Adword Tips

You probably have already heard about the new marketing tool from Google.com on the Internet. Their advertising service is called “Adwords” and allows you use Google.com for marketing. Your ads will be displayed on Google’s website when people initiate a search. Your ads can also be displayed very targeted among many thousand websites that partner with Google in a program called “Google AdSense”. Adwords is the Google.com version of a pay-per-click advertising model. That means users click on your ad and will be redirected to your website or a specific URL that you have selected when creating your ad campaign.

What do you need to know about Adwords? Adwords is a way to spend a lot of money on advertising very very fast. BUT - Adwords is also a way to spend marketing money very selective to a targeted audience. Adwords can be very expensive for the advertiser if not properly planned and tested.

When you setup a Google Adwords ad campaign, you choose certain keywords for which your ad will appear on search results on Google.com. You also specify the maximum amount of money that you are willing to pay for each click. Remember - the Google Adwords program is a PPC (Pay per Click) model and you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad and hence visits your website.

It is very important to select the right keywords for your business ad. Going with too generic keywords that everyone will not be very effective and very expensive. Play a little bit with the Adwords keyword and campaign settings just to get a feeling how expensive the generic keywords for your business and industry are. You will realize soon that you need to be creative and careful with the usage of keywords.

Google recommends using different spelling variations and plural versions of your keywords to reach the best target audience. This is a good approach, as not every one of your potential new customers will search for a keyword in the same way as everyone else. Some people will use plural versions and others will use singular versions.

Exact matching of keywords in Google user queries requires you to place square brackets around your selected keywords. Example: [web hosting]. Your ad will now only show when users search exactly the phrase ‘web hosting’. Your ad will not show if other words are included in the search string or the words are entered in a different order.

Another keyword matching option is the phrase option. This is very similar to the exact matching of keywords in a search in the sense that the keywords must all be present and in the right order. However your ad will still show up in search results even if other words are present in the search. To make use of phrase matching you must include your keywords in quotes. Example: “web hosting”.

Negative matching is the final option available for your Adwords advertisement. This option allows you to block your ad being shown if a certain word is present in the search query of the Google user. This allows you to reduce the number of possible clicks on your ad in non-relevant searches and therefore to keep your cost low. It also helps you to make sure that your ad is not shown to users who will not be interested in your products. If your keyword is ‘web hosting’ but your web hosting is based on the Linux operating system and not based on a Windows Operating System then by using negative matching you can choose to have your ad not shown for search queries with ‘windows web hosting’. In this case ‘windows’ would be your negative keyword. You simply place a dash in front of your negative keyword to use this option. Example: -windows

Using the here described ways of selecting keywords will help you to be more successful with Google Adwords. Google also allows you be very specific for which geographic area your ads will be displayed. You go from global to country and even state or city specific settings. Especially local businesses now will have it much easier to use Google Adwords for their specific local markets.

Well, you got the idea how to be very specific how you select your keywords and combinations of keywords. But how do you actually select the right keywords? In order to get the most out of Adwords, you must have a list of great keyword and phrases. If your keyword list is not good enough, you will be punished with paying too much for your advertising. Write down the top search terms that you can think of. Ask friends and family how they would use Google to find your product (without searching for the business name itself).

A competitor of Google actually offers a free tool, which will allow you to find out how popular the keywords are that you selected. Find this free tool here and use it for your advantage:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Create a list of the most popular keywords. Now add words to the actual keywords. Use words that would describe your specific product or service. Now use these phrases or word combinations when setting up a Google Adwords campaign to find out how much you would have to pay per click to get your ad onto the first page on a Google search.

If the keywords selected by you are very expensive to use you should consider rewording or using different combinations. Maybe concentrate on a certain niche to find lower priced keyword options.

When testing new campaigns make sure that you limit your exposure by amount of money you want to spend per day as well as you should set a date / time limit. It’s easier to activate a campaign again if it works just fine for you. If you fail to set limits you might spend lots of money in a very short time - money you can’t get back. It is gone .

Another way to save money on your Adwords advertising campaign is to wait for the end of the month. It’s funny, but many folks follow a plain rule to start their advertising in the beginning of the month. By the time the 25th of a month is there they have spend most of their money on their campaigns already. For you this means that the prices for many popular keywords might be more affordable for you.

If you are advertising specific products with your ads, link to the specific product page and not to your homepage. 95% of the people who click through to your website will not really be willing to start another search on your website to find the product mentioned in your ad.

Conclusion

Frequently revisit your campaigns and compare prices and results. The Internet is a fast changing environment. What works one day, might not necessarily work the next day. Keep track of everything - maybe create a spreadsheet.

This article can be published by anyone as long as a live back link to http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com is provided. (this note can be removed as long as a link from the author’s resource box is provided)

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

Guides, Tutorials, and Articles for small businesses - http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com

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Invented by CDNow.com at the end of 1994 and pioneered by Amazon.com in 1996, “affiliate programs“, also known as Associate Programs or Partner Programs, are a simple way for Web sites to generate revenue by directing traffic toward other sites and a great way for the operating site to increase its traffic and revenue.

Because affiliate programs are so convenient and work so well, they have become the industry’s dominant method of online Marketing.

There are 4 different kinds of affiliate programs to compensate “Affiliates” (or referring sites) for generating traffic to the Affiliate Program operating Website: Pay-Per-Impression, Pay-Per-Click, Pay-Per-Lead and Pay-Per-Sale.

Pay-Per-Impression (CPM)
The Pay-Per-Impression and Pay-Per-Click Model are not common to be used in Affiliate Marketing anymore. They were used in the Past, but were mostly abandoned due to Fraud and lack of Results.

The CPM (cost-per-impression) compensation Model was revived by Google for Google AdWords in summer 2005. The feature is called “Site-Targeting” in AdWords and allows you to display your Adsense Ad on a specific Website that runs AdSense Ads.

Pay-Per-Click (CPC) Model
Like the Pay-per-Impression model was the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Model popular during the dot com boom at the end of the 1990th but was mostly abandoned by Advertisers for Advertisements on other Websites due to rampart problems with click fraud.

The PPC Model was kept alive by the PPC Search Engine GoTo.com which became later Overture.com and is now owned by Yahoo! and renamed from “Yahoo Sponsored Search” to Yahoo Search Marketing.

Google launched their PPC Service AdWords in 2000. Ask Jeeves, now simply Ask.com followed with their PPC Service in 2005 called Ask Sponsored Listings and MSN.com in 2006 with AdCenter. Other PPC Services are Miva/FindWhat.com and 7Search.com.

Contextual Advertising
The big come-back of PPC came when Google launched AdSense in 2003, the birth of contextual Advertising. What is Google AdSense? Here is a quote from Google’s History at Google’s corporate Website.

Google AdSense: “… offering web sites of all sizes a way to easily generate revenue through placement of highly targeted ads adjacent to their content. Google AdSense technology analyzes the text on any given page and delivers ads that are appropriate and relevant, increasing the usefulness of the page and the likelihood that those viewing it will actually click on the advertising presented there.”

Yahoo’s Version of AdSense called Yahoo! Publisher Network was launched (beta) in 2005. Microsoft is also working on their own Version of AdSense which is expected to be launched (beta) in 2006.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Classic PPC Search Engine Marketing (Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising) is not Affiliate Marketing. It is an entirely different type of Internet Marketing and only has some technical details in common with old PPC/CPC Affiliate Marketing.

Ads are primarily displayed at the Search Engine Search Results Pages (SERPs) next to organic, free, Search Results. Contextual Advertising introduced with Google AdSense is also not Affiliate Marketing since no direct Partnership between the Advertiser who creates and pays for the Ads and the Publisher who displays the Ads on his Website.

This type of Marketing is generally referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and is often and wrongly mixed up and confused with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which is about improving the ranking of a Site in the organic, free, SERPs at major Search Engines via technical means and deep understanding of the complicated ranking algorithms used by modern Search Engines.

Pay-Per-Call Advertising is neither Search Engine Marketing (SEM) nor Affiliate Marketing. Recently developed call-tracking technology allows to create a bridge between online and offline Advertising. Pay-Per-Call Advertising is still new and in it’s infancy. It is expected to become the 4th major type of Internet Marketing next to Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization within the next years.

The Affiliate Marketing shifted almost entirely to the Pay-Per-Lead (CPA or CPL) and Pay-Per-Sale Model (CPS) which is also known as Performance Marketing. The paid commission is usually a percentage of the referred sales or a flat dollar amount.

The Pay-Per-Lead (CPA or CPL) Model
The Advertiser pays Affiliates a Flat Amount Commission if a referred visitor performs a specific action on the Advertisers Site. It could be Actions like filling out a Form, Signing up for a Newsletter or Creating an Account.

The CPA Model is very popular with Online Services like Credit Card Providers, Insurance Services, DVD and Video Game Rental Services and Loans and Mortgages. Due to the usual high flat commission amount is the CPA very attractive for PPC Affiliates that do not have a permanent Website and an established User Base.

Before you consider the CPA Model for you problem, make sure to have mechanisms in place to validate the quality of referred leads. Your program will be vulnerable to become a victim of fraud, affiliates that generate tons of “fake” leads if you do not have anything in place to verify the quality of the produced leads.

The Pay-Per-Sale (CPS) Model
This Model is used by most Online Merchants today. The Merchant pays a percentage of the Order Amount that was created by a customer who was referred by an Affiliate.

Do not pay commissions that you end up loosing money on an order. You will gain new customers because of the Affiliate Program, but you will also pay commissions for returning customers.

Shoppers on the internet are more savvy today. Comparison Shopping Sites, Coupon Sites, Cash-Back Shopping and Charity Sites, that make up a large percentage of successful affiliates, are often visited by Shoppers first. See the Affiliate Program also as a Customer Retention Tool.

CPA or CPS?
If your competitors have affiliate programs and you don’t, chances are good, that you are loosing a considerable amount of business to them, because the lag of an affiliate program for your site.

If you want to use an Affiliate Program as an Online Merchant for the whole purpose of customer acquisition, consider the CPA Model and pay a flat commission for new customers referrer by affiliates.
Do the math to come up with a Flat Commission that makes it worthwhile for affiliates to promote you. Affiliates are not waiting for you, the next Merchant that has a Program is only one click away.

What you do and what commission you pay is up to you. You can also mix compensation models. The best thing to do is always to check first what your competitors are doing and use their compensation model as reference.

Pay-Per-Sale is by far the most common compensation model. 2/3 to 3/4 of all Affiliate Programs today are Pay-per-Sale Programs. The operating Site only pays “Commission” to their Affiliates for actual Results (a Sale, Sign-up etc.) and not just for promises (Clickthroughs, Banner Impressions).

Affiliate Networks
Operating an affiliate program to drive traffic to your website has never been easier. Most Sites utilize 3rd Party Services (so called Affiliate Networks). Those Services provide the infrastructure for you to track all the traffic and referrals to your Website.

Networks also work as a Recruiting Platform to find Websites willing to promote your Products or Services. The Integration of their Service usually takes just a few days or sometimes just a few hours.

Some of the Networks also help you to keep the generated overhead low (such as Payment of the Affiliates).

Networks usually charge 20-30% of the commission you pay to Affiliates as Fee to you. If the Fee is 25% for example and you pay 10% commission per Sale to you Affiliate, you must pay $12.5 in commission and fee for a $100 Sale.

In-House Affiliate Program Solutions and Software
You might want to have more control over your Affiliate Program and avoid the Network fees by running the program In-House.

You can, of course, develop all the necessary tools and technology by yourself, but that is may be not very cost effective and not as easy as it seems.

The technology has already been developed by various Affiliate Tracking Solution Providers and Software Packages.

They are most of the time easy to plug into your existing Sites and have already proven themselves. Be carefull with too small or too new Solution and Software Provoiders.

Check the Background of the Company you consider first. Do your diligence!

Outsourcing - Outsourced Program Management (OPM)
When you have your Program up and running, the first and important step was done. Now begins the complicated part starts.

The Wild West of Affiliate Marketing when quick and easy money was made and having an Affiliate Program running on “Auto Drive” generated a huge increase in sales by affiliates that seeked out programs and did everything themselves without the need of support and guidance is over. Business on the internet matured and Affiliate Marketing as well.

An Affiliate Program requires attention. To get active and quality affiliates requires active recruitment efforts. Support of existing affiliates also became vital. A clear set of Rules, the Affiliate Agreement, must be worked out and be enforced.

Allocate Resources to the program and don’t do it on the side.
Your program is destined to fail if you don’t spend the required resources and time for your program.

If you don’t have the resources in-house, consider outsourcing of your program management (OPM). There are today a number of quality service companies available that are specialized in this.

Conclusion
Thousands of Websites operating their Affiliate Program successfully today, prove, that Affiliate Marketing is the most cost effective and efficient way to promote your products and services on the World Wide Web.

Affiliate Marketing guarantees a fast ROI (Return of Investment) and for some Online Merchants and Services are the Sales generated through the Affiliate Channel making up a considerable percentage of their total online Revenue.

Important Abbreviations
CPA - Cost per Action
CPC - Cost per Click
CPL - Cost per Lead
CPM - Cost per (Mil) Impression (1000 Impressions)
CPS - Cost per Sale
CR - Conversion Rate
CTR - Click through rate
DRM - Dynamic Rich Media (type of Ad, technology). It has nothing to do with DRM as in Digital Rights Management
EPC - Earnings per Click / Earnings per 100 Clicks
OPM - Outsourced (Affiliate) Program Management
PPC - Pay per Click
ROI - Return of Investment
SE - Search Engines
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
SERP - Search Engine Result Page
SID - URL Parameter the Affiliate can pass to get tracked with Sales and Leads

Abbreviations of Websites you will come across
ABW - ABestWeb - Affiliate Marketing Forum
CJ - Commission Junction - Affiliate Network
LS - Linkshare - Affiliate Network
MyAP - My Affiliate Program - In-House Program Solution

PF - Performics - Affiliate Netwok
SAS - ShareASale - Affiliate Network
SEW - Search Engine Watch - News and Resources

SR - Share Results - Affiliate Network
TW - Thread Watch - Internet Marketing News Discussions
WW - Webmaster World Forums

About the Author
Carsten Cumbrowski has over 5 years experience in the Affiliate Marketing Industry and knows both sides of the Business, as Affiliate and Affiliate Manager. More Articles.

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I dont think i have met one person who hasnt got the best income want to make more money. One of the best ways i have found is online and its promoting affiliates.If you don’t know what affiliates are heres a brief explanation:

Affiliate Marketing is a popular method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer provided through his efforts. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder’s-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business. Compensation may be made based on a certain value for each visit (Pay per click), registrant (Pay per lead), or a commission for each customer or sale (Pay per Sale), or any combination.

The best way to find an affiliate product to promote is to sign up with clickbank.com they have a massive list of products and they are all digital and available to download right away!

To sign up to clickbank go here www.clickbank.com.
Right once you have signed up you need to choose a product to promote, you might want to have a scan through and see if there is a product that you would buy and maybe seeing as you might by it others will depending on you niche.

A good thing about clickbank is that it lists all the products which have the best percentage payout at the top of the list for example in Money and employment Data entry pro is top and pays 75% each sale not bad eh!

When you see a product you like visit the website and look for the information on how to be an affiliate they should give you a link something like this http://xxxxx.dataentry.hop.clickbank.net/ just fill the xxxxxx with you’re clickbank name and you’re ready!

Right once you have chose your product to promote you need to find a way to promote it, you could make a web site and chosse a lot of affiliates to promote the only thing here is it can sometimes take years to get high rankings in search engines the hardest one of them all is google.

Theres one way round it and use googles adwords program and this is what i am going to focus on in this article.

If you don’t have an Adwords account sign up here www.google.com/adwords, google will ask you for your website address all you have to do if your not using a website is use the affiliate link you get after choosing your product from clickbank.

Once signed up to adwords (it may take a few days if you’re not using a website) is to choose you’re keywords more popular keywords cost more to get higher rankings, It might be a good idea to use overtures keyword tool or the google adwords keyword tool and use longer phrases should be cheaper (the cheaper the better you make more profit).

Fortunatly some advertisers don’t do thorough keyword research meaning you can get some keywords as little as $0.01.
An example of what i have done is i used ebay they pay $5 for any click through registration and $0.05 for any bid from the affiliate link.

The only problem is if you use ebay as a keyword for you’re adwords campaign you may have to pay around $0.37 a click so you may have to choose different keywords (cheaper keywords).

This was just an example of what i did it didnt really make me much profit but what you need to do is find a more payed affiliate.
Like data entry pro but Maybe instead of using just “data entry” as this would be expensive because its popular keyword try data entry home employment, work at home data entry or data entry internet job etc.

Basically its good to use the overture keyword tool heres a link inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

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