RevenueQuest

Over at WickedFire there has been some buzz about taking advantage of Adwords’ site placement ads. Site placement lets you target your ads to only show on specific websites. This allows you to target audiences almost as well as Facebook Social Ads.

After setting up a campaign, I realized I had no way of knowing which ads converted with Prosper202. After doing some digging around, I found the {placement} tag. The {placement} tag works very similar to the {keyword} tag, but because sites are being targeted and not keywords, it tells you what site sent the traffic.

To use it, add {placement} to the subid or keyword parameter of the url. If you are using Tracking202 or Prosper202, add it after you see t202kw=. It will look something like:

http://tracking.yourdomain.com/tracking202/redirect/dl.php?t202id=XXX&t202kw={placement}

Distinguish between Search and Content Network

As I was searching, I found another little trick you can use with Adwords. If you are running ad adgroup with search and content network, you can now distinguish between the two types.

To do this, you will utilize the {ifsearch} and {ifcontent} tags. Each tag is a simple if statement that will insert text into your url if the if statement is satisfied.

For example, if your url could look something like yourdomain.com/?type={ifsearch:searchnetwork}{ifcontent:contentnetwork}.

If you are using Prosper202, you may want to include the type and the keyword. Try this:

http://tracking.yourdomain.com/tracking202/redirect/dl.php?t202id=XXX&t202kw={ifsearch:s-}{ifcontent:c}{keyword}

So now your stats will tell you if content network or search network is converting and what keywords convert. If it is content network, the subid will show “c.” If it is search network, the subid will show “s-keyword” (where keyword is the keyword you used.

Popularity: 2% [?]

For all of you guys that use SEO techniques for marketing, you may be missing out on a big money maker. Everyday I get a few dozen organic hits to a landing page that I used to use with PPC a few months ago. I did basic SEO techniques like meta tags, titles, etc. However, none of this organic traffic is coming from normal searches. All of these hits are actually coming from Google Images. And some of the traffic still converts!

The image is on a page with a couple paragraphs and a h1 title about the topic. The topic is also listed as the alt text in the image. On the websites home page, there is a link to the page.

That is the only work I did. If I search the alt text in my image, I am the third image and I get about 30-40 unique hits a day from that puppy.

So lets review…. I added some SEO techniques to a landing page, Google found my image, and now I am getting free conversions for that little work a few months ago.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tracking is an important part of affiliate marketing. The more data you have to analyze, the greater your ROI is going to be. The best way to do tracking is to have a script installed that allows you to safely analyze your keywords and ad copies while protecting them from preying eyes.

Custom Script

An ideal solution would be to have your own custom script created and installed on your servers. It’s custom, so it has everything you need and nothing you don’t. For many beginning affiliate marketers, it can be tough to fork out the cash to have something like this built.

Wouldn’t a free solution be nice?

Tracking202

Tracking202 is a free solution to tracking. It works great and is very easy to use. It’s major downfall, however, is that the script is hosted on their servers. This means that they could technically steal your keywords from you. I find this unlikely, but several people on the WickedFire forums seem to be worried about it.

After doing some digging around, it sounds like they are planning to monetize the service in the future. They are doing what they call the “Google business model” of offering a free service (in Google’s case it was that great search engine of their’s) that will build up a loyal user base. Once they do this, Tracking202 hopes to put up some advertising and run referral programs from different affiliate networks.

If this doesn’t sound viable, you aren’t alone. Tracking202’s FAQ page is filled with promises that they won’t be looking at your data. It is obviously the number one concern with the product.

Step in Prosper202 

After all these concern, Tracking202 came out with a self-hosted solution called Prosper202. It works the same as Tracking 202 and has the same features. The only difference is that you host it on your on server instead of on their’s.

Keywords are safe now, right? Well technically, they could be sending the information to themselves and storing it in their own database, but I find this very unlikely. They did scramble all of the code so who knows what is actually going on.

I have installed Prosper202 on my server and will be giving it a try. It seems promising and it should help me increase my ROI. I’ll let you know how it works.

A note on the installation…

They say you have to put it on your own domain, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I am using hostgator and created a new subdomain for the tracking script and it is working fine.

Popularity: 1% [?]

So yesterday I made the 7 hour journey from Flagstaff, Az to home in Simi Valley, Ca. On my way, I was fortunate enough to stop to fill my tank up in Needles, Ca (which was supposed to be 111 F yesterday!). I pulled into a Mobil station to find out that the cost of gas is $4.699. That is closer to $5 than $4!

I immediately started to think how many clicks I was going to need to cover every fill up this summer. Perhaps a sign that I am getting a little obsessed. You think anyone wants to fill out one of those free gas card offers just for entering their email?

Needless to say, I will be doing a lot of biking around Simi Valley this summer. At least I’ll be saving the environment in the process.

Popularity: 1% [?]

As I sat and watched my friend and teammate graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Geographic Information Sciences yesterday, I started to think, “What degree would help most in affiliate marketing?” The first two degrees to pop in my head were marketing and computer science.

I think marketing is pretty obvious as it is in the name. Affiliate marketing really is all about selling a product to the public. When you get a user to your landing page, that is your one shot to make the visitor want to buy. You need to persuade the visitor into thinking that he needs what you are selling/offering.

Where is affiliate marketing done? On the internet. And where is the internet used? On computers. It only seems natural that a computer science degree would come in handy while in the affiliate marketing-business. Now some of the things you learn while earning a computer science degree are not applicable to affiliate marketing (languages like C++ and Java). But many of the ideas and practices you learn are used very often.

After thinking about it a little more, I realized that there are many different degrees that teach skills that can be used in affiliate marketing. For instance, advertising is used to get traffic to your landing page using PPC, email, and other methods. Psychology can be used in analyzing how your visitor/customer thinks. We all know there is a heavy dose of business in affiliate marketing. Even accounting could be helpful in managing your finances as a self-employed worker.

What I am getting at here is that many of the things you have learned in your schooling and everyday experiences can be applied to affiliate marketing. Never have a closed mind when thinking about affiliate marketing. The best ideas could come from the least expected people and situations.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Wow, what a relief. Finals are finally over. I had three exams today and I am pretty spent. This semester I had some pretty difficult classes (Mechanics of Materials, Differential Equations, Dynamics, and Thermodynamics were the tough ones). Now I’m looking forward to some solid time just affiliate marketing and running.

Some updates on the affiliate marketing front…

I was running some good volume through Facebook last week and I was seeing great margins. Unfortunately, NeverBlueAds had to drop my payout from $1.60 to $.60 because the advertiser said my traffic wasn’t converting. I told my affiliate manager that I understood. I don’t want the advertisers to lose money when using these affiliate networks because it is bad for the industry.

With that said, I spotted that same advertiser the next day running a copy of my ad on Facebook. I know a lot of people on Facebook are copying ads already and it’s something you just have to live with. But that wasn’t what bothered me. What bothered me was that the advertiser said my traffic wasn’t good enough, but they are now running the same ad copy to the same demographic that I was running. That makes the advertiser look awful.

On a good note, I found an offer two days ago on Hydra that put me back over $100 profit yesterday. The margins aren’t quite as good as the last offer I was running, but as Farmer Hoggett says in Babe, “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

Popularity: 2% [?]