Remember my PPC Display URLs and Affiliate Direct Linking Are Interconnected post two months ago? In it — being guided by Google AdWords policy — I argued:

Permitting “direct linking” (or Direct-To-Merchant (DTM) paid search bidding), however, implies that affiliates are allowed to link their paid search ads (through their affiliate links, of course) right to your website.

Yesterday, however, we spotted the following affiliate ad on Bing:

This was an affiliate agreement violator and brand hijacker (as Halloween Mart prohibits paid search bidding on its trademarks, URL, and variations thereof), but, as it is obvious above, they are — or, at least, they may think they are — not as bad of a violator as some others. The “keyword” they are using is the merchant’s full URL. They are also using it (twice) in the ad copy. But when it comes to the display URL, they went away from the actual merchant’s URL, and added the word “store” (in)to it… Apparently, Bing doesn’t require the display URL (the website address that the searcher sees on a PPC ad) to match the domain of the destination URL (the page on which they land upon clicking the paid search ad).

Minutes after my tweet about the above situation, a well-known super affiliate and affiliate marketing advocate Scott Jangro tweeted:

Google started requiring for the display URL to match the landing page URL in early 2008 [more here]. Apparently, Bing still doesn’t.

Affiliate program managers must be aware of this tactic, and treat my Display URL and DTM Linking post in light of the above exception (at least, until this gets addressed by Bing).

An affiliate has emailed me the following situation and question:

I’m fairly new at PPC, but I’ve already had some luck with it. A few days ago I started promoting [merchant name here]‘s program  on CJ. Sent over 150 clicks to them spending over $30 on it already, but haven’t had any sales yet. Their EPC range on CJ is $18-$24. Should I start worrying?

In a nutshell, the answer depends on a number of factors, but if you’re new at paid search, and already aren’t 100% sure that what you’re doing is right, start analyzing and tweaking things right away.

I’ve pulled up this particular merchant’s info, and here’s what I see:

It seems that you’re concerned because your current CPC (cost per click) is right around $0.20, and you see that the maximum you could expect from this program is $24.68 for every 100 clicks, but, more than likely, this number will be 30% lower, as over a longer period of time (3 months vs 7 days) this merchant’s program has been registering an EPC (earnings per 100 clicks, in this case) of $17.87. As mentioned above, your current situation may have good reasons for concern, but only if you aren’t 100% certain about the traffic you’re sending to them (how targeted is it? are you actively using negative keywords to sift off the folks you do not want?). Yes, (a) you’re already spending  quite a bit on each click (but that’s fine as long as the ROI is there), and (b) overall program’s EPC is like an average body temperature around the hospital, hence, not good grounds for basing your CPC decision on [more here]. Having said all of this, if your budget allows for it, and you’re certain that you’re sending highly targeted traffic to this merchant (i.e. the traffic that is meant to convert into a sale, and not merely to find out information on their product), it may be too early to jump to conclusions. The reason for this being that this particular merchant’s AOV (average order value), or average price tag seems to be in the vicinity of $400 (which, by the way, with their 14% commission rate, should convert into a good average payout), and higher ticket items generally take longer for the customer to decide.

I’ve analyzed return days distribution (or how many days it takes for the customer to complete the purchase) in two of the higher AOV affiliate programs that we manage, and here’s what I see:

I don’t know over what time period you’ve been sending those 150 clicks, and this particular program’s return days distribution may look even more different, but the above should give you at least some idea. It is also absolutely acceptable to request this information from the manager of this particular affiliate program. It’ll help you a lot in your analysis. So, I would definitely do it as a part of your analysis and tweaking.

If you’re a paid search expert reading this, and have something to add, expand on, or correct, please do chime in, and post your comments, ideas and suggestions below.

The launch of Google Instant (a new way of searching the Internet via Google, which is meant to save the end user between 2 and 5 seconds on each search) has produced a wide resonance which has touched nearly every area of digital marketing, but especially everything that is immediately influenced by search (paid or organic).

Much has been written on the topic over the past 7 days, but not everything may be worth your precious time.

To narrow things down, I’ve decided to compile my personal list of favorite posts, articles and a podcast on the topic of Google Instant and how it affects (or may affect) those of us dependent on SEM (read: everyone).

Here is my list:

Affiliate Marketing

• Google Instant and what it means for Affiliate Marketing by Paul Wright
• Google Instant and the Affiliate by Mark John Hiemstra
• Google Instant and its impact on Affiliate Marketing by yours truly

Paid Search Marketing

• Will Google Instant Kill The Long Tail? by John Ellis
• Google Instant: Impact on Paid Search (PPC) Programs by Rise Interactive
• Google Instant Will Not Cause Death by Starvation by Nate Griffin
• How Adwords will be Affected by Google Instant podcast by David Szetela & Brad Geddes (corresponding blog post here)
• Google Instant AdWords Trouble by David Iwanow

SEO & Organic Search

• Google Spam Fighter Matt Cutts Weighs In On The “Death” Of SEO (Or Lack Thereof) by Jason Kincaid
• Dear Mainstream Media — Please Remove Foot From Mouth by Rae Hoffman
• The impact of Google Instant Search on SEO: Introducing Pass Through Impressions by Franz Enzenhofer
• SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die by Danny Sullivan

Other Must Reads

• Google Instant Search Myths Debunked by Emma Davis
• Google Instant Is Not The Terminator by Nate Griffin

If I have missed any articles which, in your opinion, must be on the above list, please do post about it in the “Comments” area below.

Yesterday Google introduced a new split testing tool for paid search marketers that use AdWords to try — the AdWords Campaign Experiments (ACE) tool [see original announcement here].

Google’s below video explains how the only way of handling split tests in PPC marketing before was to conduct a “before and after analysis” where you would compare performance of one campaign to another.

The problem with this method was that even if your conversions increased you really wouldn’t know if that was because of the bid change or due to some other factor like a sudden increase in the demand for [the product/service you're selling].

With ACE you can test one campaign against another simultaneously, “without having to apply the bid change to all auctions for which your ad could appear”. You leave the original campaign up, and also set up an “experimental bid” campaign, split testing between the two, and seeing which one makes more business sense to carry on. Besides this basic scenario, there are other ways you can use the ACE, and if you’re serious about your paid search marketing with Google, it’s time to start experimenting.

The tool is now in its beta phase, and to request your access to it you need fill out this form.

Every week I read dozens of articles published online. Naturally, the vast majority of them are directly related to online marketing in general, and affiliate marketing in particular. The abundance of excellent content published online is so great that I never have enough time to incorporate what I learn into my own writing, and my today’s blog post aims at fixing this to at least to a degree.  Today I’d like to bring to your attention the 10 most interesting, in my opinion, posts and articles that have appeared online in the course of the past week. Most of them are very practical, and chock-full of invaluable advice that marketers can take and apply right away… A few of them are news (or other data) that I have found to be either of interest, or even of inspiration.

Here is my list (the order in which the below posts appear is random, and in no way reflective of any preference, or importance):

– 1 –

5 Great Ways to Waste Money in Google Adwords
Whether you are a merchant or an affiliate just starting with paid search, this article is a must read for you.

– 2 –

30+ Principles to a Better Landing Page Design
Successful web page design rests on four pillars: (i) research, (ii) design, (iii) copy, (iv) testing and improving. More in this article.

– 3 –

Multivariate Testing, 1 2 3 …
Good article on what and how to test. If you’re not yet into testing and analytics, hop aboard!

– 4 –

Give Your Affiliate Campaigns the Psychological Edge and Boost Conversions
Invaluable collection of links on how to employ psychological principles to improve conversions, or motivate people to buy.

– 5 –

What Super Bowl Advertising Can Teach Your Small Business
While I do not share point #2, the rest of this article is very useful for all kinds of marketers.

– 6 –

What Your Form Design Reveals About You
How to improve form design (thereby showing you care about your visitors) to increase your conversion rates.

– 7 –

9 Tricks I Used to Triple My AdSense Earnings in 30 Days
Hundreds of thousands of webmasters are using Google AdSense to monetize their websites. Must read article on what to improve to start earning more.

– 8 –

100 Top Entrepreneurs Who Succeeded Without a College Degree
An interesting list of 100 entrepreneurs who have achieved the pinnacle of success – some even without an elementary school degree.

– 9 –

Confirmed: Google Acquires Social Search Engine Aardvark
Big news: Vark.com acquired by Google for some $50 million. Official post here.

– 10 –

comScore Reports U.S. E-Commerce Spending in Q4 2009 Reached $39 Billion
December 15 ranked as heaviest U.S. online spending day in history at $913M. More in this post.

Earlier this morning, Roxana Patrichi of Avangate published a list of 150+ negative keywords for software selling AdWords campaigns. This reminded me of one of the questions that I was asked in a recent interview to Affilorama. I was asked what advice I would give to newbie affiliates that are getting involved in paid search. I believe that there are at least 5 things PPC affiliates must know at the outset:

1. Educate yourself thoroughly (a good place to start would be a book by Marshall and Todd called “Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords”)
2. Remember to constantly test (watch your CTR and work on improving it on an ongoing basis)
3. Don’t rush (you can burn a lot of money overnight, take small steps until you really know what you’re doing)
4. Develop inventories of long-tail keywords (looking at things through the end user’s eyes and using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool)
5. Use negative keywords (or keywords for which you do not want your ad to show in paid search results, as they are unlikely to convert into the desirable action)

Below I am including a list of 90 negative keywords to help all kinds paid search affiliates. Let me stress that this is a basic list to start with. Affiliates want to develop such lists for each PPC campaign they run. Thorough negative keyword lists include hundreds of keywords.

While not all merchants may be willing to share their keyword inventories with affiliates, I believe that sharing the list of the negative keywords is a must. After all, if they burn themselves (and loose cash, with low or no conversion), it is the merchant, who they will eventually stop promoting, that will loose too. So if you are a merchant or an affiliate program manager reading this, compile your own list of negative keywords (the above one will help you get started quickly) and offer it to your affiliates.