Arguably the quickest and most profitable way to make money via affiliate marketing is through pay per click (PPC) advertising. This allows an affiliate to draw targeted traffic from search engines and content websites and make money by directing surfers to advertisers.
We introduced PPC arbitrage as a traffic acquisition strategy in MasterClass X and, because of its significance and dominance - an estimated 30%-40% of affiliate marketing sales now originate from this form of marketing - will study paid search advertising in detail in this and the next lesson.

The Most Popular PPC Providers

Make sure you do thorough research first to choose the most cost-effective PPC platforms for you. If you do a search at Webmaster World, for instance, you will discover that many webmasters who paid for listings at Enhance Interactive and MIVA have considered them a complete waste of time and money as they partner with poor quality search engines.

Other PPC search engines we suggest you avoid are ePilot (non-converting traffic, poor customer support), Brainfox (terrible control panel; poor quality traffic) and the European PPC advertising provider Mirago (ads don't convert very well: placed on poor quality hidden partner sites).

A useful resource to read reviews of PPC providers is PayPerClickSearchEngines.com, though be careful as there seems to be a slight bias towards companies paying a referral fee to the portal.
The ‘big three’ PPC providers that are known for providing the highest quality traffic and widest reach are:

Google Adwords

Google Adwords places your ads in Google, AOL, Ask.com and Lycos search results as well as thousands of other large and small search and content sites.

By far the largest PPC provider in the world, you may have to pay astronomical bid amounts to get listed in the top positions for popular and valuable search terms.

Yahoo Search Marketing

With Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) your ads will appear in Yahoo search results as well as be syndicated to sites such as CNN.com, USA Today, and Netzero.

After forcing advertisers to put up with the lousiest interface of any major PPC provider for years, the former PPC market leader now plays second fiddle to Google Adwords. The recently-launched ‘Panama’ technology and interface means YSM is not a lot easier to work with.

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter was launched last year and will allow you to advertise primarily on Microsoft’s own web properties. Because it is relatively new and the ads are not distributed to as many sites as Google Adwords and YSM, the bid amounts are usually lower than its bigger rivals.

Has sophisticated targeting features, but the interface is not as user-friendly as Google Adwords.

Creating a Profitable Keyword List

A good way to get ideas for PPC keywords is to view the meta-tags in the source code on competing websites. You can do this with as many sites as you want; create as large a collection as possible.

Here are some useful tools to dig for keywords to add to your PPC campaigns: Wordtracker shows related search terms for any keyword and the number of searches in the previous 90 days; 7Search’s and Google’s are equally good.

Keyword Lizard is another handy free tool. It allows you to explode the number of keywords by creating numerous permutations for you.
Don’t forget to target misspellings, which many PPC advertisers ignore. You can sometimes enjoy traffic from common misspellings for a relatively low price. Two fantastic typo generators are this one and this one.

All the above tools are free, but if you are serious about making money from paid search advertising then a "must have" piece of software which costs just under $200 is Keyword Elite. Used by thousands of PPC advertiers around the world, this sophisticated yet user-friendly tool allows you to create a quality keyword list in minutes.

Carefully build a large collection of search terms. If you only use 20-30 "good" keywords you have to bid high on them and the traffic will be expensive. But if you use hundreds of words you can receive an equal amount of traffic without having to bid high amounts.

Crafting Effective Copy

It is worth spending time creating an ad than with be noticed and result in a high proportion of the target audience clicking on it. A merely-average ad will bring average results, a great ad can produce amazing results.

Create separate ads for different products and services. Use unique messages that would be relevant to a customer searching for whatever you are advertising.

Make sure your advert explains what customers will find on your website when they click. It will ensure that you receive more relevant traffic and save you money.

Some more tips:
• Don't repeat the headline text in the ad description
• Avoid jargon and phrases that are not clear
• Project a sense of trustworthiness and professionalism
• Talk about unique aspects of your company or what makes your services/products special
• Include a call to action such as "buy,” "order now,” "sign up today,” or "get a free quote”

TIP: With most PPC providers you can use dynamic keyword insertion to automatically insert the term the surfer has searched for in your title and/or description. This means those words in your ad will appear in bold in most search engines and hence your ad is more likely to be noticed and clicked.

The syntax for dynamic keyword insertion with Google AdWords is “{Keyword: }”. So if you advert says: “Buy {Keyword: } for low prices” and the user searches for “mahogany chairs” and it is in your keyword list, then the advert will show as “Buy mahogany chairs for low prices at California’s leading furniture retailer”. If the user searches for “glass tables” then the advert will show as “Buy glass tables for low prices at California’s leading furniture retailer”.

You should add a backup phrase in case the dynamic keyword insertion doesn’t work, if, for instance, the search phrase is too long. This would be entered thus: “{Keyword:Tables and Chairs}”. Using the example above, the advert would appear as “Buy tables and chairs for low prices at California’s leading furniture retailer”.

You may read more about dynamic keyword insertion here.

The next MasterClass will provide more PPC advice, including guidelines on creating effective landing pages.

 

Presidential Candidates Take to Email Marketing

According to information gathered by email tracking firm Email Data Source, the top Democratic and Republican candidates kept in touch with supporters and campaign watchers by sending anywhere from three to 17 emails each in May and early June.

Hillary Clinton for President sent four messages in May and two up to June 8, the most recent of which were personality-driven and intended to engage supporters for help and advice.

Opponents at The John Edwards for President campaign, which sent 13 emails in May and four this month, also got up-close and personal lately: campaign colleagues used the North Carolina Senator's birthday and a secret family pecan pie recipe as incentives to donate money. Obama for America, the campaign for fellow Democratic contender Barack Obama, sent 10 emails in May and four this month, many promoting canvassing and organizing events.

The more prominent Republican candidates did their fair share of emailing, too. The John McCain 2008 campaign sent nine messages in May and one as of June 8, many offering updates from the campaign trail. The campaign for Republican Mitt Romney, Romney for President, sent a total of 15 newsletters over the past two months, many promoting video content on Mitt TV and urging recipients to invite others to join his campaign.

The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee sent three messages on behalf of the former NYC mayor's campaign, all in June, none of which were sent from the candidate himself.

More so than any other candidate tracked, the Giuliani campaign used the promise of campaign paraphernalia like the candidate's book, campaign caps and pins, in exchange for donations.

That campaign wasn’t the only one employing its newsletters to offer campaign gear in exchange for cash. John Edwards for President pushed "Support the Troops, End the War" T-shirts and bumper stickers for donations, while the McCain campaign rewarded donors of larger sums with signed copies of the Senator's book.

Social Networking Sites Lure Professionals

According to a new study, social networking websites like Facebook are replacing morning huddles around the coffee machine and afternoon clusters around the watercooler as the place for young professionals to interact.

It was discovered that a massive 65% of business professionals were logging on to social networking websites during their day. The report reveals this demographic connects for both personal and professional networking.

Jay Jamrog, i4cp’s SVP of Research said, “Social networks have opened a new dynamic in bringing that community online, and the ability to share what’s working and what isn’t in real time is invaluable to many employees today. We expect to see this continue in earnest among corporations, and we particularly expect to see the small- to medium-size business market gravitate here so that they can augment traditionally thin staffs with expertise from larger organizations.”

LinkedIn is the most popular social networking hub for professionals, followed by Yahoo's 360 and MySpace. Facebook is rapidly catching up with the others, growing at the rate of 100,000 new members a day.
Why are they connecting? Just over 50% said they use social networks to connect internal staff and remote or outsourced employees. Roughly 47% use social networks to showcase their abilities and connect with clients and 35% said, they logged on to social networks to find their next job.

There have been concerns raised that some employees are spending too much time on social networking sites and it is detracting from their work.

Google and Sina Form Alliance Against Baidu

Google and Sina announced plans to cooperate on search services and advertising, giving the U.S.-based search giant an ally as it seeks to wrest market share in China from local search leader Baidu. Sina, operator of China's most-visited web portal, will add Google's Chinese search service to its website, the two companies said in a statement on Monday.

Sina advertisers will be able to take advantage of Google's online advertising system, Adsense, but the two companies wouldn't give further details or a timeline for the launch of advertising cooperation. In the future, Google and Sina will expand their cooperation into news and other content areas.

"Through our strategic cooperation, online users as well as online advertisers stand to benefit from the leveraging of strong brands, traffic and technologies from the two companies," said Sina Chief Executive Charles Chao.

“We are looking for more partners in China,” said Kai-Fu Lee, head of Google's China unit. He declined to identify any companies or elaborate.

China had 144 million Internet users as of the end of April, according to official data.

Google's share of the Chinese search market rose from 17% in Q4 2006 to 19% in Q1 2007 according to Beijing-based Analysys International. Baidu's share fell from 58% to 57%.

 

---

“Advertising is the fine art of making you think you have longed for something all your life that you never heard of before” Anon.

 

 

Visit PrimeQ.com | US Network | Global Network

 

You can be assured that we will never sell or give your email address to any other business or individual. We will only use your address for correspondence from PrimeQ, and only on an infrequent basis.

 

© 1993 - 2007 PrimeQ Solutions, Inc. and PrimeQ Ltd UK. Images are the service marks and property of PrimeQ Solutions, Inc. All other brands are property of their respective owners. All Rights Reserved. Unlawful duplication without written consent prohibited.

 

Please read our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. Visit us online at www.primeq.com

 

If you wish to unsubscribe from our WeeklyQ Newsletter, please click here.