New Google Adwords Policy Benefits Affiliates

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New Google Adwords Policy Benefits Affiliates

Until recently, if you did a search on the term 'satellite dish' at Google, and then surveyed the URL's in the Adwords listings, you were bound to see that most of the ads linked to just one company. You'd also note that most listings ended with the 'aff' (affiliate site) designation.

Eight ads all linking to the same site. How useless and frustrating was that?

Well, Google has just introduced a new affiliates Adwords policy that finally addresses that problem.

However, the new policy has been met with much whining on various affiliate and Internet marketing forums.

Why?

'Cause affiliates who link directly from Adwords to their merchant partners' sites will have to get to work or go home.

Well, maybe.

There seems to be a loophole in the new policy's wording.

Here's how the new affiliate policy reads:

"With this new affiliate policy, we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from."

"Affiliates or advertisers using unique URLs in their ads will not be affected by this change. Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page, and you may not simply frame another site."

Did they mean to say 'domain', not 'URL'?

If Google did indeed intend 'URL', then there is no problem for those who engage in the 'Google Cash' method of affiliate marketing, as each affiliate URL is unique.

Here's an example.

These are URL's for 3 affiliate marketers promoting the 'FriendFinder' dating service.

http://friendfinder.com/go/p1234
http://friendfinder.com/go/p5869
http://friendfinder.com/go/p3468

Each URL is unique, ergo it should be no problem to for affiliates to link directly to Friendfinder's site with their affiliate links.

However, if in fact Google meant 'domain', that's quite a different kettle of fish.

Because each URL above points to the 'friendfinder.com' domain, only one listing will be displayed, and chosen on the basis of Ad Rank.

Here's the official wording from within the policy.

"For instance, if a user searches for books on Google.com or anywhere on the Google search and content networks, Google will take an inventory of ads running for the keyword books. If we find that two or more ads compete under the same URL, we'll display the ad with the highest Ad Rank."

Ad Rank is determined by a combination of an ad's maximum cost-per-click and clickthrough rate.

Less competition is great news for affiliates who have always linked back to their own sites... as Super Affiliates always do.

One more benefit to affiliate marketers in Google's new Adwords policy is that you no longer need to identify yourself as an affiliate in your ad text. That means no more 'aff' at the end of the ad... and 4 more spaces to add content to your listing.

I figure consumers had no idea what 'aff' meant anyway, so Google just wanted to get rid of what looked like garble in the listings.

However, your current ad text will continue to display your affiliate status until you change it.

Assuming Google DID mean 'domain', this new policy is good news for affiliates... genuine affiliate marketers.

I've always taught that affiliates with content sites enjoy much higher conversion rates.

It's simple. Spend an hour writing an endorsement, upload it to your web site, then advertise that link on Google Adwords.

Why waste advertising dollars on a .5 percent conversion, when it only takes an hour to double or even quadruple that rate?

Author's Resource: Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit http://NetProfitsToday.com

Do You Know EXACTLY What You Should Look for in an Affiliate Program?

The Super Affiliate Handbook lists 20 Questions that you should get answers to before you join ANY affiliate program... along with great information on every aspect of affiliate marketing; from setting up your business to managing and growing it beyond your wildest dreams!

Get your copy of the Super Affiliate Handbook today!

How to add 37% on to your Pay Per Click income in 10 minutes!

This very special newsletter has been contributed by Mark Ling.

If you haven't heard about Mark Ling already, he released a bombshell at the World Internet Summit by releasing Affilorama - Your Essential Guide to Becoming a Super Affiliate. In his video course he shows you step-by-step how he makes over a million dollars a year from affiliate programs. He even gives you access to his prized software collection that has been developed especially for Affilorama.

Visit Affilorama to check out his site.

Here's what Mark has to share with you today:

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Hi, I'm Mark Ling, In this newsletter, we'll be discussing the Pay-per-click Giant - Overture. A.K.A. Yahoo Search Marketing, and strategies to maximize your success!

So, what is Overture?

Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its own site and which are distributed to others. These are sold through Overture. Yahoo purchased Overture as part of an acquisition in October 2003.

Overture also provides sponsor links for many other search engines, most notably: MSN, AllTheWeb and AltaVista.

Today, Google accounts for about 46% of websearches.

Yahoo accounts for about 22.5% and MSN 12.6%.

So you see, Overture really is just as important to use as Google Adwords. Personally I use overture extensively and I highly recommend that you do so too.

Read on..

To set up your Overture account, visit...

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/index.php

*Question*

From: Sarah

I have been promoting Rocket Spanish and Rocket French with great success in Adwords and am interested in promoting them in Overture. I noticed that over 1 million people are searching for "Learn Spanish" and almost a million searching for "Learn French", this is from overture's suggestion tool. This looks very exciting. The problem is, people are bidding up to $1.10 per click for these search terms, so it's highly competitive.


What advice do you have for someone entering overture, especially with such high click costs?

*Answer*

First of all, make sure that you set for yourself a reasonable daily budget. That way you won't spend too much. You can do this in overture.

Secondly, Overture works differently to google adwords. Google adwords uses some sort of fuzzy logic to decide it's ad placement positioning, calculated from such things as:

a) Length of time the advertiser has been advertising with this adword. Sometimes it takes up to a month to realize the full potential of an adword in google.

b) Click through rate

c) Max cost per click

Overture simply uses an auction system to decide which ad gets displayed highest. If you bid more money per click, you will rate higher. It's as simple as that.

For instance if Mr X bids $1 per click on "Learn Spanish" and Mr Y bids $0.95 and Mr Z bids $1.10. Then Mr Z's ad will be #1, Mr X's ad will be #2 and Mr Y's ad will be placed #3.

With this difference in mind, there is a different strategy that you should use in overture.

====================

Overture Strategy #1

====================

Qualify your ads.

In google it matters what your click through rate is and you are rewarded for having a higher click through rate with lower costs per click. In Overture, all that matter is how much you are prepared to pay per click.

Hence it is very important that you bid higher than you would in Google, but you ensure that your traffic is of a higher quality by "Qualifying" your listings. You can do this in many ways.

1. By mentioning the price of the product. If somewhere in you overture ad you mention something like: "Only $99!" or simply "Costs $99.95" or something to that effect, then people who aren't at all interested in paying any money for anything won't click on your ad.

2. By mentioning more product details. Remember that in Overture you get to take up more space describing a product, so you should describe what it is so that people know what they are clicking on.

3. I personally recommend only promoting in Overture USA and Overture UK, they seem to have a higher proportion of buyers than in other countries.

4. Mention how the product is delivered. Eg If your product is an online product, say so, some people are only interested in physical products.

Remember, if you are profiting a large amount per click AND if you want to increase your click through rate, simply remove some of the qualifiers, such as price.... above.

=====================

Overture Strategy #2
=====================

Conversion Tracking

Most website owners, including us, will be happy to add their affiliate's overture conversion tracking code to their purchase page. This means that you will be able to tell precisely which keywords are making the sales and which aren't. And also how much it is costing you per sale.

If a website owner is not willing to add your conversion code, you may want to consider if you really wish to be promoting their website.

It is important to have access to valuable conversion statistics, to see where you are profiting, and where you are struggling.

=====================

Overture Strategy #3

=====================

Separate Ads for Each Keyword

I know this is time consuming, but in the long run, it is highly beneficial. First of all, make sure that you use the keyword(s) in the title and ad copy.

When your keyword is inserted in the Title and Ad Copy, the come up in bold when someone searches for it in Yahoo or MSN. For example, search for "Learn Spanish" in Yahoo and notice how with the sponsored links, the words "learn" and "Spanish" come up in bold in all the ad listings.

=====================

Overture Strategy #4

=====================

Try to get the #4 or #5 Position. (even #6 isn't bad)

This increases the likelihood of your ad being seen. The top 3-4 ads get displayed at the top of yahoo and msn searches. The following ads are displayed at the bottom and right hand side of the page in yahoo, and down the right hand side in MSN.

There is a significant difference between being placed 5/6 and being placed 7/8.

Overture allows you to "bid to position" on a particular search term. You can do this once you have set up your keywords. I strongly recommend bidding to position #5 at the very least. In fact you'll get quite good traffic from them. There is no need (unless you are profiting wildly!) to spend more money to place your ad in the top 3 positions which usually get fought over fiercely. Remember to keep an eye on your ads, so you don't inadvertently become caught up in a bidding for position war.

=====================

Overture Strategy #5

=====================

Make sure that All your Bids are set to Auto bid.

This means that you won't be spending more than you want to for any term, and you will pay less money if your competitors aren't spending as much.

======================================================

I hope that this advice helps you turbo-charge profits using Overture Search Marketing.

Let me know how you go with this and email me samples of your ads if you want me to check them out.

*Final Word*

Here are some more excellent affiliate programs that I strongly recommend you take a look at (all payout 75%):

www.rocketspanish.com

www.rocketfrench.com

www.rocketpiano.com

www.salehoo.com

www.jamorama.com

www.sitstayfetch.net

www.savemymarriagetoday.com

www.000relationships.com

www.catchspousecheating.com

www.weddingspeech4u.com

www.affilorama.com



Also recommended:

Google Adsense affiliate program

Ebay affiliate program

All the best,

Mark Ling

P.S. If you have had good success with other affiliate programs, please, let me know. Also if you have any questions, feel free to contact me via the contact us form on my website. Affilorama

P.S. Go get Affilorama - Your Essential Guide to Becoming a Super Affiliate right now. If it means that you earn an extra $100, $1000, $10000 a week. Isn't it worth the investment? It even comes with a free 6 day e-course which can make you hundreds, right there.

Visit: Affilorama Right Now - You don't want to miss this one!

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I hope you enjoyed Mark's lesson on Overture's P.P.C program. And I hope you learned alot. Most affiliate marketers concentrate solely on Google Adwords sponsored search, leaving massive opportunity for most niche markets in the Overture, MSN & Yahoo search engines.

Mark teaches you more about Overture, and other P.P.C strategies in lessons 3, 4, 6 , 7 & 8 of Affilorama, as well as the introduction to P.P.C marketing in his free 6-Part Affiliate Ramp Up Course.

Signup today to the free Affilorama 6-Part Affiliate Ramp Up Course and Mark will add you to the Affiliates database, where you will receive great resources and lessons such as the one above, introducing you to the world of affiliate marketing, and giving you a taste of what's to come in Affilorama.
Affilorama 6-Part Affiliate Ramp Up Course
- Free Affiliate Marketing Course

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