High Pay-Per-Click Bids does always not mean High profits

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 26, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Google Adwords, Ringtones  

I was asked recently what my high bid was for Ringtones PPC campaigns and I gave an honest answer of .75 per click is my highest bid. The guy was like great ran off and started a PPC campaign on Google Adwords before I could say anything else he was logged off of aim. Well for him I hope he is reading this post, as I stated my highest bid for PPC in ringtones is .75 BUT majority of my bids are less than .20.

Remember my PPC bids are from information and ROI statistics from this past year of promoting ringtones. So I know for each target audience I got after what my return is and what I should bid. People should not be asking what is your highest or even lowest bid is they should look at their own campaigns and their ad placement.

I have found the sweet spots to be in top 3 or bottom 3 with the middle spots giving the lowest return. It is as if they do not even see them or the people that do are just clickers and not a buyer. Note this may not be true for ALL campaigns but I have found this to be true on 97% of my campaigns.

So take the time and look at your placements as I have had some campaigns I was sitting in position 6 and was getting poor returns but did not want to up my bid, as the jump was drastic so I lowered my bid. The results were great, I was showing at position 10 and the ROI was way up. The great thing is I was getting the same amount of clicks as when I was in 6 position but paying less and getting an increased return.

So next time you go to cancel your PPC campaign try lowering your bids and see what the results will bring. They may just surprise you!

Adwords and Landing Page Only Sites

1 Person Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 16, 2007 in Google Adwords  

Since several months ago Google Adwords started updating the Quality Score system and sites / landing ages seem to get hit with the $5.00 and $10.00 bids. From emails and comments I am getting it appears Adwords made another round. Surprisingly I wasn’t really affected. Here are a few reasons why I am glad for the update and why I am frustrated by it.

I am glad for the update mainly because it knocked out some of my competition. This change has been coming and those just standing by and praying they don’t get hit by the QS system have noticed the system isn’t swayed by prayer. So in turn it has knocked out some of my competition, but I am sure some will be back with keyword stuffing, redirects and probably even some black hat methods to get back up in PPC.

I am frustrated by the update because in the past I have had target sites or landing pages providing people with what they were searching for and it got hit by the QS system. I mean if someone wants to buy a blue widget and I send them to a page for them to buy a blue widget and it converts well, why should I get hit with 5.00 bids. My CTR is great 10% or better, and I provide what the user wants. I think this is where Google is messing up. They are applying more blanket rules across the board when sometimes those blanket rules don’t need to be applied. 

So looking forward as a person promoting CPA offers you have to look into building more of a mini site or other techniques to trick the QS system. What are your thoughts on Adwords Quality Score System?

Google Adsense Video Distribution My Take

6 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 13, 2007 in Google Adsense  

We all have started seeing more and more video ads from Adsense. They are venturing more and more into video. I received and email a while back that they wanted me to help test out their Adsense Video Distribution. This isn’t the normal video ads that appear in your Adsense, these are actual channels that you choose and separate code. Last week I got the email that the testing is active and I can run video ads now for the next 4 weeks.   Here are my first thoughts on Google Adsense Distribution.

Setup:
You setup the video channel similarly to the way you do Adsense code except you get to choose a channel and only have one size to choose form (300×250). The nice part is they allowed it to be your 4th ad block if you already had 3 up. You have the following video channels to choose from (New ones will be added):
NBA
Tower of Rock
Only Hits
Fresh Clips of the Week
Hip-Hop Hustle
WSJ.com Video Channel
Pop Video Channel
Hip-Hop/R&B Channel
Epicurious Cooking Techniques
Style.com Fashion Channel
LX.TV Lifestyle TV

I chose to run the WSJ.com Video channel on a site geared towards investing and Fresh Clips of the Week on some general sites. Just copied the code and put it in just like normal adsense. Below is what the ad looked like for WSJ.com Video Channel.

Google Video

Performance:
I tested the videos performance within the adsense setup as it is against adsense TOS to click on your on ads. I was please with the performance of the videos as in playing and clarity. More and more people are having broadband and these video channels started as soon as you clicked. The video was clear and the audio was crisp. I did not experience any hiccups.

Earnings:
I had high hopes for good earnings especially with it being a test run. The earnings were so great after 3 days, I removed them ALL!  Yes you heard that correct they are no longer up on the sites. Maybe I have my sites so fine tuned to regular adsense that this medium didn’t perform well, but I doubt it. The per action for someone clicking on the video versus a regular adsense ad was pathetic. So I removed them all.

What sites this would be good for:
The only sites I think this avenue is good for is Myspace and Arcade type sites because most are earning so little off regular adsense this would be a step up and due to it being video and more people may click on it since it is different.

This is just my experiences if someone has had a different experience or the feel same about Google Adsense Video Distribution free to leave a comment.

Mini CPA Sites the New CPA Landing Page

7 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on February 11, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, CPA Affiliate Announcements  

Last month I ran a contest where i announced i was giving away a Google Digital Picture Frame (Read it Here). After reading all the entries I declared a winner, Dealasite. Below was Dealasite’s comment that contained some good information.

Instead of writing landing pages, I’ve been working on writing landing ’sites’. They’re like mini websites where I group similiar affiliate offers, all SEO optimized for ranking. My goal is to get these to rank in the serps, and after a few weeks, they’re actually doing it!

For example, maybe a site on Top Dating sites. Your index page can be an intro or summary of your top rankings with reviews/comments. A click on each dating offer could lead directly to that offer’s unique landing page.

Of course, all affiliate links should be cloaked and all landing pages should be seo optimized like topdatingsites.com/true.html or topdatingsites.com/eharmony.html, etc.

You PPC campaigns can still target that 1 landing page like normal, but the advantages of tying all these pages together would be:

1) Lower bids by increased quality score because google or other search engines see an actual website (seo-optimized).

2) In a few weeks, actual indexing in the serps leading to free traffic. (I create some backlinks from my other sites to add weight)

This may be old news to everyone, but I though I’d throw it out, because all I hear people talking about is writing 1 landing page per domain with some little privacy and contact page thrown in.

With my mini-site method, it will be around forever and I’ll just keep rotating affiliate offers in and out as they come along.

While i don’t feel this will do away with just landing pages. I do feel this is more of a trend for PPC as it goes to more measuring technics to see if your ad and page is worthy. Dealasite I have sent you an email asking for your information as to where to send the Digital Picture Frame.

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