Category: Marketing Madness

From the 7Search Team

In the fast paced world of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, second tier ad networks are often treated with an almost “Rodney Dangerfield” level of respect (“I tell ya when I was a kid, all I knew was rejection. My yo-yo, it never came back!”). It’s not uncommon to hear complaints ranging from “Too much traffic, not enough conversions” to “There’s not enough traffic for my niche”, and everything in between.

Many first time customers choose to treat their 7search campaigns with a “hands off” approach. It is not uncommon for even experienced marketers to overlook the potential value that dedicated optimization can present for these campaigns, rationalizing that the time invested is not worth the outcome. With an average of more than 3 billion monthly search requests in 2010 , perhaps it is time to take another look at the 7search network.

Here are some tips provided by the Support Team over at 7search.com to help optimize poorly performing offers.

Tip #1 – Review your ad copy regularly

A poorly written ad can destroy a PPC campaign. PPC advertising is a constantly evolving animal, and your client’s ad copy should present an enticing “call to action” to surfers. The ad should tell a potential visitor what makes your client different from the competition, and should definitely feature any special offers (“X”% off, Free Shipping, etc.).

If you are stuck on how to best word an advertisement, review some of your competition for ideas. Most importantly, ask yourself 2 things. First, “Would this offer draw me in?” and second, does this offer deliver on its promises?” Remember, you have very little time to capture a surfer. If your client’s ad offers a 20% discount or free shipping then this should clearly visible on the landing page. This continuity goes a long way towards establishing credibility with the surfer and encourages a potential conversion.

It’s also absolutely necessary to double check your landing page to ensure that the links are live, as well as to confirm that the geo-targeting settings are accurate. There is no use in paying for clicks from countries which you cannot do business.

Tip #2 – Use Negative keywords

Negative keywords are a great way to streamline the traffic an offer receives by ensuring it does not appear on undesirable SERPs. Do not add long tail negative keyword phrases as our system will not effectively block them. Our system supports the single negative keyword model, although you can add some two word phrases (like WalMart) as well.

The best strategy to determine what negative keywords to use is to evaluate the actual searched phrases. This data is readily available in the Campaign and Daily/Weekly/Monthly reports and will give you the most targeted negative keyword possibilities.

You may also choose to use the negative keyword tool found at http://www.wordstream.com/negative-keywords/ although this may be less effective as it does not take into account the real traffic you have already received.

Tip #3 – Try not to bid on too many general search terms

For poor performing offers you should consider minimizing the use of very general keywords. If you feel that you absolutely must use general keywords, consider setting all single keywords to an exact traffic match setting to test their effectiveness and limit irrelevant traffic.

Keyword phrases containing 2-3 words should then be tested at phrase match. You may also choose set a unique bid for each traffic match setting, with the broad bid featuring a significantly lower bid than the other types.

If your clients are utilizing long tail keyword phrases with 4+ words then a broad match setting should be fine. These terms tend to receive less traffic and bidding exact could negatively impact your clients’ exposure. Also consider utilizing the keyword generating tools mentioned previously to identify new phrases to test.

Tip #4 – Consider testing your offers at different positions in the search results page

While we would ideally prefer our customers to bid the Smart Bid amount to receive top exposure, it is possible for them to bid to appear lower in the SERPs for high volume verticals and still receive significant traffic and conversion. Please keep in mind that occupying lower position is a viable proposal to test our traffic.

Tip #5 – Have Traffic Quality (TQ) reviewed the traffic you’ve received

If you have tried all of the suggestions above it might be time to request a traffic quality review. These reviews can be time consuming and should always be submitted via support case (link found on dashboard). Please allow up 24- 72 hours for a response.

If do have access to server logs or other data that may be useful, please attach it to the support ticket. This data is invaluable to our team when optimizing your traffic.

We also strongly recommend that you install our conversion tracking pixel on your pages, if possible. In addition to counting conversions, the data compiled using this code helps our traffic quality team when a review is requested in determining which sources to block.

Click here for 7Search Deposit Match!

For a long time I’ve used OfferVault. For the last year or so, while running Affiliate.com, I used it to check on competitors offers, to check and see if any of them were offering higher prices or worse, offering our offers without permission to the general public. Before then, even running a major comscore advertising network, OfferVault was (and is) the “go to” place for me to check on CPA deals that our $150M display network should run. I think that a lot of people aren’t getting the best out of OfferVault and I hope with my regular articles, I can show you where to focus, what offers are really hot and how to monetize them.

This week, I just want to talk a bit about some of the top offers being listed on offervault, and where to go from there. If you have suggestions on topics in the future, I am always reachable at pace@pacelattin.com and would love to get some ideas what you’d like to learn about, what you think is important.

It’s Halloween time, and if you didn’t know this, over half of the nation still hasn’t gotten its elves, witches or Snooki costumes. If the idea of dressing up as a retard from Jersey Shore interests you, the place to buy this is at BuyCostumes. Since they are so popular one of the top searches this month is BuyCostumes and that is lead by my friends at Azoogle with their $13.50 payout. Erhg, sorry, now known as EpicDirect. Many of the other networks are just piggybacking those offers. I would have linked to eFLOW network and their offer, but at the time of this writing, their link was down. For those who don’t know, BuyCostumes is a huge supporter of the affiliate marketing industry, and heavily involved with making this industry better, so I would 100% support them this season through Azoogle/Epic Direct.

In the Zip and Email Submit category, relative newcomer QwikMedia has taken stage with the “I like that Victoria’s Secret” offer and its Pepto-Bismol colored landing page. Qwik media has taken a well-known method of promotion, worked with some of the top companies for their back end, created a great landing page and has made something that converts better than any other zip and email submit right now in the space. Also, take a quick look at EWA’s QualityHealth offer, I understand its converting really well. If you are looking for a place to place this, some of the sub-tier search engines like 7Search actually have some good space for giftcard relevant keywords.

I’ve been told that Ringtone and Mobile offers are HOT again after several major players in the space have gone out of business or closed their doors. Flycell has taken a place in the market behind Sony Mobile aka Jamster, but is going strong in our space because of their new relationships with networks. AdCommunal, the Canadian Based organization and home of “Sir Owen”, has become one of the new homes of ringtone offers, especially with their new Flycell New Landing Page offer. This is actually one of the most popular offers right now on OfferVault and I’d recommend getting in touch with those folks soon.

Last of all, I want to talk about the Gold Offers out there. They are doing amazing for almost anyone, especially spammers…umm… sorry, the editor told me I need to call them “Permission based e-mailers.” These offers are huge right now because the price is gold is going through the roof and certain conservative celebrities are really pushing gold right now their radio and TV shows. The best converting Gold Offer is still through mega-network Neverblue at $50 CPA. From what I am told, this continues to be the best place to get this offer.

Before I forgot, If you didn’t know, there is a great function offervault has that no other company has instituted (I’ll have to ask, but I think they own the patent to the idea.” Their search agent allows you to choose keywords and thus campaigns and the send you notices when there are changes in those keywords. This is huge, can you imagine doing a campaign say for DirecTV for $15 only to find out later you could have got the same thing from Abacus Affiliates for $18?

Want to have hundreds of engrossed visitors checking out your site on a daily basis, at no charge to you? If you say “yes”, then article marketing is the answer for you. Below are some advantages of article marketing that you should know about if you are yearning to get into it.

One of the remarkable benefits of article marketing is that you acquire an ability to pre-sell your products with ease. Articles that are informative in nature can also warm up your prospects about the product and give them enough info to help them reach a buying decision. Essentially, the article is not meant to be a sales pitch, but rather educating potential buyers of the items or the problem it will be able to solve. This can literally grow your sales because when your potential customer is in the buying mentality, which will make it simpler for you to make a sale. A lot of article marketers don’t utilize this strategy and hope to be overflowed with customers, when in reality they can use their articles to pre-sell their items and direct interested people to their website. The reason why pre-selling is extremely important these days is because people have become highly conscious about where they spend their money and high. To help people have better buying experiences and for them to make a calculated choice, informative articles can provide answers. The last thing; you should always strive to tone down your pre-selling so that you don’t end up converting your article to an advertisement.

Article marketing is a way to instantly connect with people all over the world who are potential customers. You are able to submit your articles to many online sites at the same time, thus reaching a wide audience quickly.

All Internet marketers realize the benefit of growing their rankings in the search engines. It’s one of the most excellent things that can occur to your website, period. Article marketing helps you out in this area by giving you an easy way to increase your page rank. The page ranking of your site definitely influences the type of ranking you will earn from your website in Google, which is presently the leader among search engines. When you radiate your articles online, they construct backlinks, and when you get pertinent backlinks, your page rank increases. Your page rang will have a better standing, as the number of quality backlinks you have increases. In addition, there are many article directories have excellent page rankings, meaning they will be allocating on to your site. Your page ranking is not only advantageous and held in high regard according to Google, but it is also a positive sign in front of your visitors. If you plan to sell your website someday, having a good standing page rank will allow you go ask a higher price. So there are tons of advantages for growing your page rank and article marketing can definitely help you with that.

Another noticeable perk of article marketing is that you’ll receive a usual flow of traffic from the search engines as well as the other websites that have published your articles. There are several marketers that are still receiving traffic from their old articles that were published quite some time ago. The explanation for this is the Internet has become a powerhouse of information that is perpetually being fed superior quality content. When your articles are a high caliber and provide relevant info to the reader, they don’t just receive a good ranking in the search engines but also get distributed in newsletter, ezines and websites that publish third party content. This just proves that your articles have an ability to direct new visitors to your site again and again, without having to spend money on them. It’s free traffic forever and the greatest thing is it’s highly targeted.

Make sure that your articles have your primary keywords in the body and as well as the title so that you’re able to rank for them. Search engine traffic can be the best kind of all, especially when you rank well for relevant keywords that get high traffic. The reason why it is easy to reach high positions in the search engines is because the directories that you publish them with are seen as authority sites, giving you an advantage. Many webmasters are constantly seeking content, and some of these will find your articles and re-publish them on their sites, giving you another source of traffic. So you will eventually be getting traffic from all over the internet, sometimes from sources you’ve never heard of.

Article marketing is also a great way to get exposure for the services you offer. There are a number of talented freelancers who strain to find opportunities via freelancing sites such as Elance, due to the heightened competition. However article marketing is an option that few freelancers practice with to promote their service. You can write and announce articles that explain the niche you’re targeting and then deliberately introduce your readers to the service you’re providing. This would make is so much easier for you to direct traffic and convince clients from every part of the web, instead of only depending on the big freelance portals.

Article marketing, then, is a proven method for getting you high quality traffic, and it’s completely free to use. It’s a method that, when done right, can bring you good results in a short time.

Jeremy Schoemaker, otherwise known as Shoemoney, is a somewhat legendary Internet marketer and blogger who is famous for, amongst other things, being extremely successful with the Google AdSense program. One of the most famous links on his website is an image of him holding an AdSense check for nearly $133,000 in 2005.

The beginnings of Jeremy Schoemaker’s online career began in 1995. He had graduated from high school and was working at a well-known national retailer when he was approached by someone looking to hire him to work for their newly created Internet service provider company. Because of his technical background, Jeremy found the job to be challenging and rewarding. Among the things he did were learning how to manage servers, build websites and develop security systems.

He remained in this position for a couple of years and then returned to college to complete his degree. It was during this time that he founded his first business which was centered around Apple Macintosh gaming. Quite by accident, he was contacted by a company that produced the games and they wanted to advertise on his website since it had become very popular. That is when Jeremy became aware of the true power of creating websites that people would want to visit and then monetize them with advertiser dollars.

However, in 2000, when the dot com bubble burst, Jeremy found himself struggling for income and at a new low point in his life. He was severely overweight, deep in debt and smoking over two packs of cigarettes a day. Around this time, he met his future wife who encouraged him to get back to what he knew how to do well, create websites that people want to visit. In 2003, he began doing just that and became incredibly successful with his ringtone community website that was the source of his infamous AdSense check. Around the same time, Jeremy made massive changes to his personal life which included losing over 200 pounds, quitting smoking and starting a family.

Leveraging on his success, in 2007 Jeremy founded another company known as AuctionAds. The idea behind AuctionAds was to serve ads that were running on eBay on contextually relevant websites. The idea was so successful that it was purchased within six months of its creation by a larger competitor.

Today, Jeremy spends much of his time on his main website and blog Shoemoney.com where he talks about his successes and failures in his online marketing career and also helps others achieve their own goals. Since his only career began in 2003, Jeremy has established himself as one of the most successful affiliate marketers in the world having earned millions of dollars in that time.

Jeremy Schoemaker is one of the most well known and well respected Internet marketers in the world today. From his humble beginnings in 2003, Jeremy overcame significant odds to become one of the most successful super affiliates anywhere earning millions of dollars in that time. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and two children and continues to help other affiliate marketers grow their own businesses.

The Whois information for a website lists the owner and their contact information. The Whois information for “Jeremy Schoemaker” is public which is generally a good thing. This indicates the owner of this site has nothing to hide.

When an affiliate marketer gets accepted into a few networks, the first task they have is selecting an offer and deciding how to promote the offer. Today we will discuss several approaches that you can follow to shape your philosophy in selecting niches and offers that are best for you to promote. Of course any of these approaches along with many others are feasible and all affiliates must decide what is right for them. One of the beauties of affiliate marketing is that there are so many different ways to approach it and everyone can find an approach that works best for their own experience, work style and personality. The 3 approaches that we will examine in this post are expertise, seasonality, and audience targeting.

Expertise

Someone who knows about a product is more likely to be successful at promoting an offer. The affiliate will be able to produce better traffic because they know how to target the traffic. They know who ideally will use the product, and pick the appropriate creative or linking method to convert an offer. Expertise in the subject matter will also be a benefit when it comes to keyword research.
When creating content for a Website, expertise in the subject could help you do a better job in blending the content in with an image that naturally fits the theme. For example, if you are currently going to school and you are studying education, a great way to promote an affiliate offer is to match an education or business opportunity offer that best reflects the content being mentioned. So, someone earning an MBA may want to learn about currency trading (FOREX). Alternatively, someone who is studying elementary education may want to purchase a video series about child development or methods to improve reading comprehension.

When targeting social networks, an affiliate often joins certain groups and organizations. Affiliates, like everyday social site users will see the kind of traffic that is appearing within their personal social space. Looking at the advertisement below, it makes sense how the #1 affiliate marketing group on Facebook has two affiliate network advertisers posted on the right. This is called contextual targeting. Ensuring your context matches your users is fundamental.

Seasonality

For every season, there is an affiliate marketing vertical that will capitalize on traffic more so than others. To follow this approach, you must be on your toes, be able to execute quickly and be comfortable handing deadlines. For example, you could promote offers relating to Valentine’s Day but you need to start watching for these offers well in advance of the holiday and be ready to integrate them into your sites and landing pages in time to promote for the build up before the big day. Then you have to watch for the next seasonal happening and be ready to do it all over again. As another example, consumers who are looking for great gifts during the holidays will often make more As-Seen-On-TV purchases from October thru December than any other time of year. Sure there is work involved following the seasonality approach, but the payoff could be substantial. On the flip side, many affiliates prefer to focus on the evergreen type of offers that never go out of style, like, dating, weight loss, beauty and health or auto insurance. As I said earlier, there are many different ways to approach affiliate marketing and you need to know which one makes the most sense for you personally.

Audience Targeting

There are several websites on the Internet that will help you understand who your prime audience will be for a particular niche or offer. Everything from age, sex, geography, income, and education are described (see below). Such sites include Quantcast, Microsoft ad labs, Compete.com and others.

Offervault (www.offervault.com) has a handy demographic feature as well. You can click the “D” demographics button next to each offer and get an instant snapshot of the demographics for typical visitors to that offer. If you are interested in taking this type of approach, there are several traffic sources where you can put this information to good use, most especially Facebook.

There is probably no better place to get traffic pinpointed to particular demographics then Facebook. Plenty of Fish, a major dating site, also has a wealth of demographic data that you can use to target your ads. Lastly, Pay Per View traffic sources will often allow demographic targeting. When done right, this strategy can often produce some of the highest conversion rates of any type of targeting and of course we all love getting high conversion rates on our offers.