Tag Archives: affiliate marketing

PPC Classroom Product Review – A No-BS Review

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Note: Click here for the latest PPC Classroom 2.0 (by Amit Mehta and Anik Singal – Feb 2009)  product review

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A major grouse I have with “shopping comparison sites” is that there’s often no “comparison” involved. They’re usually just a bunch of scraped data from affiliate datafeeds. There’s no “opinion” or comparison of the pros and cons of the product. Just a pile of digital trash on the information highway in my opinion.

It’s frequently the same case with Internet Marketing product “reviews” too…You know those ads that go:

“Is Product XYZ A Scam? Check here to find the facts!”
OR
“Don’t Buy Product XYZ Till You Read This Review”
OR my favorite
“An Honest Review of Product XYZ” (yeah right…)

If you head over to the page, you usually see a regurgitation of the marketing material, or just a listing of the product’s specifications, the price and maybe some bogus “bonus”…whoopee…

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In my past vocation as a tech journalist, I used to evaluate product and service offerings from the likes of Microsoft, Iomega, Diamond Multimedia, Creative Technology among others. The product reviews were subsequently syndicated on the newswires and online tech portals, so I’ll use the same methodology here as well.

What’s good and bad about PPC Classroom?

First off, the product is pretty comprehensive.
From the product graphic, it looks like:

  • 4 manuals
  • 7 discs (probably a combination of CDs or DVDs)
  • At least 8 handouts
  • Super Affiliate Jeremy Palmer’s “top secret” software tool for tracking ad campaigns across various pay-per-click search engines (a necessity once you are spending large amounts on PPC on a daily basis).

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Regarding the course structure, it’s geared towards newer affiliate marketers with topics on:

  • An introduction to PPC and affiliate marketing
  • Keyword matching
  • Understanding PPC stats
  • Finding niches and identifying hot demand
  • Evaluating your competition and building your USP (unique selling proposition)

And the bread and butter of the PPC-affiliate marketing trade, affiliate marketing monetization strategies Continue reading →

Will Google AdWords Quality Score Guidelines Set Trash Affiliate Earnings?

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There’s been quite a bit of debate about how pay-per-click market leader Google AdWords’ Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines is going to hit PPC affiliates.

Here’re some of the more hotly debated items from the the AdWords blog post “Websites that may merit low landing page  quality score“:

 Types of websites that will be penalized with low landing page quality scores:

  • Data collection sites that offer free gifts, subscription services etc., in order to collect private information
  • Arbitrage sites that are designed for the sole purpose of showing ads
  • Malware sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software on a visitor’s computer

If we receive user complaints about ads for the types of websites listed above, the advertisers of those websites may not be allowed to continue running AdWords ads for those websites.
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“Data collection sites” will hit affiliates who use PPC to drive traffic to zip/email submit type offers or to an opt-in page for a free report.

And who’s going to file a “user complaint”? The visitor? Unlikely. More likely, Continue reading →

Rabid Niche Marketing With Britney Spears

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Dear Fellow Niche Marketer,
Like me, you probably have heard of the buzz surrounding Britney Spears’ performance on the MTV Video Music Awards.
You would have heard the critics’ criticism that she looked like she had piled on a couple of pounds, and her outfit looked something reminiscent of what a working lady might wear walking the streets.

britney spears

Additionally, you might also have read about how she was huffing and puffing Continue reading →

Affiliate Summit West 2008 Updates

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Missy Ward and Shawn Collins’ Affiliate Summit West 2008 from February 24-26, 2008 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, looks like it’s shaping up to be yet another successful conference.

They’ve secured Jim Kukral as the MC.

According to Shawn’s post “Speaker Submissions for ASW 08”:

The submission deadline is October 26, 2007. Read through all of the information on the speaker submission page. submissions failing to follow the instructions and/or adhere to the deadline will not be considered.

…Accepted speakers will be notified no later than November 16, 2007.

Due to the volume of submissions, we will not notify applicants if they have not been accepted. Therefore, if you have not been contacted by November 16, 2007, your proposal was not accepted.

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The speaking proposals are evaluated on the basis of:

How are speaker submissions selected?
The speaker submissions are reviewed by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board and selected on a number of factors, including speaking experience, industry reputation, and attention to detail (failure to follow instructions on the form will count against you), etc.

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Here’s an interesting idea from a year ago for ASW 07 (held in January this year)

If you are interested in speaking, one thing that would help evaluate your proposal is if you also send a video (just fire up a Web cam to shoot it) and talk about what you’ll be speaking about at the conference. (Potential Affiliate Summit Speakers – Send Us Your Videos)

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Although taking the effort to put together a video – scripting, shooting, editing – will take Continue reading →

Business Lessons From Hong Kong Disneyland

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Fresh from our trip to Hong Kong, my family had a great time in Hong Kong Disneyland (especially my daughter Bianca). Internet marketers can take a few lessons out of Disney’s book in their online business.

The Art of the Pre-Sell: Stepping into the MTR (mass transit rapid) subway station at the Sunny Bay station, we got onto the train bound for Hong Kong Disneyland. The folks at Disney have decked the train out with small bronze statuettes of iconic Disney characters, and the regular plastic seats in the cabins have been replaced by plush velvet cushioned-seats.

As you step out of the station, the PA (public address) system starts playing tunes from various Disney cartoons like Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, and other cartoons.

Internet Marketing application: In your site design, strive to create an emotional experience for the visitor. Music can be highly evocative, as can be appropriate images. Since royalty-free music and low cost photo stock can be purchased inexpensively, there’s no reason why these tools shouldn’t be used.

Disclaimer: I hate “branding” type commercials and ads just as much as the next Internet Marketer. You should consider how music and image elements can be used in a “direct response” context, rather than in a pure corporate branding context.

hong kong disneyland golden mickeys

A Multi-sensory Experience: The theme park featured a number of live performances, and with the added zing provided by technology, featured 3D effects, smoke, confetti, fireworks and other pyrotechnics. These effects served to heighten the emotional experience and create memories that you can see, hear and feel (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) for months and perhaps years to come.

The best part is Continue reading →

What Happens When Merchants Don’t Play By Affiliate Marketing Rules Part 2

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This is a follow up to my “What Happens When Merchants Don’t Play By Affiliate Marketing Rules?” post, which I believe affiliate marketers will be keenly interested in.

I called the merchant and talk to them, and what they told me surprised me.

But first, a summary: With a gap in a web service merchant’s affiliate commission payouts on an affiliate network and their in-house program, I was keen to hear what veterans in the affiliate industry had to say. The commission payout through the affiliate network was about 50% higher, compared to the merchant’s in-house program.

Communicating with the merchant was certainly a key point in addressing this issue and some might say the information gap was being unfairly used in this instance:

“That’s retarded. Tell them to retroactively apply the network rate to your in-house sales from the date they started that network rate. If they won’t, dump them..” – Geordie Carswell, RevenueWire EVP.

“I attribute the fault in this to the affiliate manager/team handling your account. It is he or she’s job is to make sure affiliates (super or not) are taken care of. That person should have given you the choice as to which network you promote their program through, or at least told you about both offers. You are a well known affiliate and blogger and you should have been informed of both options. The affiliate marketing managers of Pepperjam are in constant contact with the affiliates who make a difference our programs. We build and form relationships to gain trust. The affiliate manager who was assigned to you did not do that.” – Robyn Martin, Pepperjam Affiliate Marketing Director.

“Before I began working for LinkConnector Affiliate Network, I was the affiliate manager for a few different companies. I considered it one of my responsibilities to keep our payouts consistent between the in-house program and the network programs. If anything, our in-house program sometimes had a higher payout because no additional fees were involved. I would never have considered that disparity between commissions – that’s just shooting yourself in the foot.” – Jeannine Crooks, LinkConnector.com Affiliate Sales Manager.

“I personally feel strongly that bigger and pro-actively managed programs SHOULD offer 2 versions.
In-house and a good network. TYPICALLY, but not in this case the in-house commissions would be a little higher, possibly longer cookies, etc. to make the in-house option more attractive and offset network costs…a possible scenario hit me that COULD make sense of this situation. Not saying this scenario would make the situation any easier for you to take but…
If the merchant, like many are was clueless and the affiliate program was not being tended to properly and they hired an OPM.” – Linda Buquet, 5Star Affiliate Programs Founder.[See the 5Star discussion thread]

Which is in-line with what I would expect. An in-house program would have lower operating costs and could give out higher payouts, but the opposite scenario is at work here.

And Chickenfeed AKA Millnic Media‘s Jason Bailey chimed in with:

“you got hosed and it is your own fault. This IS the standard practice and fully within the marketers code of ethics. (I can see the shit flying at me already…)…In House programs are notoriously low payers. They are also usually the most poorly managed of the places you can pull a particular offer from. CPA networks have schwacks of experience with a wide variety of offers, merchants and publishers. In house affiliate managers are often the webmaster as well, and quite possibly the night doorman to boot (not always — **dodges shit** –)…

You got hosed. If you were doing well at $60, think how much better you’ll at $90. Hell if the CPA network is offering at $90 on the street and you can push some volume, I’ll bet the can get $95 no sweat. Suck it up. Don’t make that mistake again. Lot at the bright side – You just got a $30 pay bump!..Join all the big networks and shop around. Get them fighting each other for your traffic. You have to be the squeaky wheel to get the big payouts. Logging into CJ to see what is new doesn’t cut it.

And as Share Results Network affiliate manager Continue reading →