It’s Tip Tuesday and here’s a doozy! Have you ever heard anyone advising you to stay away from the Google Content Network? I’ve personally seen my share of this horrible advice floating around. Well, whether you are an experienced marketer who already knows this, or you are just getting your feet wet, the Google Content Network is an excellent source of Paid Advertising that is generally cheaper than a lot of Search options.
Google has always been refining their content network traffic and placements and it just keeps getting better and better. Here are some quick ways to ramp up the Return on Investment with Content Network Campaigns.
1. You have to track your conversions. First and foremost this is the most important aspect of any paid advertising campaign. If you dont have the information that tells you what converted into sales or leads then your swinging blind. With Google it can be as easy as grabbing their pixel and messaging your Affiliate Manager to have it placed on your offer’s success page.
2. With Content Network specific campaigns your ads can literally show up anywhere. Parked pages is where a ton of ads will show up. You ABSOLUTELY must track where your ads are showing up. There are a few programs out there that will do this. Unless you have some sort of in house tracking then you are probably going to be at the mercy of spending a little money. If it costs you $130 a month to track ALL your content network campaigns and armed you with the data of knowing what domains converted and which ones didnt then I think its safe to say that such a fee is minimal.
Track conversions and track placements. Most likely if marketers were doing this then 99% of them would be profiting on the Google Content Network. Sadly only maybe half (if that) actually track their placements. This is what seperates profit from loss and the smart from the not-so-smart.
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Ok, so Google will remove officially removed protection from advertisers bidding on brand-owners’ trademarks. However, you still will not be able to have these brand name terms visible in the AdText portion of the ad.
Are you prepared? Are your clients?
Are you going all out aggressively to bid against competitors trademarks?.
Are you going to start bidding against your own brand as protection?.
Perhaps a mixture?. Or are you going to wait and see what your competitors do?
So what does this mean for affiliate marketing? Well – I feel it’s pretty simple:
MERCHANTS SHOULD EMPLOY SEARCH AGENCIES TO PROTECT THEIR BRAND
So if affiliates bid on a brand and go via their own site, merchant’s can still stipulate that they don’t want that. But each merchant will have to do the calculations on their ROI between monitoring and responding to brand name “abuse”, hiring a search agency to conduct a review of the possibilities and implement a solution and just letting market forces dictate the way forward.
If there is going to be mass-scale brand name “abuse” then won’t this have an impact on the profitability of the channel for the merchant? Won’t this in-turn have the possible result of lowering commissions in certain circumstances?
But overall, I see the results as:
- More affiliates randomly bidding on brands without checking what the merchant wants;
- Merchants devoting more time to policing their brand;
- More merchants removing their heads from their rear-ends and invite other affiliates to compete;
- Google earning more;
- Some affiliates spending a couple of months to work out how best to monetize this opportunity while forgetting to work on their generic campaigns;
- More affiliates using PPC to bid on their content sites;
- If “all hell breaks loose” then commissions may be reduced by big brand merchants;
- The high life that agencies have (cough) been shattered – they’ll have to do some proper consultancy;
- Egotistical, maniac, hypocritical, established brand-name bidders shit themselves as hoards of affiliates start to say “it’s ok with Google now remove your closed bidding groups or we’ll just saturate the SERPS with adverts for your competitors”.
- People like me just plug away with SEO getting the brand traffic for free whilst the others fight it out;
For more information on Google’s Trademark Policy Change, please check out the official announcement.
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Whether you are building your first list or you happen to be a seasoned email marketing veteran, we can all admit that email deliverability can be a pain in the butt! I am sure if you have done any email marketing in the past you can appreciate the steps that go into achieving top notch delivery rates with the many different ISP’s.
- Use a recognizable “from” name – Most people open or delete emails simply based on the “from” name. Be sure to use a name that the members on your list will recognize. Also be sure if you are promoting any email campaigns from the network to use the approved “from” name.
- Use a clear subject line – A subject line that represents who you are and what your email is about will help your recipients recognize your email as legitimate. Keep it short and sweet and try to limit your character count to around 50 characters including any spaces or special characters. Those of you who are email marketers with Convert2Media be sure to contact your affiliate manager if you would like to use a custom subject line.
- Target your list – While content is just one of many factors ISPs look at, it is the main concern for the members on your list. If you are sending out irrelevant communications, your members will not hesitate to click the “This is spam” button the next time they receive an email from you. This is a fast way to destroy a good list.
- List Hygiene – Get rid of the nonexistent addresses you are sending emails to every month. The ISPs notice when you don’t. By removing defunct email addresses, you will help you to improve your overall deliverability. If you use an Email Service Provider (ESP) like Aweber to send your email, you should have the option to easily delete nonexistent email addresses.
- Authenticate – This is similar to “registering” your domain name with the ISPs so they can begin to give it a reputation. If you are an Aweber customer, I encourage you to turn authentication on in your account. This will help your deliverability and will help position you for future success as well. For more information on authentication, read the article below.
- Offer confirmed opt-in – Also known as double opt-in, this is a surefire way to know that the people on your list really want to be there. When a person signs up through your website or other avenues, they will automatically receive an email from you asking them to confirm their subscription. This approach is seen as a best practice. It’s important to tell new subscribers that if they do not respond to your confirmation email, they won’t be added to your list.
That wraps up Tip Tuesday for this week. Be sure to join the Convert2Media Forums to discuss this tip and past tips from Tip Tuesday.
Steve Howe
