|
They say there is nothing for free in this world, well I found something that comes pretty damn close - The other day my curiosity got the best of me and I signed up for John Chow’s free newsletter on his excellent blog. In exchange for your time in signing up he gives you his free E Book “Make Money Online With John Chow dot Com.”
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of the normal re-hashed stuff you see in most e books, John made a genuine attempt at giving away some his best stuff in a sincere effort to help fellow webmasters. All while using his own success as an example of how it can be done.
Even though it was written at the end of May of this year, it is my first exposure to the material. Even for someone as advanced as myself, I pick up several great items I can use immediately. He starts our with a brief introduction and his goals in doing the project. Then it gets into the meat naming favorite programs he uses, how to make the best money blogging, commenting effectively and creating great content. He continues on covering a wide range of subjects such as with marketing, monetizing, pre-selling pages, getting sales, SEO, promotion ideas and concludes with his own story leaving no stone unturned and siting real numbers to inspire you.
I am just glazing over the material in the FULL 59 FREE PAGES!!! I loved the tip on hiding affiliate links. But SEE IT FOR YOURSELF AND GO GET IT.
John Chow job well done!!! Thanks for the free lunch, I really enjoyed the meal. 
DISCLAIMER: This is not a paid inclusion. Nor have I ever met or corresponded with John Chow. This is just a sincere review of a valuable product from a great affiliate marketing blog.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, SEO, Blogging, E-Books, PPC | No Comments »
|
|
If you are ever considering a new webhost, cross MidPhase.com off your list. I have to say it has been the worse experience I have ever had with a hosting provider - And that is just trying to signing up with an account!!! I can imagine that actually having a hosting account there is an even worse experience.
Recently I needed some additional hosting for some new projects and saw and ad for MidPhase.com over at a top affiliate blogger’s site (who I will not embarrass by mentioning his site or name) . I decided to give them a go and that is where the mistakes began…
Signing up for a reseller hosting account (not to be confused with an affiliate account with them) was tricky as they hide this Autica.com site within a site on a different url, with no external links. Tried using the “Live Help Chat” but no response after 40 minutes. So I finally Googled it and found the Autica.com name. Used the sign-up form and thought things would be straight forward and was I so, so wrong…
To confirm my account they said they would call my home phone with an automated system and I should answer it and tell them the confirmation code. Well, since I was not near my home phone and on the road this was impossible. So I used the fax alternative they provided. And then I waited, waited and waited some more. After 3 days still no account set up.
NOW I WAS STARTING TO GET PISSED. In the mean time I e-mailed them, no answer. Call there 24/7 support line and found out it was another big circle jerk. Options were not reachable and would keep you on hold for 40 minutes or more then give you a mailbox full error. Finally the next day, I got through on a tech support line. And that guy tells me to call back the next day during business hours.
Then the lady the next day in billing (mind you it is 4 DAYS LATER at this point) tells me finally she cannot read my fax. Then advises me to start the process all over again. I do that, and still no confirmation call. I call again for assistance and she refuses to pass me on to a supervisor and hangs up the phone on me. Amazing.
No other phone numbers on their site, just the bogus 24/7 main number. Tried the sales line too, and was on for 45 minutes with no answer. Good job MidPhase.
Gave them one last shot to resolve it - tried calling co-owners/founders Zak Boca & Dan Ushman (from numbers I found on the affiliate program side of things). No answers their either. Gave you guys every chance and benefit of the doubt to resolve this. If you treat potential customers this bad it must really suck to be a client of yours.
Looks like I was not alone in my experience:
(Just 2 of many, many pages. Just look up “MidPhase Sucks” to see what I mean…)
ASCII by Jason Scott - Midphase Blows Goats
The Car Cast - Mid-Phase is the WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD!
DO NOT use MidPhase for your affiliate and blog hosting needs. And if you are thinking of promoting them as an affiliate, I wouldn’t. The bad quality product will bite you in the ass sooner or later. They are a company with no focus or integrity. This article will get indexed by the search engines and be around for a long time. I have said my piece for the greater good, hoping it will make a difference.
Let me say it one more time: MIDPHASE HOSTING IS THE WORSE HOST I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. And I have and some really bad ones over the years.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Affiliate Programs, Google, Hosting | 1 Comment »
|
|
Just caught this important development on American Airlines suing Google. It involves copyright infringement regarding competitor’s keyword ads in the AdWords program.
This will be an interesting case to watch as it could have far reaching implications across the board. The way Google allows you to word your ads could get much stricter in the future.
Good luck Google on winning this one, you’ll need it!
Posted in Contextual Advertising, CPA, PPC, Google | 1 Comment »
|
|
I am hearing more and more horror stories of young (in experience) web entrepreneurs getting their anticipated income wiped out from a shady affiliate or a company who refused to pay. When that happens, the reason does not really matter. You just feel burned and robbed from money you were expecting.
Please do not be another victim. In the last week I have had a new blogger friend of mine not get money he was expecting from Google AdSense and another person I know not get paid from a big name affiliate. And I read of many more I do not know.
Did they have to go through this and feel depressed of their future on the internet? (One had to give up totally to work full time again.) No they didn’t. It happened BECAUSE THEY DID NOT DIVERSIFY THEIR INCOME!!! Structure your affiliate ad revenue from the beginning so it does not come from any one source alone. At least 2 or 3 places minimum. (And many more than that if you can.) Try generating some income directly and not just relying on brokers paying you.
Yes it hurts if Google decides not to pay because of it’s crazy rules they interpreted wrong. Or if I CJ.com advertiser reversers all of the hard-earned referrals you sent them at the last minute. But do not let it devastate you. Have income diversity and then you well be prepared when and if it happens.
It does not just happen in our industry. An associate years ago had 80% of his business coming in from 2 big clients. And you can guess what happened - The 2 clients walked within a month of each other and he was left scrambling to make payroll. He survived and never let the odds jerk him around again. Now no one client takes up more than 20% of his business. A great lesson learned.
Let others take the hard knocks. BE AWARE and be a smart affiliate marketer. DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY!!!
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Affiliate Programs, Contextual Advertising | 1 Comment »
|
|
Well, well… Two days ago I stated that I didn’t think Google’s new CPA network (still in beta) is anything for current affiliate networks to sweat over. Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this way.
This appeared today on ShoeMoney’s Blog:
Affiliate Companies Have Nothing To Worry About With Google PPA/CPA
Jeremy’s article is very well thought out and brings up many points that I never thought of for Google’s CPA program to not be a threat. (Even without these, it will still just be a marginal success for the reasons I indicated previously.)
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, CPA | No Comments »
|
|
Speaking of AdWords, I just noticed this new message when setting up a new Ad Group today:
(may have been there earlier. but I didn’t notice it…)
ha ha… Looks like Google is covering there butt and been getting an excessive number of invalid keyword complaints lately. Oh well, it is not totally unexpected from them…
Posted in PPC | No Comments »
|
|
If your not, you should be…
In AdWords, if you have the content network disabled and your new to the game, you probably won’t get any traffic otherwise.
Yeah, yeah I know that a lot of forum and blog posts say otherwise. They say the content network traffic is crap and open to abuse and Google SE traffic is the only good traffic. This is one of the big secrets of the affiliate community for those ‘in the know.’
Publicly all the affiliate network marketers I know say the the content network is no good. Privately, these same guys and gals are making decent coin by having the content network enabled! (And they told me not to share or blog about it. I am ignoring them in order to break the mis-information cycle. Sorry folks, hope you still talk to me…).
Using the content network enabled in AdWords, I am still making 50 cents+ per click in highly competitive keyword areas. No way to do that in the search traffic clicks side of things, as it is so expensive and competitive now (but money can still be made there too in volume).
My own experience is that I add a small new group of keywords per day in the niches I want to promote. I get some search clicks and even more content network clicks for the affiliate offers landing pages I am promoting. If you have the budget (even a small budget will do) this will accumulate over time with the previous days efforts growing and growing…
And with Google’s new, crazy quality score landing page system, you have to have a PhD to know what will make them happy to get the traffic you want at a fair price in the search network. In my opinion, lately Google tends to try to be discouraging affiliate marketers. (They want to try to fill this roll themselves with their upcoming CPA Network. But that won’t happen…). But luckily they do not mess with content network side of things. (They are adding in referring traffic shortly too to the content network column, so you will be able to have even more control.)
Proceed carefully, and test and monitor your results. But if you are frustrated by not having any clicks to your affiliate landing paging from the search network, give it a try.
Note: When using the content networks, personally I have a ’site exclude’ list in a .txt file) that is copied over for every campaign I set-up. With AdWords you have to manually enter this info. every time you set-up a new campaign (but not for every ‘Ad Group’ under a campaign). I have myspace.com in there, as well as hundreds of other sites I come across in my stats that is myspace related or a MFA (made for adsense) site. WATCH YOUR STATS daily very carefully. but there is good converting traffic in the content network if you know how to manage it properly.
You get to the ’site exclude’ option of AdWords by going to the edit screen for you current campaign. Then the third line down under the campaign name, you will see “No excluded sites:” on the far right side. Then right next to this is an “add” link. Click this and you are brought to a box where you can enter the domains you want to exclude from having you ad appearing on.
Also, personally I put in separate “Content bids” for the Content network. You can get quality clicks for a lot less than Google Search clicks.
Conclusion: Remember, real human beings are looking at web pages related to your niche outside of just Google search. With a little bit of stats review and quality control, you can have success with the content network area of AdWords like I have had.
Hope this helps bring you a little bit closer to the success your deserve!
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Contextual Advertising, PPC | 1 Comment »
|
|
As anticipated, Google launched it’s CPA (cost-per-action) program, under it’s AdWords program. Currently Beta testers are limited to signing up in the USA only. Official information on the program is on Google’s Inside AdWords blog.
I am a few days behind the loop on this (as the beta launched during my break), but it would be irresponsible for me to not report on it. Lots of pros and cons buzzing all over the affiliate industry on this.
Other great coverage from different points of view can be found at the following:
Marketing Pilgrim
Random Musings
TechCrunch
Web Publishing Blog
Overall, most of the coverage was on the defensive. But over at Digital Point the reaction was overall positive and welcomed the new Google program.
In my opinion, the new Google CPA program will be around long-term but will not have the massive success of their PPC program. And the big affiliate and CPA programs are not going to wither away and die. In fact, I think they will prosper better than ever. Google has never been known for their customer support. And I can imagine the final result of their terms & conditions will be a nightmare on both sides. And if they have the same elitist attitude (aka ‘Quality Score’) as the PPC side of AdWords, a lot of smaller advertisers will not get the chance to get their ads to be seen to begin with.
This is where the medium-sized and smaller affiliate networks can fill they void. The affiliate managers at these other networks have personal relationships with their advertisers and affiliates alike. These advertisers will stay loyal from where the traffic has comes from and who treats them well. They can respond quicker and be more individualized than Google could ever think to be.
And the smart advertisers will cross promote across multiple networks anyway. Remember, you as an affiliate marketer have a unique viewing audience that no one else has. No one program will own it all ever and their will always be a need for us.
Despite their denial, Google is in the affiliate marketing place full force now. But the game for the other players (network companies and affiliate marketers alike) is not over by any stretch of the imagination. It will just get bigger and a bit more fun!
One of the more intelligent things I read was in a comment on the Search Engline Roundtable, and it is worth repeating in full here. It was from Jeff Howes at Traffic Sentry:
There is no question that PPA or “CPA” (Cost-Per-Action) does, in fact, completely solve the click fraud problem. Our company will be publishing an extensive whitepaper (on our web site www.trafficsentry.com), on a specific new click fraud threat that is growing rampant and not being detected by the networks.
Unfortunately, PPA is not a realistic solution, as we are comparing apples to oranges when we say “CPC vs CPA”. The market and supply for CPC is huge; while the “supply” (availability) of CPA traffic is virtually non-existent in comparison. CPA is not advertising, and therefore will never attract masses of publishers, thus there will never be a sufficient supply.
One quick side note; “Return Fraud” is a non-issue. Not only does the time/return ratio not make sense for would-be perpetrators, but all existing PPA programs already have built-in measures to debit affiliate accounts upon returns. In fact, this very feature opens up a completely new type of fraud; Advertiser Fraud (merchant fraud against publishers) can occur when unscrupulous advertisers falsify return records in order to receive advertising refunds.
Merchant fraud is among several reasons that most publishers do not participate in CPA based programs. There are so many other reasons that listing them all here would be beyond the scope of this post, but the bottom line is that CPA completely reverses the table between publisher and advertiser.
In a typical advertising scenario, publisher “sells” ad space within his media to the advertiser. The advertiser is the customer, and also the one taking the risk. The publisher must convince the advertiser that his media opportunity will produce effective results. The publisher’s responsibility ends upon displaying of the advertisement to its audience.
PPA is a boon for the advertiser. Not only does it wipe out the possibility of fraud, but it also completely removes his risk, as he is only paying for sales. Now, the publisher is taking all of the risk, and has no idea what, if any, revenue he will receive for the advertising. If the only risk was proving that his audience was a good enough match to produce good response to the ad, the publisher would be more likely to accept the terms (this is, in effect, CPC).
However, the publisher is also taking the gamble that the advertiser has both a marketable product AND an effective marketing plan, all the way through the conversion process to the close of the sale. All of this is outside of the publisher’s control, so that’s quite a big gamble. If their is little market for the advertiser’s product, or if the advertisers price is not competitive, or the advertiser’s web site is unprofessional in appearance, or any number of other reasons that lead to loss of the sale, the publisher gets nothing.
Add to this the problem that reporting of affiliate sales/actions is notoriously flawed. In addition to relying on the advertiser to accurately report sales and actions (again leaving the door open to dubious merchants), there are huge technical problems with tracking end consumers all the way to the point where an action takes place. This is typically done via browser cookies, which are more and more commonly being blocked or deleted by end users, effectively eliminating any chance of the publisher to receive credit for any subsequent actions that occur.
So PPA does not solve the problem of fraud, it reverses the problem, and causes several new problems.
Of course advertisers love PPA; they are not taking any risk, and instead of paying for advertising, they are effectively gaining a small army of commission-only sales and marketing people.
Although any smart advertiser will tell you that his budget is “unlimited” for CPA, the problem is the ad inventory is simply not available. There is no supply.
Should Google’s new CPA program make it out of beta and become available to all advertisers, the problem will not be getting advertisers signed up; they will come in droves… The (seemingly insurmountable) hurdle will be in convincing publishers to supply the program, and without supply there can be no sales.
Note: The screenshot at the beginning of this post was discovered by Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. The original Flickr images can be located here.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs, Contextual Advertising, CPA | 1 Comment »
|
|
I was away for a few days while traveling and other unrelated business. I’m back posting again on a prompt, daily basis.
Lots going on in the industry to catch up on, so there will be no lack of subject matter to blog about!
Posted in Blogging | No Comments »
|
|
|
