 minutes on the site—adding up to about seven hours per month!..”

Read Full Article : here

“Q: Are you aware of any software or services that keep track of taxes for online affiliates? Also any accountants that work with online affiliates?..”

Read Full Article : here

“For many businesses who have worked hard to optimize their website, create compelling content and set up landing pages to convert visitors, generating leads is the ultimate reward. While generating leads is a great accomplishment marketers need to think about the steps that follow the lead conversion and their impact on customer acquisition…”

Read Full Article : here

“You’ve probably seen the “death of” posts out there.

“It’s all over … doom and gloom.”

Yes, Google has slapped thousands of PPC affiliate marketers and many more will have their account closed never to be reopened..”

Read Full Article : here

“On the web today, things change fast. New applications launch every day and existing applications continue to evolve and add new features. As we all learn about social media and inbound marketing and we teach others about it, having a resource that quickly and clearly explains all of the basic terms and applications is critically important…”

Read Full Article : here

“The Google Mayday update caused quite a stir in the affiliate community. Why? Because it was said by webmasters to be, and was then later confirmed by Google to be, most heavily impacting long tail traffic…”

Read Full Article : here

Watch Video : here

“In order to get the best results from your PPC campaign, it is important to always test new things. Test keywords, ads, settings, budgets, keyword bids, etc. – if it is something you can change, you should test a variation. The trouble is, it is often difficult to determine if the change you made is really a success or if other factors are contributing. For instance, maybe you increased bids and saw an increase in conversions – we can assume the bids are the reason for the boost in conversions, but maybe your competitors pulled back their budgets allowing you to capture more of the market so really your bid adjustments didn’t have anything to do with it. There hasn’t been an easy way to isolate changes and test performance to see if one change really makes a difference, until now…”

Read Full Article : here

“If you don’t already have a Facebook page or your business, go create one. With over 500 million active users, Facebook is a powerful network to tap into to expand the online footprint of your business…”

Read Full Article : here

“Your internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood. If your local pizza joint wants to find you, they will have a new way to do that. National advertisers will be able to market directly to neighborhoods with like characteristics across the whole country using demographic data they’ve been gathering for decades…”

Read Full Article : here

“Ahh seems like just yesterday I was sitting in my underwear, refreshing stats, and deciding which new offer I was going to get ready and test. Yes, the good ole days when everything was simple. Fast forward today to Co-Managing an Affiliate Network, handling, managing, and inspiring hundreds of affiliate marketers from all walks of the world, payments going in, payments going out…ahhh I just want to sit back and remember the basics of what it was like when I was an affiliate…”

Read Full Article : here

“When you create a page, Facebook allows you to specify the “type” of page. Some of the most common are pages about movies, TV shows, and books.

Using the half a million pages Facebook grader has data on, I found that not only are “interest” pages the most common type, on average they’re also the most liked. They’re so far above the average in fans that they dwarf every other type. See the chart below? The giant line on the left is interest pages…”

Read Full Article : here

“Affiliates were asked “What is the most important factor in choosing a merchant?” for the latest Affiliate Summit AffStat Report.

There are lots of reasons why affiliates choose a given affiliate program, but the most popular was the payout amount with 30.7% of the vote.”

Read Full Article : here

“Working with an unlimited budget would be wonderful, but since that isn’t the case for anyone I know, I thought I’d share 10 things that we look at when an account is projected to be over budget at the end of the month. By managing your budget throughout the month you’ll be able to stay on top of your spend, and hopefully you won’t be in a situation where you have to completely pause your account…”

Read Full Article : here

“There’s no blanket right or wrong answer on which affiliate search engine marketing policy is right for an organization. Depending on the robustness of in-house search engine marketing, the trustworthiness (and commission) of the affiliates, the competitiveness of the search space in the industry and the trademarks or brand names in question, one policy is likely more suitable and advantageous for an organization than another…”

Read full article : here

“As if the devastating oil spill in the Gulf wasn’t enough, BP might be making matters worse and further damaging its brand image, ironically, in an attempt to fix it.

Critics are accusing BP of manipulating search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo by spending large sums of money on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, purchasing search terms like “oil spill,” “Gulf of Mexico” and “Deepwater Horizon” in an effort to boost its brand image in response to the major hit it has experienced from the current crisis…”

Read full article : here

“There are a lot of settings to choose from in your Google AdWords account, but how do you know which ones are best? Depending on your objectives, goals and approach you might find one combination works better than another but the key is to test, test, test. What works for one account or campaign, may not work well for another. If you haven’t spent time exploring the settings options, you are likely using the defaults and a few quick changes could bring in additional clicks or conversions. Below is a brief description of many of the settings as well as some recommendations.”

Read full article : here

“As the web becomes more social and an increasingly important part of a marketer’s day, the web browser is turning into one of marketers’ most useful and powerful tools. Browsers are the software that connect us to the web. Browsers are how most of us use social networks like Facebook and Twitter and how we read blogs and news websites. Because browsers are so important, marketers need to understand how to make them more powerful while helping to save time and increase efficiency…”

Read full article : here

“Lately we’ve been working on new ways to generate traffic to our blogs and are starting to try online services that can generate backlinks through placing articles on other sites. You’ve probably seen some of these sites or even tried them – sites like 1WayLinks, Unique Article Wizard, Free Traffic System and so on. We will do a blog post on the various backlinking services available at a later date….”

Read full article : here

“After running a several campaigns on SponsoredTweets and spending a few thousand dollars, it’s time to reflect back upon my results and what I’ve experienced using both Twitter and SponsoredTweets. Being able to compare my CPM results with my CPC results is quite interesting, and will make setting up future campaigns a lot more rewarding. Even with the future of companies like SponsoredTweets and Ad.ly in jeopardy, advertising through Twitter will always be an option which these same principles can be applied.”

Read full article : here

“For those of you who are getting started with social media marketing, here are 12 video tutorials to help you properly setup many important basic functions. This post focuses on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, which are the three networks I reccommend everyone setup for themselves and/or their business. Leave a comment below and let me know if there are other social media outlets you would like to learn more about…”

Read full article: here

“The keyword report from the interface gives you the average CPC, not your max CPC, and the desktop tool doesn’t show you the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that you will want to see to base your decisions on, like average position and click-through rate…..”

Read full article : here

Yesterday (June 22nd 2010) We attended the LinkShare Symposium at Chelsea Piers in NY. This is our first experience at this event and WOW it was neat! Normally I wear comfortable dress shoes because I expect to be on my feet all day. However the LinkShare Symposium is a much slower paced, yet exciting event. I’m not going to go crazy into detail but here is a quick recap and a few key points from the days events.

Centered around an award ceremony the event was very scheduled and organized. The day started off with opening remarks and then a Keynote Speaker.

After a short break, we headed into the Trend Watch session featuring a few top advertisers. (Crocs, Drugstore.com, Extrabux, TheFind.com and North Face.) The discussions that caught my attention were on mobile websites and planning for “holiday” trends. Let’s touch on these real quick:

-Converting your site to accept mobile traffic is a topic of great discussion over the last year especially. As mobile shopping grows advertisers are trying to capitalize on the increasing capabilities of our mobile devices. Something to consider is how you want to setup your mobile site. Some companies simply optimize their existing site to read well on hand-held devices. Others redirect mobile users to an “m.sitename.com” version of the site. Either choice is a viable option and depending on your business one may make more sense.

-The Discussion of “holiday” planning was quite interesting. All the advertisers on the panel said they start planning for q4 in q1 or q2. The North Face in particular said she already has a loose plan laid out in January. In fact, she said she begins reaching out to affiliates during the summer to see what they have planned!
Besides the Q4 holiday blitz, they all agreed the only other surge of note was “back to school.” It should be no surprise to even unseasoned marketers that Q4 is big. But Back to school may slip by some due to the idea that they might view it as niche. In reality there is a huge market for this sector and the season lasts from the day kids are let out to about 3 weeks after school starts back up. Most school supplies are on the lower end of cost, but the volume should help even that out. More expensive items to focus on start at backpack (big seller!!!) and go up to new computers. Lots of opportunity here!

Once the discussion panel was finished we headed into the dining room for lunch… Oh my, Lunch was high class and delicious! When we sat down there was a great appetizer with goat cheese, boiled tomato? and a bunch of other goodies, backed by a raspberry tart desert already on the table! Once everyone destroyed their app and many started on their desert, the main course came out. A wonderful stuffed chicken with fresh veggies and beans.
Besides the good food we got to see the award ceremony and all the hilarity around it. Combining lunch with the Golden Link awards; The Upright Citizens Brigade brilliantly hosted the show. Even the bad jokes got laughs because they sold is so well. There were a lot of new categories this year including best OPM agency of the year, which was given to Brooklyn based agency, The Jar Group. Below is the full list of winners:

• Best New Advertiser: The Limited
• Best New Publisher: Deals Woot
• Innovative Advertiser of the Year:Macy’s
• Innovative Publisher of the Year:Clicks2Customers & RingRevenue
• Affiliate Manager of the Year: Gus Brito of Tiger Direct
• OPM/Agency of the Year: The JAR Group
• Advertiser’s Choice: Savings.com
• Publisher’s Choice: CheapOair
• International Advertiser of the Year: ASOS
• Technology Genius Award: Skimlinks
• Performance Marketing’s Most Vocal Advocate: Steve Schaffer of Offers.com

After the awards everyone made their way over to the lighthouse for the deal makers networking session. Here Advertisers got a chance to interact with publishers, agencies and potential partners as well as display their merchandise, explain their services, etc… Unlike many conventions this was nice and small with less than 50 booths from what I could tell. It was well designed to allow the advertisers and services with booths to speak 1 on 1 with potential partners.

If you are active in the LinkShare Network, I would highly recommend this event next time. It’s a great opportunity to meet your account managers, advertisers you work with and hopefully make new connections. Making that personal connection with your partners is a great help in growing your business.

-Dan Spivak

The Smartest Search.com

“Twitter, while simple, is often a confusing social media platform for
marketers and business owners. This post provides a treasure trove of statistics in the form of infographics related to Twitter. This information can empower businesses to better understand and leverage this simple yet powerful platform….”

Read full article : here

“Let me first start out by stating that social media hasn’t historically been a place for corporate commercialization, but if done right, can still be incorporated. Social shopping, is becoming more and more prevalent and integrated within other social media platforms…”

Read full article : here

“Facebook has changed the way as many as 400 million people are engaging with the Web on a regular basis, 200 million of them every day. Users are accessing Facebook to access “their world” on the Web…”

Read full article : here

“was a little surprised that nearly 20% of affiliates are still using affiliate directories to find an affiliate program. When I am searching out relevant affiliate programs, I use search engines to find them…”

Read full article : here

“Hyperlinks are references to resources on the web. They primarly link to other web pages, but can also reference images, documents, audio, or movie files. I often find myself using HTML code directly on blog comments or in forums. Keep this article as a handy reference for hyperlinks and stay tuned for my next post on basic HTML marketers should know about tables..”

Read full article : here

“Twitter plans to have hundreds of advertisers using its new ad system in the fourth quarter as the company ramps up plans to become a self-sustaining, profitable business…”

Read full article : here

“I don’t know about you, but I feel busy: all of the time. I can’t recall the last time I looked around at work and thought, wow, I’m done, I’ll have a Kit Kat. Mostly it’s all right, that’s okay for now, next please….”

Read full article : here

“Back when Twitter announced its own Promoted Tweets plan, COO Dick Costolo hinted it would “prohibit” third-party alternatives. Now it’s making good on the promise…”

Read full article : here

“VPN software lets you join private networks as though you’re sitting at a local computer on that network, giving you access to shared folders and tons more handy stuff. Here’s a look at five of the most popular VPN tools.”

Read full article : here

“Before you can begin to actually build your site you need to know what to call it.  Choosing a domain name is an important exercise because your blog is stuck with it forever, because changing it is a pretty big hassle.”

Read full article : here

“Keyword research is one of the most time consuming parts of the setup process.  Finding all of the keywords that you will be targeting with your site, and seeing how much search volume and competition there are is extremely important.”

Read full article : here

“This is one of the important trends for search and display marketers of 2010. Many may not be using retargeting now (sorry, remarketing as Google calls it), but we’ll look back on 2010 as the year this became a mainstream tactic. This should be the year most paid search and ad serving tool providers rushed to support retargeting, if they didn’t offer it already…”

Read full article : here

“Have you ever heard these complaints?

• “We’re losing control of our brand because of our affiliate marketing channel.”
• “Affiliates are cannibalizing our direct SEM/SEO efforts.”
• “We’re bidding against our affiliates on keywords and it’s driving up our CPCs.”:”

Read full article : here

“So for marketers looking into trying out some PPC experiments, you might be interested to know that Google announced Friday it has released full functionality for its AdWords for mobile interface, initially launched a few weeks ago for the iPhone, Android and Palm Pre devices.  AdWords for mobile…”

Read full article : here

“Over the course of the past several years, many old PPC tactics have become dated and are no longer considered best practice. There have also been many PPC strategies that have been developed bloggers and so-called PPC advertisers without solid evidence of increased ROI and, to no one’s surprise, may damage your account’s profitability rather than help.”

Read full article : here

“While the top three search engines account for over 90% of search traffic, there are hidden deals to be found on price per click hiding among the second tier search networks…”

Read full article : here

“Today’s launch of Google’s Analytics Application Gallery will hopefully make it a little easier. The new gallery offers applications that extend Google Analytics’ reach deeper into specific areas like eCommerce and content management. “

Read full article : here

“Presentations are a great way to consume information and learn about new topics. Unfortunately, we all don’t have the time and money to spend traveling to conferences to see them in-person…”

View post : here

“I’m talking about Google’s AdWords Remarketing feature which is a type of behavioural targeting that allows you to connect with users who have, in the past, performed some pre-defined action on your site…”

read full article: here

“The first 2010 Top 20 ranking of the best performance marketing networks and exchanges comes after a tumultuous six months that have seen some networks driven to the wall and others merged, acquired, refinanced or reorganized….”

Read full article : here

“Facebook is dominating Twitter in usage in the United States, but the two social platforms are nearly equal when it comes to awareness. This is just one of many interesting data nuggets that were uncovered in a new survey conducted by Edison Research. The report is the most recent data from a three year tracking study conducted by Edison and Arbitron Internet and Multimedia research.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/bxGP0t

“We already know that they care about bid prices and quality score, and I’m pretty sure most of you realize by now that the higher your bid the better, but we also know that you can’t just bid extremely high cause you’ll lose money, thus, just like with the search network side, there are things you can do on the content network side to….”

read full article : http://bit.ly/ao6U2z

I won’t go into the process but you’ll see what’s missing if you try… I would also suggest starting with just a few or maybe only 1 campaign in the new engine. Get comfortable with the system, and make sure you CPC isn’t ruining your bottom line on that campaign.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of your new traffic is essential! Not all campaigns are created equal and you therefore can not expect the same results as the previous engine. Without reaching any further down than Yahoo and MSN your traffic quality should remain decant as long as you had good ad copy and keywords to begin with. So you can expect similar conversion rates, but obviously lower volume.

The Benefits of Running ads in Yahoo and Bing are countless.

The content networks can be a big boost if this is a way you get a lot of your traffic. Yahoo in particular has a HUGE network of sites that your ad can appear on. Millions of Americans use Yahoo!’s start page as their homepage and/or news portal. This can be a great place to get noticed, as well as MSN’s Hotmail which runs your ads at the top much like in Gmail for Google.

PPC Advertising is Trial & Error Based. There is only so much you can do before testing out your ideas. Sometimes you have to take a little risk and invest your money in new places. Expanding into the 2nd and 3rd biggest search engines shouldn’t scare you too much. There is plenty of help to be found and if you do a controlled migration you should ease into your new platforms real quickly. Remember don’t expand for the sake of expanding. Be smart, diligent and increase you return on investment!

Read full article here : http://bit.ly/bokfCl

* Marty Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Moderator)
* Kevin Lee, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Didit
* David Lewis, CEO & Founder, 77Blue

Read full article : http://bit.ly/c9j7ht

“The Google and Yahoo! Content Networks are great for capturing additional PPC traffic but if not managed, it can quickly spend a lot of money without giving you the results you are looking for. If you haven’t reviewed your network website list recently and added in exclusions, it might be time to take a look.”

Read full aticle : http://bit.ly/bM6JSc

“Tired of having your every move on the web tracked, filed, classified and algorithmically regurgitated as shopping suggestions?

It’s almost impossible to be truly anonymous online, but most of today’s web browsers will let you go incognito whenever you wish, thanks to something called “private browsing.”

Read full article: http://bit.ly/9qmKM1

A video of Michael Jacobs  VP Products & Services, iMarketing LTD presenting at Affiliate Summit West 2007 which took place in Las Vegas, NV posted by Shawn Collins from http://blog.affiliatetip.com.

See video here : http://bit.ly/d5hHuB

“If you’re hiring an agency, you should test for the aptitudes below. Hiring an inbound marketing agency is like hiring an employee, since inbound marketing is NOT a one time thing.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/9yXyZR

“As it stands now, TM owners can prevent all ads from displaying on trademarked terms in most European countries. In the US anyone can purchase ads on trademarked terms, and many advertisers can even use the trademarks in their ad copy (competitors can’t though).”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/cztj7W

“Apple hopes that marketers will buy ads in hopes of reaching the 50 million iPhone users currently on the market. With iAd, developers can use the platform to serve ads within their applications and will keep 60 percent of the revenue going to Apple for serving and hosting the ads.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/bgm4xY

“The word is spreading, rumors are going around and the landscape of affiliate marketing may never be the same. The truth is we never know what the next week will hold in the world of affiliate marketing. Unlike traditional jobs where you show up and put time in, you are paid.”

Read full article here : http://bit.ly/bqi1xg

“But the content network isn’t all fun and games. You can discover and sell to new consumer audiences, but guess what? You’re also exposing yourself to new scammer audiences! …”

Read full article :http://bit.ly/aElSYD

“Overall it was a good experience, but here are a few tips that I wish I had known before taking it: 1) Read all of the materials in the learning center for the exam. Even if you’ve been working with Adwords for a while, this could still be useful for the random trivia they throw at you. Especially if there’s a new feature or if one might have been updated…”

Read full article here: http://bit.ly/9RDVs7

r

Think Social Media 60’s style… the dead created their own “social network” and in turn created a whole sub-culture that stemmed from their marketing (logos, phrases, tone)… btw: GD apparel, accessories, etc. still sell like crazy to all types of demographics.

Take a Lesson from the original masters of marketing: The Grateful Dead (article from hubspot.com)

The Original Inbound Marketing Rockstars: The Grateful Dead

Inbound and social media marketing strategies are much older than most people think. They didn’t just appear in recent years. Companies like Dell, Pepsi and other major brands are now adopting strategies and practices that have existed for decades. In fact, inbound marketing existed well before the days of the internet. The internet has merely served as a catalyst to support its growth, scale and reduce cost of entry.

If inbound marketing has been around for decades, who is an example of a pre-internet pioneer? How about the Grateful Dead?

You may not realize it from the music industry of today, but in the 1960s the Grateful Dead pioneered many social media and inbound marketing concepts that businesses in all industries use today on the web.

How did a group of musicians from San Francisco transform marketing and become social media pioneers?

The Dead made a series of important choices to separate themselves from everyone in their industry, making difficult and unpopular decisions such as allowing fans to tape concerts and creating special tickets and access for fans.

The Dead Marketing Funnel

Chris Anderson wrote an entire book about an an emerging economy based on a “free” pricing model. The concept of the freemium model is to give away valuable information for free to attract a larger base of prospective customers with a percentage of them willing to pay for a premium product or service. This approach is at the core of inbound marketing and describes the evolving marketing funnel for many businesses today.

The Dead pioneered this approach. They allowed concert attendees to tape shows and distribute them to other fans for free, and it worked. The Dead, one of the most iconic and successful rock bands of its era, achieved elite success with only one top 10 song, which didn’t come until the 1980s.

They succeeded by building a word-of-mouth network of fans powered by free music. The Dead understood that it was about the experience that the music provided instead of strictly the music itself.

Fast forward to today. Successful inbound marketers have a content strategy and marketing funnel that is similar to that of the Dead. Companies who have achieved successful results have shifted focus away from products and features and have created a demand at the top of the funnel through a content strategy that puts the problems and needs of customers ahead of constant interruption caused by outbound marketing.

FULL ARTICLE:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5797/The-Original-Inbound-Marketing-Rockstars-The-Grateful-Dead.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+HubSpot+(HubSpot)

This guy was preaching a lot of the principle we launched our company with and still believe in today.

http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/search-affiliates-partners-or-parasites/

“If you were wondering exactly what Apple had in mind with its acquisition of Quattro Wireless a few months back, the picture gets a little clearer today with the announcement of the iAd mobile ad platform alongside iPhone OS 4.0 today with the company saying that iPhone devs have a billion “ad opportunities” per day.”

Read full article here: http://bit.ly/dC2UbQ

“As time spent on social networking sites increases, advertisers are funneling more ad dollars into campaigns targeting users on those platforms”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/bVQjd3

Without a doubt, without business interests helping an incoming agency to take over an account that you previously managed would be a whole lot easier.  But with business interests in mind, why does this support not happen?

Read the full article here:
http://bit.ly/9Rs3Qa

Hydra Networks has announced that with immediate effect it has terminated the accounts of over 15,000 publishers. The news comes as part of a new push by Hydra to attract mainstream brand advertisers and set themselves apart from “ad networks peddling nutraceutical diet remedies, cash grant opportunities, tooth whiteners and other non-branded campaigns of low consumer value.”

This rush to quality on the part of one of the biggest networks around can be seen as a new stratification of the performance marketing industry. At the high end we are likely to see more big, invitation-only networks focusing on serving major brands. At the lower end we are going to see a bunch of CPA networks scrabbling to sell the slew of new make-money-online products from various online marketing gurus as publishers and networks look to make up for lost rebill income.

Rebill offers provided many with massive returns for little effort, but have been followed by a matching contraction in the marketplace as the credit card companies and the FTC have clamped down. It’s no secret that many of the CPA networks that sprang up in the last 12 months are now in trouble.

The offers they were running last year became commoditized with the result that the networks had to chase traffic volume via ever-increasing publisher payouts. Margins got squeezed, more networks entered the fray, and then the FTC came calling. For some, the last few months have been a great time to catch up on their tan in Costa Rica while waiting for the fuss to die down.

But Hydra is making a clear statement that they want to be seen as the leaders at the other end of the market. Our view is that this is the right approach for the industry. You may remember Jason Calacanis upsetting a few people at the Affiliate Summit a couple of years back with his statement that affiliate marketers needed to stop thinking small.

He’s been proved right. The industry made a few quick bucks, but many of those gains have been lost again.

Now though, as the economy recovers, big brands and their agencies – and their absolutely enormous budgets – will be looking for real ROI from their marketing. The performance marketing industry needs to grow up, put away the childish toys, and make some real money by delivering that ROI to them.

“As the Web has become an increasingly social place, businesses have been tinkering with new strategies to interact with customers online and promote themselves. While Facebook and Twitter top the list of usual suspects, a new research study has found that many firms are broadening their reach to other, lesser known platforms.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/c30I52

“An announcement could come as soon as next month’s South by Southwest conference, where CEO Evan Williams is scheduled to keynote. A source tells Gigaom that Twitter is “working with several major partners for the launch.””

Read full Article : http://bit.ly/dmWJHE

“Real-time search with a social flavor takes another step forward with MySpace updates, blogs and other content now appearing on Google’s up-to-the-second search results section.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/dB9Cfh

Read full article : http://bit.ly/9019Bp

Read full article : http://bit.ly/bwmbdH

“If you are like most pay-per-click managers, your YSM account is probably a cloned export of your Google AdWords account (excluding the content network campaigns of course). Assuming your AdWords account has a strong structure, duplication across search engines is still a good practice. However, with Yahoo’s new features, can take your campaigns to the next level. It is time to revisit your Yahoo campaign structure to get the most out of the network distribution features.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/advARN

Read out about the various types of tweets written by Bob Nunn from searchenginepeople.com

Read full article : http://bit.ly/9TXaIM

“Some of us have multiple Twitter accounts that we need to manage. We have an account for work and an account for personal use. In that case, switching between usernames can be a pain. Luckily, there’s an easy way to manage multiple Twitter accounts with some basic apps.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/crxtUt

“The following have specific iPhone application advertising solutions for those that have created iPhone applications and wish to earn revenue by placing advertising in their iPhone application. Some of the following advertising networks are exclusively iPhone applications and others have programs for iPhone applications as well as other publisher solutions.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/boZXZq

“I have formed strong assumptions based on “What I think”, or “How exactly it works”. These assumptions were based off of my experience and countless hours of trial and error to form my conclusions. Still, there was always that random slap, quality score decrease, or ad variation denial that never made sense to me…. Until now…”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/dy5ulv

“If you buy cheap books at bookstores or if you just want to get rid of your old textbooks and novels you’ve already read, then do it on Facebook.”

Read full article : http://bit.ly/9tbxgQ

“LinkTrust recently announced numerous new features and updates with a big emphasis on helping advertisers, networks and affiliate managers fight affiliate fraud.”

Read full article here : http://bit.ly/bEIoDo

Multiple passports, moving assets, lock-picking, escape and evasion, foraging, even how to cross borders without detection (one preferred location: McAllen, Texas, page 390)–it’s a veritable encyclopedia of for those who want to disappear or become lawsuit-proof global citizens…

Read full article – http://bit.ly/1143Dq

Nobody seems to know for sure how many there are now but a guess of over 500 active networks, and several thousand in total, is probably correct. It is easier than ever for someone – anyone – to set up a network and start brokering offers. It’s almost become a standard career path for successful affiliates to start their own CPA network.

read the full article here -> http://bit.ly/99pcYU

Affiliate marketing can be a very exciting and lucrative job, if done correctly.  From our experience, here are some simple tips that can help your affiliate marketing campaigns be more successful.

1. Understand Your Audience. Knowing who it is that comes to your site will help you create a campaign that is more desirable to them.  Think about what it is that they are looking for when they land on your page.  By keeping your affiliate links relevant to the content on your page, you are much more likely to get conversions.  People that are coming to your page to read about the latest electronics are much more likely to be interested in ads about electronics than ads about swimsuits.

2. Try to be Helpful to Your Readers. People can recognize an affiliate link when they see one.  Approach affiliate marketing in a very natural way.  Once you know who your readers are and what your content is, you will realize what these people are looking for.  Then choose programs that would honestly help them further get to what they are looking for.  This will help build their trust in you as well.  Take the time to really provide people with extra resources that are of value to them.

3. Choose Your Programs Carefully. Affiliate marketing isn’t a ‘get rich quick’ solution.  It takes time.  So take the time to go through all the different program options you have and select the ones that make the most sense for your readers.  Programs differ in many ways so use that to your advantage.  Change up the ads and the text and graphics to see which ones are most effective for you.

4. Experiment with Different Programs. Don’t just pick the programs with the highest pay out rate. Stay relevant to what your site is about.  You can try out those programs with the highest pay out, but don’t be afraid to switch it up.  It won’t take long to tell if a program isn’t working for you.  One of the good things about affiliate marketing is that there is so much to choose from.  Products, services and pay out structures can vary; find those that work for you.

5. Be Patient. Success in affiliate marketing doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time for your revenue and user base to grow.  People tend to want to get familiar with you and your content and build a trusting relationship with you before purchasing.  Remember though that this could turn into people returning to your site again and again.

There are many different tips on affiliate marketing that you can find online.  These are just a few of the basics that may help your affiliate marketing experience be more beneficial to you!!

The good news is that, in many cases, advertising policies aren’t as rigid as they seem. There is usually a loophole, and with a little digging you’ll often find a way to play by the rules even if it seems like you have to bend them a little to do so.

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/google’s-tobacco-advertising-policy-smoke-and-mirrors/2010/01/07/

I’ve been an intern at The Smartest Search for 3 months now and it has been very exhilarating. I got to play around with various API’s like twitter and tinyurl to develop an auto tweeter for affiliate marketing. Developing it was quite fun and challenging because we were dealing with the hottest social network out there.

I also got to develop a few text manipulation tools which were used to clean and trim large amount of data to be uploaded to different affiliate networks and Ad Servers. Apart from the developmental projects , I got the opportunity to design a few websites for The Smartest Search. The last three months has just flown by is a blur. Thanks to The Smartest Search, I have learned a lot not only about web development/design but also the affiliate marketing industry.

Being successful in affiliate marketing doesn’t come cheap.  You have to spend money to make money so you better ask yourself, what are the benefits of affiliate marketing? Here are a few reasons why it can be totally worth it:

1. It’s Free! – For publishers anyway.  For the merchant who runs their program through a network, there will be a monthly fee. (Smartest Search Merchants can use our Network http://www.squirtgunmedia.com to get fee free conversion tracking and network support!)  For publishers though, membership is free and they can then choose which merchants to promote.  Being a publisher means promoting another website on your own website and any sales generated from your site would earn you a certain commission off that sale.  There is no cost to the publisher to be a part of the merchant’s program after being approved into the pertaining network.

2. Promote One Product or Many – Another great thing about affiliate marketing is that you can really capitalize on promoting all your products or just one if the time is right.  For a normal day out of the year, you may want to promote your entire site, emphasizing your brand and the variety of products that you offer every day.  But when things such as the Super bowl or the death of a celebrity (i.e. Michael Jackson) happen, you are able to promote only those things that are specific to the event.  Sales can take a rapid increase if the timing is right.  The merchants will benefit from this as their sales will increase and of course the publishers will also, as all the sales they drive for the merchant will increase their commissions.

3. You Make Money – For the publisher, there is no real risk to join the program and once you are accepted in, the merchant pretty much provides the affiliate with all the marketing materials need to make sales.  From text links to images and banners, these things are all given to the affiliate free of cost.  Once those are selected by the publisher and strategically placed on their site, they can then make money from those generated sales.  Commissions can vary anywhere from 4% to 25% of the total purchase price and there is also the CPA model of flat fees for actions taken, instead of actual commission. Also, affiliate marketing allows you to potentially make money 24 hours a day.  There is no close of business, people can purchase online at any time or any day.

4. Extends the Product Market – Affiliate Marketing paves the way to extend your website’s reach to a much larger market.  More sites that are a part of your affiliate program create more sales for the merchant. If the merchant is picky when adding affiliates to their program, then the affiliates should be in their niche market, increasing the chances for added sales.  Benefit to the affiliate is the commission made each month.  Benefit to the merchant is increased repeat customers and extending the market to a whole new reach.

5. Increased Traffic - Being a part of affiliate marketing will bring you traffic that otherwise you would miss out on.  Potentially increasing your traffic by up to 25%, this traffic is also targeted.  Those that use the publisher’s link to find your site, most likely have a vested interest in purchasing your product or they wouldn’t have clicked on it in the first place.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t for everyone, but if you have a valuable product, an online presence, driven merchants and the money to invest in the program, it can be a very lucrative marketing channel!

You can read the full article here or on their site: http://searchengineland.com/why-facebook-ppc-is-crucial-for-branding-how-to-sell-your-boss-33965

On Christmas Eve, December 24th, Facebook garnered 7.56% of United States internet traffic market share, whereas Google had 7.54%. Subsequently on Christmas Day, December 25th, Facebook’s piece of pie ballooned to a whopping 7.81% while Google dropped a bit to 7.51%. The day after Christmas, December 26, Google regained its stature as most visited site in the US with 7.33% share, while Facebook retained 7.12%.

The ramifications of these stunning statistics, which truly reflect the massive girth of Facebook’s 350 million users, simply can’t be stressed enough to brand managers. To my mind, failure to consider Facebook PPC might now be considered negligent, analogous to dismissing the importance of using traditional PPC for branding.

Let’s analyze reasonable statistics and a case study of a fictional company, culled from an average of moderately large brands we provide services for. We’ll call it “ACME Widget Company.” This post offers a format for presenting data to decision makers. Just fill in your own data and adapt as prudent to embrace the realities of products your brand proffers and the function of your site.

ACME PPC monthly impressions volume. ACME buys traditional Pay Per Click text ads on Google, Yahoo and Bing on an ongoing basis for branding purposes. The value has been proven over time. The KPIs (key performance indicators) for PPC brand advertising are: branding and to engage visitors in compelling content to further support the brand by off-page social engagement.

Success is directly measurable by:

• Average pageviews per click including return visits over 30 days
• Cost per pageview including return visits over 30 days
• Email newsletter subscriptions within 30 days
• Exit clicks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube during any session

Indirect (not directly measurable) by:

• YouTube channel views
• Facebook fan page signups
• Site’s blog content broadcast and rebroadcast via Twitter, Facebook (as measurable via internal search) and other channels as measured by a monitoring service like PostRank

Search PPC keywords driving impressions are typically a mix of brand, category and product terms. Facebook impressions are generated by marketing to users identified as passionate about (“interested in”) brand terms and categories highly related to ACME’s products. Remember, this is not “search” traffic. Nobody’s typing anything into a box to seek information.

For instance, if ACME is selling non-stick cookie sheets, Facebook segments might include users interested in “cookie baking” and “cookie baking recipes,” in addition to ACME’s brand name permutations.

As a straight up math problem, it’s pretty much a no-brainer for ACME to market with Facebook PPC to scale their KPIs. The lift is palpable. Though the site’s performance is not stellar, the client is redoing the site and results are still somewhat decent. It’s reasonable to expect that any on-site performance lifts due to improvement will scale to somewhat evenly for both search engine PPC and Facebook PPC.

PPC keyword search traffic on Google, Yahoo, Bing

Here are some stats for both a traditional search advertising campaign (ACME does not market in content networks), a Facebook campaign, and the lift provided by the Facebook campaign.

• 09’ Monthly average Google AdWords impressions: 36,589,022
• 09’ Monthly average Yahoo and Bing PPC impressions: 4,457,198
• Average Google, Yahoo, Bing CTR (click through ratio): 2.6%
• Average CPC (cost per click): $.78
• Annual monthly PPC cost: $832,417
• Average monthly PPC traffic: 1,067,201
• Average PPC pageviews per click including return visits over 90 days: 2.1
• Total monthly average PPC pageviews: 2,241,122
• Cost per PPC pageview including return visits over 30 days: $.37
• Average monthly email/newsletter subscriptions (.001 of PPC pageviews): 2241
• Exit clicks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (.0017) of PPC pageviews): 3810

Facebook PPC “interest” traffic via Google, Yahoo and Bing PPC campaigns

• 2009 monthly average Facebook PPC impressions: 4,457,198
• Average Facebook CTR: .0098%
• Average CPC: $.51
• Annual monthly PPC Cost: $22,277
• Average Facebook PPC traffic: 43,681
• Average PPC pageviews per click including return visits over 90 Days: 3.6
• Total monthly average PPC pageviews: 157,251
• Cost per PPC pageview including return visits over 30 days: $.14
• Average monthly email/newsletter subscriptions (.001 of PPC pageviews): 157
• Exit clicks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (.0124%) of PPC pageviews): 1950

Analysis of Facebook lift

• Cost: Facebook PPC increases costs +2.6%
• Impressions: Facebook PPC lifts impressions +10.8%
• Traffic: Facebook PPC lifts traffic +4.1%
• Average PPC pageviews: Facebook lifts +.58%
• Average monthly email/newsletter subscriptions: Facebook lifts +7%
• Exit clicks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (1.24%) of PPC pageviews): Facebook lifts social media exits by 51%

Wow! It only stands to reason that users who click from social media are more likely to exit to a social media KPI. The cost differential from traditional PPC to Facebook PPC is likely window, which will close, as more big brands notice the opportunity. The numbers above are averages of several projects we’ve worked on. We’re already noticing significant price increases in some categories. That said, for now it’s the wild (and often uncontested) west.

If that’s not enough, here are nine more compelling reasons to run an ongoing Facebook PPC program:

• 32,460 Users “Like” ACME and Are not Friends of ACME fan page yet.
• 12,454,060 identified users and 19-20 million estimated Facebook users are devoted to categories related ACME Products.
• 10% PPC traffic lift at-will for any traffic related KPI (aren’t they all?)
• Defend crucial space vs. negligence: this is a simple matter of reputation management
• Every Facebook impression is a priceless branding vehicle
• Environment so completely viral, any message can explode, diluting the global CPA
• PPC (Facebook and AdWords) proven avenue to build fan page
• Demographic detail on impressions and users is state of the art, low cost. Use responder demographics data to learn more about customers.
• Facebook + AdWords Data = Priceless insight to advise SEO process, messages, content design and organic conversion funnels

Do you experience a similar lift with your Facebook campaigns? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Thanks to Marc Bitanga, ExclamationMarc.com and David from Brand Verity, BrandVerity.com for putting this chart together and all the additional info added.

If you’re a publisher that wondered where this stuff comes from it’s pretty cool to look at, though probably more useful for merchants and agencies.

http://www.exclamationmarc.com/adwords/google-adwords-trademark-policy-flowchart/

http://blog.brandverity.com/359/useful-adwords-trademark-policy-flowchart/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Brandverity+(BrandVerity)

While Brian has a slightly different view: “I tend to think of the decision to outsource like it’s a home improvement project: If you can, do it yourself; if not, call someone smarter.” We tend to agree, except we always do it better than the “home-owner!”

Well worth the read!

http://www.ppchero.com/outsource-search-or-keep-it-in-house/

From everything I’ve heard it went real well and we’ve already been getting some buzz on twitter and various industry blogs! If you missed his presentation this time around look for us at the next conference!

Keep an eye out for a re-cap later this week!

For those of us in the industry, we know that internet marketing is the fastest growing type of sales method. Everyday more and more people are doing their shopping online. Everyday more people are getting smart phones. So as the sector grows it is no surprise that some of the networks agencies and publishers responsible for the growth are showing up on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies. You can see the full list at:  http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/the-full-list.html

Three Advertising and Marketing firms made the top 10 with Integra Click (Click Booth) sitting highest at #5. One Technologies and Media Trust sit at 8 and 9 respectively. There a a bunch more in the extensive list and a lot of them are agencies who manage brands and other aspects of large merchants marketing.

The real test is wether or not these hot companies can sustain their growth (or even remain consistent) as the economy remains questionable. With retail stores closing locations and consumers becoming more comfortable with searching out their desired products or distributors online it stands to reason that the industry will continue to grow.

What do you think the growth of the industry will be in 2010?

Nice Video From GeekCast.fm

If you have debated expanding your business to include affiliate marketing, but not sure if it is right for you; this is a good source of beginners info.

http://geekcast.fm/archives/introduction-to-affiliate-marketing-for-merchants/

Using a Celebrity to sell a product has been a long-standing and proven method of branding and increasing sales. From big name athletes on sports drinks down to Billy Mayes hawking the newest invention for your home; consumers are drawn to the name/face and assume the product is trustworthy, just like the spokesperson. If Peyton Manning tells us to buy a Sony TV, we are more inclined to take his word than the guy that works at Best Buy (even though Peyton probably doesn’t know much about electronics and the dude at Best Buy works with them everyday!)

So what happens when a company puts a celebrity face on a product without permission? In the most recent high profile case, some idiots used Oprah and friends (Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray) to sell their products without authorization and are getting sewed. Everyone from manufacturers of the products down to affiliates promoting the ads are included.

Oprah’s production company; Harpo Productions has licensing rights to all her intellectual properties which include the Oprah and Dr. Oz names and likenesses. To use either without express written permission is an obvious copyright infringement. To then go ahead and add fake testimonials then crosses over into defamation of character, even if the product does not portray a negative aspect on the subject.

So who gets the blame for the fraud? According to 5staraffiliateprograms.com more than 50 businesses and 500 sites are being targeted by the two lawsuits filed in Illinois and New York. Many of the sites are simple affiliate landing pages that are re-purposing the images and text provided by the merchant. Other affiliates are being charged because of domain squatting around the celebrity names and creating false testimonials.

This scandal is shining a dismal light on our industry, mainly because most people don’t know what we do and of course people trust Oprah. FWM Laboratories is a big producer of many health crazes like Reversatrol and Acai Berry products. The CEO of the company said in a Business Week article that he (his company) did not write the ads, rather that the network of affiliates created the content for the ads. Three such defendants have already been fined $50,000 for the infringement and were ordered to re-pay consumers they scammed with “free trials” that resulted in undisclosed post charges to their credit cards.

This will be an ongoing story but should not affect most marketers directly. Just be careful of the creatives you select and products you endorse. DO NOT make false claims or use unauthorized endorsements. The legal system is looking for ways to slap down our industry. Let’s keep it clean, if you can’t keep it clean, please stay under the radar!

CX Message:

This is an important reminder to all of our affiliates that any landing pages, creative, websites or other advertising content used by affiliates to promote offers through CX Digital Media must comply with our Terms of Service and applicable laws, including but not limited to use of third party images, celebrity endorsements or photographs, testimonials or reviews, or other similar content used to in connection with the offers. By way of example and for illustrative purposes only, websites or landing pages that reference Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Oz, Rachael Ray or other celebrities in connection with the offers will not be tolerated and will result in non-payment for any actions generated using these non-compliant techniques that violate applicable laws, infringe upon third party rights and are deceptive in nature, in addition to risking suspension from our network and substantial liability exposure. To the extent that any affiliates in our network are employing these or similar practices, you must immediately cease such practices.

Additional reading on this topic:

http://affiliate-blogs.5staraffiliateprograms.com/3560/oprah-and-attorney-general-acai-affiliates.html

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1466931

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32483484/ns/entertainment-celebrities/

Sure Affiliate marketing is a numbers game, but it’s also about maximizing the return on your investment. This includes time, as well as capital spent on generating the sales/leads. While it doesn’t cost a thing to tweet with an affiliate link, you could still be wasting time if your followers are out of the demographic you are targeting.

Another way you could be wasting time on twitter is if all you post are links to merchants. Twitter followers are looking for quick bursts of information. It is pretty easy to tell when a Tweeter is simply there to sell things. If you offer good content on a regular basis; then when your links come up your followers are more apt to believe that they are actually getting that good information or deal they are accustomed to seeing in your tweets.

Having a lot of followers looks good to potential new followers, but if your content stinks, so will your sales. Remember, Twitter is an extension of you and your products/services. Trust must be built in order to have a mutually beneficial relationship. So go after those 1,000+ followers, but make sure YOU are someone worth following.

Check out these related articles on monetizing your twitter account:

http://www.shoemoney.com/2009/07/30/how-do-i-make-money-with-twitter-past-present-future/

http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2009/07/17/twitter-spam-a-real-problem/

-Dan Spivak

The Smartest Search

The New York Times just had a big story about it.

“In an interview, Mr. Vladeck outlined plans that could upset the online advertising ecosystem. Privacy policies have become useless, the commission’s standards for the cases it reviews are too narrow, and some online tracking is “Orwellian,” Mr. Vladeck said.”

Marketing Pilgrim has a story today. Internet Marketer Alert! The Government is Coming! The Government is Coming!

“It looks like the Internet marketing industry could be staring at an age of government regulation and oversight that could change online advertising in major ways. While this kind of news should come as no surprise based on the new age of government intervention in business it is still enough to make even the most seasoned online marketer take notice.”

UPDATE: Adotas just came out with an article too.
The FTC and online advertising
Via: 5 Star Affiliate Programs

While it seems that Google will continue to dominate, current market share would put the MSN/Yahoo combo around 30-35% of total searches in America. That is a considerable amount that should not be ignored by SEO or PPC managers.

All 3 Platforms have different algorithms for their organic search. From what little information we have so far, much of the new Hybrid engine will be based off the recently re-vamped MSN Live engine, now called Bing! One simple search in Bing will show you the difference in how ads are displayed. Do a little more research and you’ll notice that organic search may yield different results. It is especially important for SEO managers to know the subtle differences in how the engines rank the pages. As an example: Bing and Yahoo give more credit to sub-domains with a searched keyword in them. You might find a sub-page ranking above a home page depending on what keywords you searched with. (*see link below for more tips on SEO management)

Pay Per Click affiliates need to pay attention to the new search giant as well. Most Publishers test out new campaigns in Yahoo or MSN before setting up the more costly Google Ad Words campaigns. Considering that the usual CPC is cheaper than Google it is probably a good idea to start running some more campaigns in Bing! Get yourself familiar with the interface, ad creation and the bidding process. Don’t forget, you get extra space for ad copy and paid search results appear in different spots on the Bing engine than the usual Google style we are all accustomed to seeing. Many industry pros feel the way ads are placed on the Bing search results will make consumers more likely to click on paid links. This could prove to be a major factor when we get more stats on the demographic breakdown of Bing users. If CTR (click through rates) are truly higher this may also be the time to try and take control of certain broad term keywords before the mass migration occurs.

MSN has pumped millions into advertising the new engine over the lat few months with the promise of an easier more exact search. While they have only seen a slight increase in overall traffic, there is no reason to believe that it will not eventually make an impact. As MSN begins to partner with current Yahoo partners and build the new engine into internet explorer (and most likely another round of advertising) we should see search volume in the new giant increase. Should be fun to watch this develop!

For more information on the merger visit the official website:

http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx

For more tips on optimizing SEO for MSN or Yahoo check out this great blog from Winning the Web: http://www.winningtheweb.com/microsoft-bing-yahoo-deal-seo.php

-Dan Spivak

TheSmartestSearch.com

Kleenex Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be

Chris used Kleenex (launched in 1924) in his post as an example of the ultimate in company branding. The facial tissue product started out as the ‘disposable “cold cream towel”‘ and ‘disposable handkerchief’. Today, it has become the biggest name in the industry and synonymous with the product itself.

And, really, isn’t that what every company wants? If I send my husband to the store and tell him we need Kleenex, he knows exactly what I mean. (I think the last person in my family to call it ‘facial tissue’ was my grandmother.)

Kleenex isn’t the only product to achieve this either. If you’ve had kids, you’ve likely used Pull-Ups (launched in the 1980s. AKA disposable training pants) or Pampers (Came out in the 1950s. Also known as diapers for any of you who haven’t experienced any 3am feedings yet ).

Depends (started in the 1980s) is another product that has reached the ‘golden’ level of branding. You might also be interested to know that Kleenex, Pull-Ups, and Depends are all made and owned by Kimberly-Clark. (They’re obviously doing something right!)

I guess my point is that the branding for these products started long before social media was ever thought of. They gained their prestige simply by having good products, smart business owners who could identify the best advertising opportunities, and a solid understanding of their customer’s needs. Point blank, if your company doesn’t have these three things, you don’t stand a hope in hell of getting anywhere.

Now, I fully agree that you can’t really say anything negative about their branding, but these products have another huge problem to overcome: The market is now full of no-name competitors selling for far less. So much less, in fact, that many of the coupons released by the name brands still can’t put the price tag of their product at a competitive level.

Now, as a mother with a young family and a tight budget, why should I pay an extra $5 more or so for a bag of diapers that are just going to go in the garbage anyway? The reality is that until you try it and can personally see the difference yourself, there isn’t one! They have to get potential customers to try their product and identify the benefits. That’s where social media comes in.

A Little Head-to-Head Competition Never Hurts

Social media brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘competition’. This new, real time format brings the fight over your target customer base to the forefront, forcing you to plan ahead and step wisely. Make a mistake during this very public conflict, and it could seriously harm your company image.

I think the best example of this situation was Pepsi greeting Coke on Twitter or even Yahoo, MSN, and Google who have done this as well. None of the companies have done anything wrong (yet), but the problem is that they haven’t done anything! Instead of ignoring the situation, these

opposing companies should really use this viral opportunity to their advantage.

Personally, I’m watching these situations like a Hannah Montana fan at Walmart waiting for the launch of a new CD. Without a little crowd control, it’s bound to get ugly. I’d love to see the two soda giants bring their already established core of loyal followers out into the open in order to attract more attention.

Think about it: a friendly competition on Twitter, a ‘battle of the bands’ competition on YouTube, or even a Facebook Frenzy that gets followers involved in the friendly games and keeps the interest up. Advertise these campaigns in real life and on television to pick up additional interest. Those of us who watch social media, branding and business would undoubtedly chat about it as well, spreading the buzz far beyond the traditional reach of these companies.

On the other hand, what I don’t want to see is a nasty battle involving heavy-duty mud slinging between the two. (Political figures might want to take note, not?) Anyway, I think it’s a shame to see this potential go to waste.

Social Media Drowning: Are You A Murderer?

All companies including the biggest ones need to stay visible, but they also need to choose their steps wisely in order to avoid drowning their followers. As Chris mentioned in his post, customers get tired of being constantly bombarded with endless streams of ’stuff’. Here’s an example:

I recently ‘friended’ a company on Facebook because I was genuinely interested in what they had to offer. Before I knew it, they found me on Twitter. Great…I love Twitter. Then, they found me on 5 or 6 other networks and suddenly I was on a mailing list. Before I knew it, I was getting 10 or more chunks of ’stuff’ from this company in a day, not including tweets. The result? I finally had to unfriend them everywhere and email them to be removed from their lists. This is a shame because I really had been interested until it became more of a hindrance than a help.

If I could tell the branding bigwigs one thing, it would be this: Instead of wasting hours chasing off and strangling those who are already loyal to you, use discretion and ration your postings if you decide to have your customers connect with you everywhere.

Or better yet, select a few main accounts where you’ll get the best results, and use other social media networks to funnel new followers towards your main sites. If you’re not sure what something is like, sign up to everything yourself so that you get a first hand experience of your social media campaign.

Are you including SMM in your branding plans? Have you considered these issues or noticed them with big companies yourself? Have you noticed something with big name branding that I haven’t? I’d love to hear it!

Via: Search Engine People

• You know more could be done.
• You have 50 keywords in your entire account.
• You have one or two campaigns total.
• You’re blowing through your budget by noon.
• You perform a search to find your ad, and it’s no where to be found.
• You don’t know what the content network is, but you know it’s spending a lot of money.
• Your cost-per-lead is much higher than any other way of advertising.
• You don’t know how many leads your getting.
• You don’t know what your users are doing once they enter your site.

Honestly, I could go on and on here. But the point of the post is to remind those people who think they can handle their PPC account just fine on their own, that just maybe they’ll make more money by hiring an agency than they would be saving the company money by doing it on your own.

But how does one know what questions to ask a PPC firm? How do you know this firm is legitimate? Is the pricing accurate for what their providing? Below I’ve provided the best questions to ask your potential PPC firm and the answers you should be looking for before hiring them.

1. How do you manage the Google Quality Score?

Answer:  The Google Quality Score is based on keyword, ad text and landing page relevance.  The key is to have smaller, more targeted ad groups with fewer keywords so we can write more targeted ad text and increase the click-through rates. We also like to have our keywords contained in the landing pages to increase relevancy and conversions.

2. What will be the first step when taking over the account?

Answer:  A good first strategy is to see if there is anything that needs to be fixed immediately like incorrect settings or an account re-structure. We would plan the re-structure carefully as to not revert any positive Quality Scores or remove any account history.

3. What kind of reporting will I get?

Answer: Any ad hoc reports you want. But pro actively a weekly or bi-weekly report as well as a monthly report detailing work completed and an analysis of the account statistics.

4. Will I have access to Google Analytics reporting and Adwords?

Answer: Yes we will set up a Google Analytics account for you if you don’t already have one and yes you can have access to the Adwords account. (Just remember if you hire a PPC firm to manage your Adwords or Yahoo account, you can’t go in and make changes on your own. That could mess up any potential strategy the firm has in place.)

5.  What is the communication process like?

Answer:  We respond to emails or calls same day or within 24 hours.  We also use an online project software management tool that documents all work completed.

6. How does keyword research work?

Answer:  We use several free keyword research tools to find any new keywords or variations of existing keywords. Keyword research is an on-going process as new terms come up frequently.  We would also use the search query report in Google Adwords to find new keywords and negative keywords to drive only qualified traffic.

7. What search engines will you advertise in?

Answer:  Mainly Google, Yahoo and Bing. However if we feel there is good opportunity to advertise in 2^nd tier search engines we’ll definitely look into it.

8.  What kinds of testing will you be doing?

Answer: We write and test new ad text on a weekly basis.  We use different messaging, different calls-to-action and benefits to see what message gets the highest click-through rate possible. We also like to work in Google Website Optimizer to test different variables of your landing page to improve conversions.

9.  What is your bidding and budget strategy?

Answer:  It’s really different for every client. We create settings in the accounts that will show our ads all though out the day.  We also pay very close attention to see if we’re hitting our daily budgets. If we are, then we take the approach to either increase the daily budget or decrease our keyword bids gain additional traffic but at a cheaper cost.  Our goal is to reduce your cost-per-lead but at the same time increase the number of leads you receive.

10.  How can we be sure all potential opportunities for improvement are taken?

Answer:  We read all kinds of PPC and SEO related blogs to be sure we’re keeping up with the changing industry. We also have Google, Yahoo and MSN representatives that let us know if new beta tests are available or if a new optimization is available.

Not all PPC firms will have the same answers as I do. But they should all be generally identical.  I think one of the most important aspects of hiring a PPC firm is the amount of transparency they offer. If they’re willing to share with you what they’re working on for your account on a daily basis then they have nothing to hide.  Also, sending you reports on a weekly or monthly basis not only helps you track your success, but allows the PPC firm to track their success too!

Via: PPC Hero

Like any online medium (or traditional medium), it’s about your reach and the size of your network at the end of the day – without it, you simply can’t move on. What Bing will have to do beyond powering search for Yahoo! is to get in to a position where they can actually challenge Google for the number one (1) spot in the space is grow their distribution, create unique apps and even steal certain key partnerships that Google benefits from and displace them as the key search provider.

Search was once a very competitive space. You had hundreds of pure engines, many meta-search engines and several pay per click engines all competing for a slice of the pie. Google somehow emerged from the bunch and took it all over because of their ability to distribute their products and monetize users – what remains to be seen is if Bing can truly challenge Google if not displace them altogether. That is no easy task and I would not bet on that happening anytime soon.

The great thing about the online world is that storefronts can be built and launched within days as opposed to years, but there are some things to consider when looking to grow your business in new markets that you are unfamiliar with.

First, do your research – much is made to North American based online businesses about the benefits of expanding in to Europe or Asia, yet when we think about interacting with customers from different cultures – not only to we need to ensure that we get to them, but that we are effective in marketing to them once we do.

The UK, Germany, France and Japan, for example, are some of the most lucrative online marketplaces to get in to if you are coming from an online business that primarily markets and operates within North America.

A recent article in eMarketer talks about ‘E-Germany’ and how Germany leads the way with a percentage of online buyers at 73% of internet users aged 18-55 and higher than any other country sampled:

Pretty remarkable stuff and if you asked most North Americans (even those that work in the online industry), they would probably not even know about the opportunity that lies outside our borders. Still, with such opportunity comes risk and you need to know what you are doing.

Chances are your US or Canadian website as-is is not going to gain much traction in the new markets you are about to enter.

You need to think about what to do.

10 Key Points To Think About

1. Choose a brand for your website that will create traction with local customers in that market, should the one that you are using in North America not be all that applicable.

2. Purchase Country specific TLD’s for the markets you want to sell in.

3. Look into localized web hosting opportunities and host your new websites for the new countries in those countries, so you help Google and other search engines recognize your website’s localized importance … and rank it with users from those markets. (Ed.: if you already own the country specific TLD you can get away with hosting elsewhere … but file this under “better safe than sorry” & “future proof SEO”)

4. Ensure that you are well versed and can develop content in the local language and if you cannot, get someone who can.

5. Make sure you can legally sell your products / services in the new markets and that all logistics and customer service issues are sorted out before launching.

6. Learn about your new markets and what is important to consumers who live and play in them. Guarantee you can make a ‘promise of delivery’ and meet the demands of what customers.

7. If you plan to partner with other online brands to drive traffic to your site, verify your partners have strong enough a presence in that market. Wal-Mart is large in the USA and Canada, yet is not much of anything in Europe, for example.

8. Leverage the power of social networking sites that are strongest in your new markets. In the ‘B2B’ world, sites like LinkedIn are very popular in the USA, but if looking to market in Europe, Ecademy would likely be a better fit.

9. Sell in the local currency – buyers from the UK want to pay in Pounds Sterling and buyers from Germany want to pay in Euros.

10. Abide by all local online, marketing, consumer and privacy laws as selling online in one country can be very different from doing business in another.

Relevant Markets, Relevant Channels

I spent time overseas running Partner Marketing for AOL in Europe some years back.

The Germans, French and Brits are not only different from North Americans; they are different form each other as well as the citizens of every other country in Europe. Their online behaviors are different in everything from what they want to read about to what they buy online to what they do online.

Is what
you
are selling
relevant to the
market you
are selling in?For example, online auctions are big in North America, yet virtually non-existent in the UK as most of their auctions are SMS based.

Be sure that whatever you are selling, promoting, auctioning or giving away is relevant to the market you are selling in and that you are leveraging the right online channels and communications vehicles to do so.

Research your markets…it’s not only about size, but the right customers for your product.

Spain has a much smaller percentage of household internet penetration than Germany, yet if you are selling Spanish Tapas – then Spain is likely a better market for you than Germany just like how cupcakes are more appealing to US consumers than the French.

Via: Search Engine People

Yesterday,  I was talking with a merchant about the Internet tax situation. This merchant is concerned about the impact of collecting tax, they wonder if it would have an adverse effect on their customer’s shopping. My thoughts have always been that it would make little difference. I base this on my own experience and on discussions I have had with friends, family and even my website visitors. We shop online because it is more convenient. You can almost always find what you want in stock, it is usually delivered within a couple days and you  don’t have to deal with crowds or traffic. I am sure some people do shop online to save taxes but I wonder what the percentage is.

The  merchant I spoke with asked if I could find anything to back up my thoughts. He needs something to show his partner to convince him not to sever ties with affiliates in an affected state. I have begun researching to find data to back up my opinion. It didn’t take long to find information. I immediately found an article at Online Wall Street Journal.

An article titled ”Amazon Fights Sales Tax Drive, Despite Modest Impact” written by By Scott Morrison of Dow Jones Newswires states that research has shown that sales tax collection has only limited impact with online sales.

But analysts said taxing Internet transactions would likely have a minor impact on the business of retailers like Amazon. Bruce Cundiff, an analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, said Amazon has firmly established its reputation and relationships with online shoppers, and estimated a sales tax might reduce the company’s overall revenues by “low-single digit” percentages.

Mr Morrison also provided a quote from Bill Fox, one of the researchers involved in an University of Tennessee in-depth study of the impact of sales tax and online shopping. According to the article, Mr. Fox says that people are so comfortable with shopping online that sales tax has little impact.

In my opinion, “State and Local Government Sales Tax Revenue Losses from Electronic Commerce” By Donald Bruce, William F. Fox and LeAnn Luna, is a must read for everyone. A copy of this is available to read at the Streamlined Sales Tax Project ( Streamlinedsalestax.org )  website  Supporting Documents for Information on Federal Legislation for Streamlined Sales Tax. There is also a second article, “State Revenue Report for April 2009″ that contains fascinating information.

I will continue to look for additional research but this should serve as  a reminder to merchants, don’t make  decisions without knowing the true impact of collecting tax.

Like many others, I wonder why Amazon has decided to remove affiliates in some states with an Internet tax. Perhaps all the tax collection is just too much?

Via: NY Affiliate Voice

The Affiliate Playbook

I have been asked how to scale probably 100 times since I started blogging. It has been a long time since I have tried to scale that I might not be the right person to ask, but I have done it 3 different times in 3 different ways for paid search campaigns over the last 5+ years. So forgive me if this game plan is hopelessly outdated or too brutally honest.

Our goal – starting with a single niche and the standard affiliate payout transform into a super-affiliate making 6+ figures a month.

Some caveats:

• This assumes that you are not in a terribly crowded field, so mortgages, payday loans, satellite, ringtones and a few other ‘flavor of the month’ affiliate campaigns probably won’t work on this plan.
• This is not going to work on a $2.00 zip submit payout, so please don’t ask. If you dont have a starting payout north of $10 it is probably best to pick a different product.
• The goal is sufficient (7+ figures per year) that I am not even going to try and pretend to do this with $2,000. I had lots of money in the bank each time I started over and invested significant sums to get scale with each.
• I am not going to live in my mothers basement and hope that the affiliate manager at my merchant notices me and rewards me with a higher payout, I am going to meet the senior guys at the network, then the affiliate manager at the merchant and then the affiliate managers director or VP and impress them that I can help them achieve and exceed aggressive goals. In short I am in a real business that happens to be online, but I am not a hermit crab.

Here is what needs to be in place to start:

• We have located a product with a decent payout, that is not already stuffed with affiliates, offered by at least 2-3 respectable networks.
• We have designed or paid an expert to design a great landing page with good usability and website surrounding it with good content and at least 8-10 pages deep of keyword rich content that is unique to my site that will pass all sniffs of the quality score test because it is quality and relevant.
• We have some good tracking in place so that I can determine ROI by keyword.
• We actually took the time to create well thought out ad copy unique to my high value keywords.
• We did not jam tens of thousands of keywords into one adgroup or campaign and then wait to see which ones work.
• We approached this with pride of ownership, something where quality of work shines through, nobody is going to call this crap.
• We came to the party with 3-6 hours every day to tweak and monitor this campaign, and not just for the first week but for the next 12-18 months. 7 days a week, holidays, weekends, when I am out of town, when I feel like shit and when my buddies are out doing something a lot more fun.
• We have a solid credit line dedicated just to this, and I dont mean buying 30″ dual monitors and Herman Miller chairs before I ever make a penny all those awesome systems you see online were bought after the fact not before.

If you cant, wont or dont know how to do any of the above, Stop reading. The rest won’t help you one bit.

So we now have a single affiliate offer at standard commission with well thought out ad copy, landing pages and some money ready to turn on our adwords campaign.

• My first goal is to just get on the networks radar, let them know who I am, do enough volume that my account manager does not have to figure out who I am, get me on his radar. To do this I need to drive consistent steady volume. Anyone can be a flash in the pan and bid to first place and lose a ton of money and then fade away. They see it all the time, and are not going to be impressed. Instead show them consistent steady volume, maybe do this with just a few high converting keywords, or lots of cheaper long tail ones, maybe just bid to 9-10th place on the short tail stuff. Our goal is to lose as little as possible while still being consistent.
• At this stage, no way am I going to get anything like a white label or even an invite to dinner when my affiliate manager is in town. I have a few limited options to test. The first thing is the display URL. I want something that describes the product generically (dont infringe on copyrights) in a short of way as possible using high volume keywords. Widgets.com is probably not going to be available to you. Try WidgetsDeluxe, WidgetsFast, WidgetsEtc. Take your primary keyword and get 5-7 short and sweet URL’s and test them in rotation using Google ad copy testing tool. 1 or 2 of these is going to perform better than the rest. This will take you from slight loser to slight winner. Increase bids accordingly until you are back to slight loser
• So with a little bit of traffic we probably just increased volume by 20% or more just by fiddling with the display URL and then bumping bids. With that small bump in volume over the levels your network was used to seeing, approach them about a better payout. You will probably get it since you have established consistent volume and are not just a flash in the pan, dont ask for a bump before you prove anything.
• With the 10% or so boost in payout, dump those revenues back into your bids. You are probably now 4-6 weeks in and are down a couple of grand and you are probably now in the bottom of the middle of the results. Now is the time to add in Yahoo and MSN. MSN will convert well but provide low volume, Yahoo will convert worse in most cases and be 1/4 to 1/3 of the volume of Google. Go back to your network again and get another small bump. You might need to play 1 network vs. another. Dont be untruthful about what a payout is being offerred, it is a small community and you dont want to burn bridges or be seen as a liar. Get that 2nd bump and now you are 20% or so higher than you were before.
• It is now time to test ad copy. Always start with things on Google since your test volume is Clicks/impressions rather than Conversions/clicks. Until you have good volume it is important to test what you can get answers on and not eat up tons of test bandwidth. Although CTR is important, be sure to drill down to conversion rate per test since that is ultimately what matters.
• You have now gotten 2 bumps from networks and are probably not going to get a ton more since they only have so much to give. You should be 3+ months in, plenty of time to have hit a pubcon or ad:tech or SES or just arranged an onsite meeting with the affiliate marketing manager for the product you are working on. Start by email, then work your way up to an occasional IM and eventually phone and in person meetings. Your goal is get your foot in the door and remove the affiliate network from the picture and get them to agree to a white label situation. This may take months, so get cracking early on this. Your white label will get you 10% increase in conversion overnight.
• Either right before or right after you get the white label (at the very least be in talks with them) start aggressively testing landing pages. Start with 2 or more radically different designs and then pick a design winner and then test other elements like hero shots, call to actions, button language, placement of items on the page. Before starting this, you should have invested in SSL certificates and be landing in a secure environment and displaying the security seals prominently to let visitors know you are serious. If you cannot get a 30-50% increase in conversion with your landing page, you are not trying hard enough.
• Between the 10% security seal boost, the 10% white label boost, the 30% boost to conversion from testing the page, you should now be pulling yourself back to even and even turning a small profit, dont spend it just yet though. Just like with the affiliate network, you need to establish a baseline of consistent results where the merchant starts to assume your volume is always going to be there.
• You have worked with the merchant for 2-3 months and they are treating your volume like their volume (trust me this will happen). You have flown to corporate HQ and met the director or VP who the affiliate manager reports to, you are now negotiating with him rather than through the affiliate manager who has no real power in most cases. You need to let it be known that you could drive a lot more volume with a decent sized payout increase. They will salivate at the idea of volume, but will also be hesitant to give you a big boost. At the same time you are seducing the VP, you are making inquiries to one of your largest competitors about moving your volume over, you want to get a white label from them from the start (they are poaching an affiliate which is different than working with a small guy). Before you move your volume over, you call the VP at your original merchant and “give him a heads up” that you are going to test XYZ (tell them the name) for a few days, but you dont want him to worry too much, you will turn the volume back on in a few days, worst case a few weeks. You have now caused him to sweat and think that he might lose you. He has already budgeted in your volume and those resulting profits to his boss, he has probably mentioned to his boss that their could be more volume if they were willing to pay up. Now the choice almost becomes nothing from you or pay you more.
• In almost all circumstances, you will probably want to work long term with the same company and not jump around to the highest pay out all of the time. That does not mean you don’t flirt with the others and even have a few “test runs” for a few weeks every so often. Don’t seem fickle or emotional, just act like you are a businessman (which you are) and you are looking out for your own interests as good business (which it is) and you will soon be viewed as a strategic partner rather than an affiliate.
• At some point it will probably make sense to go to some sort of tiered pricing structure. Make sure you can hit these targets. Do not get paid $x for first 10,000 units and $y for units 10,001 – 15,000 and $z for 15,001+. Instead you want to hit a tier and get paid retroactive to the first unit. They will resist, but this is imperative for you. It means that sometimes you can take a loss per unit the last few days of the month and drive a ton of volume in order to hit your tier so you make a greater overall profit. The reason this is important is that the merchant sees these volume surges and starts thinking how they can get them every day instead of just the last 3-4 days of the month, then you are on for another round of negotiations. Always have a tier you have not yet met. When you start hitting the last tier, time to start negotiating for a new tier.
• In time, the merchant will get addicted to your business, they will spread their overhead across all of their traffic (much of which is really your traffic) and start seeing economies of scale. This is when you really have leverage. Dont be a bad business partner, just dont be a meek one either.
• The last 4-5 bullets I have not mentioned continual testing of things like the form, possible cross-sells, gathering an email list, retargeting, and a whole host of other stuff. Our philosophy is that we have to increase conversion by 20% each year to just stand still, once you start standing still, others start to pass you and you start to lose your leverage. Once you lose leverage, it is almost impossible to get it back. Never stop testing.

OK I want to thank both of the people who made it to the bottom of this post. It is obviously not exhaustive, but it is a reasonable series of steps for how to start as a dinky small fry affiliate today and 18-24 months from now be writing your own blog and posting a big check. Of course you will be doing so well you might also think, being rich and unknown with no competition may just be better than rich and famous with 100 new people entering your space hellbent on killing your margins…

Via: www.oooff.com