Update: The Google Adwords Email

It's a funny business.

So what's happened to my business since the Google e-mail?

I'll be honest, not what I expected at all.

Shock One:

A new affiliate program I've been promoting was rocking - doing very well. I'd been in the number one spot. I set my bids high even though my competition was nil. I wanted to discourage any attempts to thwart my top spot.

Now this is a new product, gaining some good press. Not a great commission but with a high conversion rate a gravy boat. Truth be told, this was the program I was least concerned with.

Google makes it's change and suddenly I've got new competion showing up. Almost on queue. And they bid HIGH. No way they're profitable.

Can't be.

But, with Google's new ad rule, my ads disappear. Hmm. You know I just thought of something. You're going to love me for this. Is it possible that you can run the CPC up on your competition without having an ad EVER show? Did I just find a loophole here? I think I did.

The top producing ad is going to show using the merchant domain. Or said alternatively, Google is going to show that ad that pays Google the most money. So, if you have a history with the keyword, then you can fairly accurately predict what the click rate for the top spot must be. If you apply enough financial pressure to your competitor that they aren't profitable, what's going to happen? These scenarios only play out over a short term, I've found. People are quick to abandon the losing of money!

So . . .

If you're playing the game like I do - if you're going after those trademarked terms to promote, when and where permitted, then you've got a couple of options.

A. You can apply enough CPC pressure, as I "ah-ha'd" above to push your competition out. Short term profits suffer, but you'll probably start eliminating competition.

B. You can go out and get a unique domain name. I see people doing clever things with domain names, however, I've already had one merchant contact me and request that I hand over the domain name containing their trademarked terms. I suspect that will happen with any of the merchants paying attention.

What I want is to simply get people to my site. I've begun implementing more "free" offers to gain subscribers. I've been listing "free gift" in my ads.

. . . so, I'm diatribing here. No. I don't outline this stuff before writing.

Shock Two:

My top producing program has been mine for years, literally. I've written about "it" before. I've had threats and learned valuable lessons.

This program, I really felt, was going to benefit tremendously. Who's going to compete with me for the coveted merchant URL?

The merchant.

Oddly, I talked with them on the phone (they're the one's who said, "Hand over our domain name. The boss would have a fit if he saw that!) and they didn't even seem aware of the Google changes. Initially I thought "I'll just bid higher", then came to my senses. I will NEVER be more profitable than they are - and I don't want to irk 'em either.

So, my competition DID drop away, but then I've got to devise a strategy to get buyers of that program to come to my site instead of the merchant site! I did (by adding "Free Gift" to my ad) and my sales for the month, despite a short-term hit, are approaching the second best month I've ever had.

OK. This is plenty more than enough for now. The changes have been interesting. They've forced me to do some things the right way, to get a little more creative. I still have the challenge to overcome, as explained in Shock One. I'll let you know how that pans out.

To your profits!

John

Adwords or Search Engine Optimization?

The Question:

99% of my traffic comes from search google adwords. I know I should optimize my website, but PPC is working fine for me so far (it is also my biggest expense).

What I was wondering is:Have any of you used PPC to run a successful website for a substantial amount of time (6 months or more). Or is search engene optimization a must if you want to be successful online?

The Answer:

I suspect what I'm going to share will become a trend.

On a page offering a searcher ten to eighteen options, why be satisfied with one ad? Why stop at one ad and one search listing?

My experience is that a good niche - or a profitable product - are the hardest part of the equation. When I find those, I want to flood the search results.

I have a local client (this is easier to do since there'sless competition), but on a search for his service 5 ofthe 13 options on that page are going to lead to him. That's a combination of SEO and PPC (one PPC ad). He says that 75% of his $180,000 per year business is coming from online - read that as searches. It's a service for vacationers who come to our little town!

Find that niche and dominate it. :-)

Here's a piece of PPC psychology I just discovered - this is related.

I noticed that when I enter the bidding wars for a new product I'm promoting, there's something I don't know that the top bidders must. That at what they're bidding, they'reprofitable.

Watch.

If they stay at the top for a while,they must be profitable. How profitable? Probably FARmore so than us newbies in the niche realize. Most people start promoting a product with .05 clicks. You'll never make any money that way. I've proven that to myself.

How do I KNOW this? Because I know I have a few hot moneymakers. And if my competition knew how much I make from them, then they'd be **st - edited** less than astute to not vie for a bigger piece of that pie. Why don't they? Because I make it a point to dominate. I'll bid up the price to unprofitable, for a time, if necessary. They'll go away. I used to panic at these threats (see past posts), yet my sales are stronger than ever. Now, if they didn't cry "Uncle", then I'd have a problem. But, they do.

Nobody talks about a killer instinct online. It's important to success, online or off. When you allow your competition to gain a foothold, to gain some confidence, to be profitable, they become stronger. Don't allow it.

With some SEO, you could double, triple, quadruple your profits. Don't stop at the one success; push on.

Best wishes, John

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Google Adwords Announced

Since Perry Marshall is still considered "The Definitive Adwords Guy", you'll probably be interested to read that his opinion concurs with mine.
(which doesn't mean either one of us are right!)

I just received this note from him - he's also putting on a teleseminar to
discuss ways you can capitalize on the changes. The teleseminar appears
to be free of charge.

Over to you Perry . . .


Last Thursday Google AdWords announced a new policy
that *appears* to have devastating consequences for
people playing the 'GoogleCash' game.

However, I don't see it that way at all. In fact it
matches perfectly with everything I've been teaching about
this for over a year now. So I'm going to be doing two
back-to-back teleseminars on this, with Jim Edwards
and Paul Colligan, on Tuesday January 11.
http://www.perrymarshall.com/111

As soon as Google's email hit, across the internet, in
forums and newsgroups, the anguish was heard. Pain.
Suffering. Panic. In some chatrooms, it's sounded like
a sudden outbreak of Cholera.

The GoogleCash system is very clever, having literally become
the world's fastest instant business. You find a product with an
affiliate program, advertise it on Google, which might take
as little as 10 minutes... and if the sales page for that product
does its job, you can be an invisible traffic broker,
pocketing the profit.

Problem is: For some products, half the Google
ads for a particular keyword are just from affiliates all
advertising the same product, pointing to the same
website. Makes Google look bad.

So Google made a new rule that 1) they will
only display two ads for the same website at the
same time - only the ones with the best click thru
rate, and 2) now you don't have to put the 'aff'
in the ad anymore.

So that means for any given keyword, only one
or two affiliates can play.

Some people are very unhappy about this!

But this is NOT as bad as it sounds. Here's why:

First, if there are more than two affiliates promoting
the same product, in Most cases they're just bidding
up the clicks to a break-even level, and they're not
making any money anyway. It's a basic fact that
unless you're in a narrow niche that most other people
don't know about, it can be difficult to make any real
money just brokering traffic.

Second, from Google's point of view - and from a
customer's point of view - multiple affiliates promoting
the exact same web page don't add value either.

Google wants more diversity in their search results.

There's an easy solution to both problems:

Be a 'Value Added Affiliate.'

You solve these problems by adding more content,
more value, and more information to the sale - not just
brokering traffic. Traffic brokering is only the first step.

In most cases you earn far, far more by doing this.

So with Google's new policy, the lazy folks (who
never had a chance to make money anyway) don't get
to play, and the value-added folks do even better
than they were doing before.

On Tuesday January 11 I'm going to be doing
not one, but TWO teleseminars that will help you
do this very thing better.

The first will be with Jim Edwards (he and Yanik Silver
interviewed me for their Instant Traffic Stampede)
and we'll be discussing value-added affiliate website
strategies on Tuesday afternoon.

And the second will be at midnight EST, a cool

Late Nite Pajama Jam with affiliate genius Paul Colligan.

Paul's going to discuss his 'Affiliate email success
system that doesn't suck your life dry.'

Hey, there's a hard way to do this, and an easy way.

Might as well do the easier thing for a change. Join me
on these calls and we'll calm the nerves of all those poor
affiliates having that Cholera epidemic over there.

There's no charge.

Register at http://www.perrymarshall.com/111

Later,
Perry Marshall

The Adwords Email

It's the most talked about piece of email . . . that I ever recall. From now on, we'll just call it "The Adwords Email".

Rumors have flown for some time that Adwords was considering a big change that would have a tremendous impact on affiliate marketers using Adwords to promote products. Especially those doing "bid slinging" - placing ads that direct the searcher directly to the merchant website.

That was long touted by ebooks like Google Cash as the way anyone can write simple ads and make big money. Naturally, the clutter and the quality plummeted - but people were make money.

And now Google Adwords has ruined everything. They've even cut off their nose to spite themselves. Or some are saying. (Hey, by now we should know one thing about Google. The people pushing the buttons are brilliant and it's highly unlikely they'd make any move that lacks long-term vision).

What I think . . .

I'm doing a little jig in my head. Why? The competition just took a near-term nose-dive. It's like turning back the clock. It puts the game in the hands of real marketers again; the advantage is awarded, in a single email, to those who are building businesses - not hit and miss money-makers.

Yes, I do feel a sense of sadness for the people who are making some extra money using Adwords. But, the more you put things in the hands of others, the more susceptible you become.

What to do . . .

You have two courses of action.

1. You can shoot for that combination of "best ad" plus "highest bid" and attain the top listing. I suspect competition for that top spot my become even more intense. Why the top spot? The top spot can use any domain they want - including the merchant URL. Clearly, since the merchant should be operating at the highest level of profit margin that puts them in control in most places. IE, they can spend more for top placement - if they want. Personally, I'd leave that to the affiliates in most cases.

2. You start building mini-sites - even landing pages for the product. And while you're at it, you start doing what smart marketers do - you pre-sell, you offer an opt-in opportunity, you add value to the process while building YOUR business.

My focus in this blog is Adwords and that's true of the Adwords Income site, but it's important to stress that Adwords is about 50% of my business income - or less. I don't advise put all of your eggs in any one basket - not matter how good is was, or is, because the one thing guaranteed on the Internet is change.

Google's "Adwords Email" has done many of us a big favor. Change is painful if you resist it. But I have a hunch the smart marketers are shifting gears quickly to capitalize on the opportunities created by these new changes.

Just in case you haven't seen "the email", it's below. I've highlighted the key points.

Best wishes, John


What is changing:

With this new affiliate policy, we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent com`1Qpanies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from. As always, your ad will be displayed based on its Ad Rank for given searches, which is determined by a combination of your ad's maximum cost-per-click (price) and clickthrough rate (performance). 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.

How this will affect you:

If you're an affiliate, this means that you no longer need to identify yourself as an affiliate in your ad text. However, your current ad text will continue to display your affiliate status until you change it. 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.

What you should do:

We recommend that you continue to monitor your ads' performance and optimize your ads as needed to ensure they're bringing you the best results. Please visit our Optimization Tips page for more information. By improving our ad relevancy, we believe that users will have a better search experience, which will help you reach more potential clients in the future. We'll continue to make improvements to AdWords over time to further improve the user experience and help increase the performance of your ads. We look forward to continue providing you with the most effective advertising available.