Internet Business Daily

One of the SEO blogs I read quite often is SEOmoz.org. They have some great information and Rand Fishkin (head of the company) is said to be one of the best SEO’s out there. One of my favorite recurring segments on SEOmoz is “White Board Fridays.” It’s a video segment that usually covers beginner’s topics, but is helpful to anyone. Today’s edition is embedded below and has great tips on PPC (pay per click) basics. Since I have been diving head first into PPC to CPA marketing, I figured this would be a great video to share. The guy in the video talks a bit fast but he definitely knows what he’s talking about. Check it out:

Introduction
I have recently been trying to figure out PPC to CPA affiliate marketing. My first attempt was through an offer on NeverBlue Ads promoting a $250 grocery coupon. This CPA offer required a zip code submission to be counted as a conversion. The offer had a low $1.20 CPA, which means for every sign-up (acquisition) I would make $1.20.

This was the first offer I had with NeverBlue, and PPC -> CPA marketing in general. This means I had no history with Neverblue and they would be less willing to accommodate any special requests I had. Also, since this was my first time trying this I did not want to take a huge risk with my money. After reading countless forum posts I realized that you have to take a risk to make a profit. That being said, choosing a low paying CPA deal often means that the CPC’s will also be proportionately lower, reducing my risk.

Some Quick Math
With a CPA of $1.20 I did not have much room squeeze out a profit. Assuming I want an ROI (return on investment) of 100% and my conversion rate (clicks compared to people who actually signed up) was 15%, I would need my CPC’s to be $0.09. This is based on the formula: (CPA/ROI)*CR=CPC. This formula says my CPC should be equal to my cost per acquisition ($1.20) divided by how much I want to make (100% profit) multiplied by my conversion rate. I had asked my account manager to raise the CPA amount, which he did to $1.35. You can use the same formula to calculate what my target CPC’s were at this rate.

Creating the Landing Page
Many affiliate marketers will tell you that creating the landing page usually takes the most time with regards to setting up a new CPA offer. I also found this to be the case. Since I am not a designer in any way I had a difficult time coming up with ways to make creatives for my landing page. So I did what any beginner would do and I put together pieces of other people’s landing pages along with some customization to create mine. I went through many iterations before finalizing the design, but here it is:

The main thing to notice is the zip submit area. Originally, that was not there and was actually occupied by a “continue to the next page” button. The actual zip submit form is located on the advertiser’s landing page, which lowers the CR (conversion rate) because it requires users to click an extra page before signing up. I was not happy with this so I iframed the zip submit area of the advertiser’s page onto my page. Can you tell? This increased my CR. I’m not going to go much deeper into creating landing pages, but feel free to ask any questions and I will answer them.

Setting Up the Adwords Campaign
I will give a quick overview on how I was taught to setup Adwords campaigns. Basically, every keyword should be in its own ad group in the singular and plural form along with exact and broad match types. With this method you should have 4 ad groups per term. This is to control quality score and to better analyze at a more granular level. Each campaign should only have one root word. My original root word was “coupon” so I created a campaign called coupon. I used both the singular and plural form of the word and also had the broad and exact match types. Here’s what it looks like: Coupon, Coupons, [Coupon], [Coupons]. I did this with every variation of coupon-based keywords I had.

The Data
One thing that I was told very early is that you have to run a campaign for a little while before you start to see CPC’s lower automatically. After about 3-4 weeks, here is what my campaign was shaping up like:

This data is for the life of the campaign. In the beginning, my stats were poor and I was losing money. Towards the end I was able to start making money but at that time it seemed almost impossible to actually turn a profit. At that point I decided to cut my losses and stop the campaign. Based on this data it is obvious that for every conversion I had, I lost $0.57. This multiplied by 223 conversions means I lost $127.11. I do not think this is very bad for a first time and I had gained a lot of experience.

Conclusion
Although I had lost money I had learned many valuable pieces of information. I learned how to optimize an Adwords campaign, how to extract keywords from broad match type, how to lower CPC’s through optimizing my campaign and much more. You can read forums and blog posts all day but unless you get your hands dirty, you’ll never know a thing. As always, feel free to email me about any questions you have about my experience.

I am a huge fan of Google Maps. I use it almost every day for everything from finding a place to eat to checking traffic before I head home. I even use it on my iPhone on a daily basis.

Today, right before I left work, I went to check the traffic reports and noticed a very cool upgrade to their traffic system. Normally they only have red, yellow, and green to signal volume of traffic. Now they have added another indicator: red and black. Whenever traffic is between 0-15mph it is signaled by a red and black line. This is great news.

Sometimes when I would check traffic reports and it would say red (which was 0-30mph before) I would sometimes risk taking the freeway. Now with red and black I can really tell if it’s closer to 30mph or more like a parking lot. Here’s what it looks like (yes, this is what LA usually looks like):

If you can watch this video without shivering, I’m impressed.

I have been working on a guide that outlines everything needed to make money online. You can find it through that link or click the IBD Guide tab next to “contact.”

Over time I will make this page into a comprehensive guide that covers everything from monetization, traffic generation, social media, marketing, research, and analytics. Everything and anything I have learned over the years will be placed here, in an easy to read page.

Check back soon for updates!

I just finished this site’s redesign a few days ago, and figured now would be a good time to throw up a quick post about it. I had been looking for a new theme for IBD for a few weeks now, and I finally came across one that I liked. There were a few common elements that I wanted to keep from the old design, and some new elements which I really wanted for the new design.

• Header Image - One element from the previous design that I wanted to keep was the header image. I absolutely loved displaying a beautiful picture of Santa Cruz, Ca at the top of my blog, sort of as a goal for myself (and others) to want to live in a place like that through making money online. The new design allows for a header image, but I decided to use a different image I took a few years ago. The picture is still of Santa Cruz, but it is one of the beautiful valleys rather than the beach. Do you like the image?
• 125×125 Buttons - One of the main reasons for wanting to change my blog design was that I desperately wanted to accommodate for 125×125 ad buttons. You see these buttons on most business/money making blogs, and there’s a simple reason for that: they work! When someone clicks on one of my buttons and signs up, I get a referral commission. Now I get to display these buttons to everyone who comes to my site.
  

• Easier to Contact Me - Something I really appreciate when visiting other people’s blogs is the ability to easily find/contact the webmaster. With the new design it is now very easy (and obvious) where and how to contact me. I have used visuals to draw reader’s eyes towards that section, so hopefully more people will feel free to contact me. I listed Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn.
  

• RSS Readership - Another thing I wanted to improve with this blog is the RSS readership. On the old design I only had a small RSS button, that no one seemed to see. Now I have a great big RSS button that probably everyone will see:).
  

• Wider Margins - Lastly, I wanted my blog to have wider margins to allow for more content. I really think the new blog design looks much better, and is easier to use.

These are all very important features to me to have on my blog. Although it took me weeks to find a decent theme to hack up and make my own, it was definitely worth the wait. When you decide to redesign your own blog, you should make a list of features that are most important to you before you start looking for a theme. There are enough Wordpress themes out there where you don’t have to sacrifice any feature for another. If you need help finding the right theme for your needs, feel free to contact me.

This is a guest post from AffiliateTips.com - a great place to get started in affiliate marketing and find affiliate programs in almost any niche.

Use Offline Marketing to Increase Your Online Earnings

It can sometimes be difficult to understand how offline marketing can be important for your online affiliate marketing business. Well, if all of your marketing efforts only occur online you’ll risk missing a huge part of your segment. If you want to make some serious money you should consider all of your marketing options.

It’s good to know that it isn’t that difficult to integrate offline marketing into you overall promotional plans. To get the best results possible from your efforts it’s good if you know the basics before you set sail. Read this blog post and you’ll get a head start to your competitors and you will understand why it is so important to get offline to make money online!

Reaching New Customers

Even though you want to make money from the Internet and most people use the web on a regular basis, it’s imperative that you think outside the box to reach as many potential customers as possible. While most use the web, not all of your potential clients/referrals can be found on the Internet doing their daily tasks, such as making purchases and researching products.

To get these potential clients to visit your affiliate marketing site you have to use offline methods to get them motivated. With little effort and often small costs you’ll be able to inform them about what you have to offer. Who knows, this might be exactly the thing that is needed in order to increase your earnings. Even though it might seem ancient in these modern times, don’t overlook the possibilities to post fliers on notice boards in your community. Always try to target the right kind of people for your particular business. Look around your city and select places that potential customers would pass by often. If you for an example promote a weight loss supplement, it might be a good idea to put up fliers close to places like gyms and health stores.

Increase Your Trust

Many people still feel anxious when purchasing something on the Internet and if you have the possibility you really should do everything you can to increase your trust. With millions of sites selling and promoting products, the most successful are the ones that in the consumer’s eyes are the most trustworthy.

If you make an initial contact with potential referrals offline your credibility and trustworthiness will surely increase. People tend to feel a lot more comfortable to make purchases online if they know that there is a real person behind a site. Some of the things you could try are guest appearances in appropriate forums, television and newspapers ads and direct mail. Also check out the possibilities to advertise on your local radio, since smaller stations often have quite affordable prices.

Create a Buzz

Another great thing about offline marketing is that it’s a great way to get people to talk about your business. If you succeed in this you’ll have one of the most effective tools that exist, hardly any other marketing tools can compete on the same level. If recommendations come from someone a potential customer knows chances are great that they’ll visit your affiliate marketing site.

One way of creating this buzz is to hold a giveaway contest that should be promoted online as well as offline. Contact your local newspapers and radio stations and post your promotion on popular bulletin boards at community centers. It’s more likely to be successful if you can get people talking about it, so you need to be original. Spend some time thinking about how you can make your contest more appealing than the others that are out there.

So now that you know the basics it’s time to put it in practice and watch the cash roll in!

A little over a month ago I was contacted by a Kontera rep who referenced a blog post I wrote a while back comparing Kontera vs. Vibrant ads. Both of these networks provide in-text advertising for both large and small sites.

My first comparison determined Vibrant Media to be the winner, because they paid more and were more of a well known brand. Since switching back to Kontera a month ago, my revenue has stayed pretty much the same. My eCPM is around $1.25, which is actually decent. Assuming Vibrant and Kontera were making me the same amount of money, the question now becomes what other factors play into choosing an ad network.

My account manager, Katherine, has been very helpful. This is one of my most sought after features of any company, not just on the Internet. Customer service and quick response time I value more than making slightly more money with an ad network. Any question I have had she responded to in the same day. For this reason, I am going to continue with Kontera until I get more data to review. Hopefully I can get my eCPM up to $2 through optimization. More updates to come.

You can sign up with Kontera here.

UPDATE: FriendFeed? Why Not.

I just finished making a couple changes to this website. I am starting to get more and more people contacting me for advertising, help/tips, or just to tell me my website is cool (or sucks).

For that reason, I wanted to make it even easier for people to contact me and keep up with what I’m doing. If you take a look at my contact page, you will see my Twitter feed, Facebook profile, and Linkedin profile added to the ways to contact me. Please feel free to reach me at any of these places.

Also, I wanted everyone to know what I have been reading lately. I have added a shared Google Reader RSS feed widget to the right side bottom of my site. I will share any items I find very interesting. Thanks for visiting and keep reading!

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While browsing the forums at DigitalPoint, I came across a very exciting post. eBay Partner Network (ePN) has officially extended their program to the PepperJam Network (PJN). This is great news for us eBay affiliates, because ever since the switch from CJ to eBay’s own in-house network, revenue and quality has nose-dived for the majority of affiliates.

Additionally, ePN’s customer support has to be the worst support I have ever come across in my affiliate marketing career. I will spare you my rant about ePN and just say that if PJN’s revenue is better, and their customer support is on par, I will be very pleased. They have already announced that they are dedicating an entire team to eBay affiliates.

I have signed up and am awaiting approval. As soon as I start getting new revenue figures, I will review PJN. I already have a good feeling about them, but then again anything would be better than ePN.