Nana Gilbert-Baffoe's blog about affiliate marketing and related topics that will be of interest to affiliate marketers.

Friday, November 04, 2005

New Google AdSense Referral Program

Google AdSense finally has a referral program worth promoting. The new public program, which seems to have launched today, pays $100 after your referral earns their first $100. They also pay $1 for every Firefox with Google toolbar download you referrer. This money is credited to your account and paid out during your next payout period.

I do recall some sort of limited referral program that was only available to a few sites a while ago, but now it's open to all. It looks like they really want to quickly ramp up the number of sites in their content network. Considering how much money these sites generate for Google, I'm not surprised.

There's now a new tab in the account center for creating referral buttons, but at the moment the options are limited to white graphical buttons. I hope in the near future, they allow publisher to customize the colors or even provide text based links. I'm kind of surprised they didn't do this to begin with, especially since I'm sure they know how well people click on text links as opposed to graphical banners.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Google AdSense Preview Tool

This weekend I decided it was time to add a new tool to my list of tools at http://www.technobloggie.com so I spent some time experimenting and tinkering. The final result, is my own version of the AdSense preview tool.

Yep, I know there are others out there already. But, I also needed a project to practice my newly acquired regex skills on. I've been learning about regular expressions for about a week now, I feel like I'm still a newbie, but I'm excited about the new possibilities that will open up because of this.

The AdSense preview tool will be getting minor tweaks and updates to make it stand out from the rest. But for now, it's mainly like the rest. Check it out.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Yahoo! Launches Beta Publisher Network For Small and Medium-Sized Publishers

Self-Serve Platform Provides Access to New Sources of Revenue and Yahoo! Content

Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today announced that it is extending the Yahoo! Publisher Network in the U.S. to small- and medium-sized web sites. This will allow the broader publishing community to take advantage of Yahoo!'s relevant advertising products as well as quality content through an easy-to-use self-serve platform.


Initially available in the U.S. through an invitation-only beta, the Yahoo! Publisher Network self-serve platform will allow webmasters to sign up online for Yahoo! advertising products and receive fast, easy access to other syndicated Yahoo! content and products. Through the new platform, small- and medium-sized publishers will now have access to the same large advertising network, content and applications capabilities that Yahoo! uses while working with the world's biggest, brand-name publishers.

"Yahoo! has developed many highly successful relationships with web publishers around the world, and is building on those experiences to bring new revenue sources and compelling content to even more high quality sites," said Bill Demas, senior vice president, Yahoo! Partner Solutions group. "By helping the broader publishing community maximize the value of their sites, we aim to create an even more rewarding Internet experience for publishers, advertisers and users."

The first advertising product Yahoo! will be offering through the beta is its Content Match(tm) contextual listings. Content Match enables publishers to place Yahoo!'s contextually-relevant listings on their sites and receive a share of the revenue generated by them. Already proven on Yahoo!'s large distribution sites, Content Match can help small- and medium-sized publishers monetize valuable site inventory and provide additional qualified leads to Yahoo! advertisers.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network self-serve beta will also provide easy access to other Yahoo! products that can enhance their visitor experience, such as "Add to My Yahoo!" and Y!Q Beta. The "Add to My Yahoo!" feature provides publishers of all sizes - from professional webmasters to independent bloggers - the opportunity to promote and distribute their content on Yahoo! via RSS, drive traffic back to their sites, and develop repeat daily relationships with their readers. The Y!Q Beta is a first-of-its kind contextual search product that can help webmasters increase the "stickiness" of their sites by providing visitors with convenient, related search results overlaid directly on their website.

Yahoo! plans to offer additional features in the near future to enable publishers to enhance their visitor experience including "Save to My Web" and Web search. The "Save to My Web" feature enables readers to easily save and share pages from a publisher's site to My Web - Yahoo!'s personal search engine service - increasing return visits and improving loyalty. In addition, Yahoo! is conducting tests to evaluate the advertising capabilities of Y!Q and RSS feeds.

To create an ongoing dialogue with its small- and medium-sized publishers, Yahoo! has also built feedback channels and opinion surveys into its online Publisher Center that will provide members the opportunity to raise their questions, voice their ideas and express to Yahoo! the types of products and services that would be most helpful to them in the future.

"We are deeply committed to the publishing market which is why we are investing in building meaningful relationships with our publishers over time," stated Will Johnson, general manager of the Yahoo! Publisher Network self-serve offering. "Through Yahoo!, publishers have the opportunity share their ideas and help shape current and future products to support the global publishing community."

After completing the initial beta period, Yahoo! aims to expand its self-serve beta program before the end of the year. To learn more about the Yahoo! Publisher Network or to submit information to Yahoo! about your site, please visit http://publisher.yahoo.com

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Google Keyword Search Counts tool

It's been a while since I made any major modifications to my Google search Counts tool. I'm now in the development mode again, and would like to add more features and also polish up the site a bit more.

I have my own ideas about how to make things better, but I thought I'd get feedback from everyone. If you have any comments/idea please email me(info in my profile) Or just leave a comment on this post

Thanks

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Yahoo Testing Behavior-Based Content Ads

According to a story on ADWeek Yahoo is testing out behavior based content ads. The technology is based on work done by Revenue Science a Washington company.

This is an interesting change from what Google is doing with AdSense. I'd be interested in seeing just how effect behavioral based ads are compared to context based ads. With behavioral ads, instead of the ads being targeted to the content of a page, it's actually based on the visitor's past behavior. This could include data such as what pages they views and what they typed into search boxes.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Google lowers price of Urchin

A while ago when I wrote about Google's purchase of Urchin, I talked about how they were probably going to reduce pricing. It's finally happened.

In addition to reducing the price, a new feature they added is the ability to import pay-click costs directly from Google AdWords accounts, the first integration of Google's services with the Urchin platform. Google says this will enable users to more easily evaluate the return on investment of their online advertising campaigns.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Google Gulp (BETA) with Auto-Drink

Today Google launched Google Gulp (BETA) with Auto-Drink. It comes in four great flavors Glutamate Grape, Sugar-Free Radical, Beta Carroty and Sero-Tonic Water. See images below.


Google Gulp can stimulate your ionotropic and metabotropic receptors, and it's low carb as well. I've been secretly beta testing Google Gulp for the past 3 months, and it really works. My brain capacity has almost doubled, and I can quickly process and hold vast amounts of information.

Since the beta was invite-only, at this point in time you can only get Google Gulp by turning in a used Google Gulp bottle cap at a local retailer. I have a few bottle caps to share, if you want one leave a comment. I'll be sharing on a first come first served basis.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Don't throw away that AdSense Check!

This month's Google AdSense check came in a very different envelop. It's very plain and looks like junk mail. I usually open my check as soon as it gets in, but this Monday when my check came in, I completely ignored it. It didn't even look like a check. Over here plain envelops get tossed or ignored. It could have ended up in the shredder.

There one good thing about this change. If any publishers have had problems with stolen AdSense checks, it's most likely not going to happen anymore

FYI: The envelope is much larger than normal. The return address is a Buffalo NY P.O. Box. So if you are wondering where your check is, look in the trash.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Google buys Urchin: A web analytics software company

It was announced today that Google is buying Urchin, a Web analytics software company.

"We want to provide Web site owners and marketers with the information they need to optimize their users' experience and generate a higher return-on-investment from their advertising spending," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management, Google. "This technology will be a valuable addition to Google's suite of advertising and publishing products."


From Google's past behavior, I wouldn't be surprised to see a free or reduced priced version of the software Urchin makes being offered to Google Advertisers very soon. They did a similar thing after purchasing Picasa and Keyhole.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Affiliate Landing Pages

Next Thursday March 24th, KowaBunga and MarketingSherpa are going to be holding a Teleseminar called "Affiliate Landing Pages - How to convert more clicks to sales".

It looks very promising and if your schedule is free, make sure to register to attend. With the changes to Google's AdWords terms and conditions, the information that's going to be provided on this event should be of great importance to many affiliates.

More details can be found here

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Yahoo AdSense equivalent coming soon?

Looks like Yahoo is very close to launching their AdSense type tool for small publishers

To support the publishing community, Yahoo! will be introducing new products and
services-including publishing tools, advertising products and access to our
Yahoo! audience. Our products will leverage the Yahoo! network to provide
the most value for small publishers.

You can now sign up to get alerted when they launch it: http://publisher.yahoo.com/

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Overture Services To Become Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions

Will Offer Sponsored Search and Submit Products, Providing One-Stop
Search Marketing Resource for Businesses Worldwide


Overture Services, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo Inc. today announced that it will be re-branded Yahoo! Search Marketing
Solutions and will bring together its sponsored search offerings and
Yahoo!'s listings submit products under the new banner. Through Yahoo!
Search Marketing Solutions, advertisers of all sizes will enjoy convenient
access to the industry's most comprehensive suite of search marketing
and related products and services.


Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions' suite of offerings will include the
following products:



  • Sponsored Search Listings, the flagship search
    advertising product

  • Content Match™, Yahoo!'s contextual advertising
    listings

  • Local Match™, Yahoo!'s local sponsored search offering

  • Site Match™ Self Serve and Site Match Xchange™,
    Yahoo!'s search URL submission products

  • Yahoo! Product Submit™, the Yahoo! Shopping URL
    submission program

  • Yahoo! Express™, the Yahoo! Directory URL submission
    program

  • Marketing Console™, which enables advertisers to
    track campaign performance across multiple online channels

  • Search Optimizer™, which allows advertisers to
    improve their campaign performance and reduce the amount of time spent
    managing their listings


The group will also continue to enhance and expand Yahoo's network of
sponsored search distribution sites.


In conjunction with Overture's re-branding, Yahoo! will launch a new
Advertising Solutions Center in the U.S., through which businesses can
plan and buy Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions products. In addition,
the new center will offer marketers information about Yahoo!'s customized,
creative media solutions, providing them access to the largest set of
search marketing and brand advertising solutions on the web.


“Our mission is to be essential to marketers of all types around the
world,” said Ted Meisel, Senior Vice President, Yahoo! Inc. “Unifying
all of our search marketing and related products under one banner and
one common approach reflects our commitment to integrate and simplify
online advertising, allowing businesses of all sizes to take advantage
of the Yahoo! search marketing solutions that best fit their marketing
goals.”


Overture will formally change its brand in the U.S. early next quarter.
After the U.S. re-branding is complete, Overture's international markets
will be re-branded at a later date – except for Japan and Korea, where
the Overture brand will be maintained. Several products within the suite
will be re-named once Overture assumes the Yahoo! brand in the U.S.


About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked
Internet destination. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!'s
mission is to provide online products and services essential to consumers'
lives and offer a full range of marketing solutions to enable businesses
to connect with Yahoo!'s hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Google's New Affiliate (referral) Program

I see Google has launched a beta version of an affiliate program for AdWords and AdSense. You get $20 for each Advertiser who signs up and spends $20 on AdWords. If you sign up an AdSense publisher, you earn $20 if they earn $75.

I'm in the process of applying for this program. I'll post an update after I get accepted( I hope).

I personally think is a good idea to finally start a program like this, I know there's been a lot of free word of mouth advertising for both AdWords and AdSense. I've done that several times, but like everyone else, I'll do it even more knowing there's a small reward for each referral I send to Google.

Monday, January 17, 2005

Is it time to move to Overture?

I've been ignoring Overture for a while now because Google allowed direct linking to merchant site via affiliate links. For as long as I remember, Overture has always required a landing page. But now that Google also requires a landing page, I'm starting to reevaluate what overture has to offer.

I already had a few landing pages for some programs I had been promoting, but it seems like Google has a very strict rule about what an acceptable landing page is.

Right now it seems like overture is less strict about landing pages, so I'm going to start testing how my ads work on overture.

As for AdWords, my long term goal is to start building "landing mini-sites" instead of landing pages. But this is only going to be for my most profitable campaigns.



Thursday, January 06, 2005

Google AdWords™ Announcement: Affiliate Policy Change

Hello from the Google AdWords Team:

In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate
advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user
and advertiser experience.

What is changing:

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. 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:
https://adwords.google.com/select/tips.html

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.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Big changes for affiliates using AdWords

So the buzz everywhere is that Google is soon going to allow only one affiliate per search phrase. This announcement could happen as soon as tomorrow.

There's been a lot of talk about what this means to affiliates, and what affiliates can do about it. But, until Google makes this announcement, we're all really guessing.

I'm going to keep looking into this and report back to you once everything is official. I'll also have suggestions and tips on how to change your advertising to comply with any changes that may occur.

Accepted for perfomics

I just got accepted into the performics program a few days ago, I've already appliade for a few of the affiliate programs that I listed in my earlier post.