Affiliate Marketing Guide Online

I’ve seen many websites that have said that Google’s changes to content match make it worth a second look. So, lets take a look at the kinds of sites that use Adsense and why you might opt to use content match for some of your PPC campaigns.

Adsense is used on sites that find the consumer either in browse mode or purchase mode. The problem for most PPC bidders is that it’s hard to determine which websites are which. While showing ads on a directory or shopping comparison site may be just as effective as a search engine, showing ads on a blog or fan site is not likely to yield a high, if any conversion.

Google is taking steps to weigh producing sites, by adjusting payouts on the adsense side of the scale, however, even at a few pennies a click, is it worth playing the content match game?

If you’re looking for brand exposure in relevant markets, you’ll gain a large percent of traffic and exposure to your URL by appearing in content match. However, at what price, and will the conversions bring sales to the bottom line?

I sometimes find that I’m addicted.  First, I check CJ. Then I check google. Then I check clickbank, then yahoo, then on and on, until I’ve totaled up the days earnings.  Except that it’s only 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Surely I’ll make twice as much by 10 pm. Or maybe not.  Maybe I should adjust the bid price. Take a deep breath.  If you’re like me, sometimes you think you need to watch your PPC campaigns like a hawk in order to make them perform better.  Keywords should be checked two to three times a day max. Earnings should be checked even less, with one exception. New, untested campaigns.  A new campaign can end up costing you big bucks with no return if you’re not very careful. Setting a daily limit only keeps google and yahoo within 20% of your limit. Monitoring of your keywords can make sure that you’re not getting your ads shown for non-performing keywords.  

When reading an affiliate advertiser’s terms and conditions, a common restriction says something like “you are forbidden from bidding on “ourbrand.com, brandmisspelling.com, and our brand name”.  For some PPC publishers, this means it’s time to move to a new advertiser.  But should you be so hasty to dismiss these brands?

More and more advertisers are hesitant to give up the rights for publishers to run PPC campaigns on their brand terms. While it may aggravate the publishers, the reasoning is sometimes sound. For the advertiser, small in-house paid search campaign is sometimes more cost effective than paying commissions, depending on the bid prices and the competition in the market place. A smaller business may pay only $100 per month to cover ppc fees to get some paid search coverage, but find affiliate commissions ranging in the $1,000 range for the same volume of sales. 

There’s also a large concern among advertisers over ad content. If a publisher forgets to turn off an ad for coupon or promotion that’s expired, the company’s customer support phone line may experience a huge volume of calls from customers looking for their “discount”.  At this point, the advertiser is almost always responsible for honoring those discounts, or stuck doing extra work to resolve the issue.

So, the question is, if brand names are off limits, is it possible to run a pay per click campaign successfully without having the brand name as a keyword? The answer is a resounding… it depends. I think maybe the best example of PPC without Brand is ClickBank. Here, hundreds of products get sold without any real previous brand exposure, just on their merits alone through sell pages. And the price points vary from $10 to $100’s.  But I’m not sure the example holds true for every product out there in affiliate land. Insider Tip: Bidding policies may not be fixed in stone.  Contact your advertiser if you have questions about their ppc policy and its restrictions.