Diorex

Shoemoney has opened up his blog to guest posts, which not surprisingly turned into an opportunity to Spam a little.

I have no idea who Big Daddy Lawson is, but he writes an open ended glowing review of Miva - the former stink pile known as FindWhat.

He talks glowingly about his particular niche and how Miva gets him clicks for half price, then hints that Ringtones or Home Equity loans would be worth trying there. Then ends with it “being all about the Money”

Got me to thinking that I know not a soul who has ever received any kind of ROI from this company. I have used them at 4 different companies that spend over $1 million a year for search (most far more). Each time giving them a try, setting a very low budget, very low CPC’s and still getting my entire budget depleted within a few hours and always with no conversions, despite enough traffic to have generated several at a minimum.

Now some might say, I had a bad landing page or bad ad copy or that even my server might have had issues that day, Miva reps certainly tried to make that point. They even went so far as to claim that what works for the other engines is not likely to work at Miva, because the audience is a little more sophisticated.

The last time it happened, I pulled server logs and realized that I was billed for hundreds of clicks despite showing only a few visits from Miva. Miva countered that the visits are from partner sites and would show up differently on server logs. We had set-up a unique URL just for them for tracking purposes and that was the data…Bottom line they were fraudulent clicks, Miva knew it and was trying to gloss it over.

Then a few months later, I get an email from a guy at Miva with a memorable enough name that i recognized it immediately when I got another note 9 months later at my new company. He sent the same exact 3 paragraph email to me at 2 different companies, even with a fake datapoint being the exact same data with the name of the industry changed. Slimy. He signed it “The traffic speaks for itself and results don’t lie.” Which is exactly what i thought about when I read the post on shoe’s blog.

I had a long conversation with someone yesterday who did not realize that Click through rate is important. he made the comment “Even on google?”. This made me think that there are lots of naive new affiliate marketers out there who are gonna read this post on Shoe’s blog and go throw some money at Miva.

Please save your time and money.

Please!

OK - it has been awhile since my last post. Not sure if I plan on being a regular blogger again, but I had something I wanted to get off my chest so here goes….

Affiliate marketing has a dark side. Sure lots of people, myself included make a very nice living from driving traffic to merchants, lead providers etc. But it is not always wine and roses.

As part of what I do, I am consistently looking for new lines of business for both my personal marketing and the super affiliate firm I am a partner in. I talk to lots and lots of people and have what I think of as pretty good insight into the industry.

Over the weekend, I attended a dinner party with about 15 couples and in the course of the conversation I came across someone who ended up being the CEO at a major name off-line corporation (you have heard of this company!) with a huge affiliate program. Thinking I might have hit pay dirt, I steered the conversation to the affiliate program which the CEO replied something that has really been bugging me. (before you ask, we were traveling in my wifes social circle not mine…CEO’s at dinner parties is pretty common)

He basically stated that they had spent millions optimizing the website with multi-variate testing, spent millions testing banners, paid search and other traffic generation tools. Basically they had not been cheap about their website. Then he told me that the affiliate program was designed to lose money for the affiliates. He basically said that although margins were about 4x what the payout was, that unless an affiliate was generating free traffic that they were not supposed to make money.

The company does zero PPC on their own (except on brand name) but knows exactly what it costs to generate a sale. They pay about 90% of that level and it is one of their most profitable divisions. I asked him how he kept affiliates long term. His response was he did not care about them long term. They have been part of many different affiliate programs, they have worked with many super affiliates, and gotten ringing endorsements from name-brand affiliate marketers but they don’t care that these people are spending money to drive essentially risk free traffic. They only care that the brand name is strong enough that every “sucker” in affiliate marketing(the CEO’s words) is willing to throw a $100 or so at their program because it is such a strong brand.

His statement was basically they get $75 back, we earn $300 and then hope they throw another $100 at it and see if they can make a go at it. These suckers are making our affiliate program a gold mine $100 at a time. A few hundred new suckers every single day.

Now I recognize that not every affiliate program is like this. It was just very disheartening to hear a CEO of a major online and offline company think of affiliates as a one-way meal ticket. As an affiliate, just realize that not all affiliate programs are everything they are cracked up to be.

Before you ask - I thought about posting the name of the company, but after looking at the angles, I have decided that the general warning was enough. I spoke with a lawyer friend and he said I would open up a huge can of worms if I said anything other than very vague information that could not identify the company. It would essentially be my word against the CEO and his lawyers. Just not worth the hassle. Take this as a cautionary tale rather than XYZ company is a bad affiliate partner.

Google wants your conversion data. If you are already voluntarily sharing this with them, shame on you.

Sure Google analytics, Webmaster Central or Website Optimizer are useful tools with powerful features that are not readily available anywhere else for free. But have you ever stopped to think about why Google is spending millions to bring you free services?

If you ask Google, you get the stock answer along the lines of : “With tools like this, we show webmasters how to more profitably spend money on Google and thus are willing to spend even more.” or some variation of this. They are very aggressive about inviting big spenders into these beta tools to help further optimize websites and thus potentially spend more.
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Yesterday afternoon around 4:00, I noticed that the ads for one of my verticals were not appearing.

I quickly checked 4-5 other keywords for that account and saw that none of them were showing. I then logged into the adwords interface and went to the diagnostic tool. It told me my ads were not displaying due to budget restrictions.

I looked at the daily budgets for my campaigns and none of them were even at 1/2 of authorized daily spend. Regardless I changed daily budget to $50,000 per day for each campaign. That did not resolve the issue, despite the very clear statement stating that a higher budget would re-activate my ads.

I then got a CSR on the phone (new account, does not yet qualify for a dedicated rep, despite spending almost $500,000 in 2 months….name another company anywhere in the world where a new advertiser could appear overnight, and be on pace to spend $3 million annually and not have an account rep..ok,ok Yahoo…GRRRR) and was told that everything looked fine with my account and that there were no problems.
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Alright. I am just about done with Microsoft. My original Xbox would hang up and freeze every 30 minutes or so. My year old Xbox360 is about as reliable as a teenager with beer and car keys.

I can sometimes play for hours without freezing, other times it freezes before I even get the game turned on. Nothing quite as frustrating as sitting down to play a video game after a hard day and it taking 20 minutes even to get into the game.

This started on a consistent basis back in November when I bought Gears of War(it had happened a few times before that, but not consistently). To be fair I am not sure it was Gears of War that broke it, I had not played in about a month and before I could play the game I had this huge downloaded patch that had to be applied, it probably took 20 minutes.

Anyway, after this, the game would freeze on me for absolutely no reason. I played certain segments 10 or 11 times because there was no way to save until you reached a checkpoint. Then I picked up The Godfather, which was a strange sort of fun for me… but I cannot tell you how many saves I made and how much progress I lost because I would go through a 15 minutes mission and then the game would freeze on my drive back to a save point.

This has been a problem in each game I have played since November… the game just freezes for no reason and with no rhyme or reason.

So I went to my friend who knows everything…Google…This is what I got from Microsoft - no need to read it, it says try turning the system off, try unplugging all peripherals, try wiping the hard drive, try wiping the user account, try robbing a bank so you can buy a new one because you are screwed.

Then of course there are the forums with ideas like wrap it in a wet towel, place the game over an empty box, hang the power brick from a nail in the wall and a ton of other stupid stuff. I tried em all anyway, with no results.

So I called Microsoft to find that I bought the game 1 year and 5 days ago and my warranty was expired. I nicely explained that the problem had been regularly occurring for several months and was rebuked with “you should have called when the issue started”, I explained I was not trying to enforce a warranty I was just trying to get the system to work as it did before the patch was applied and was there any way to roll back the patch like I can in Windows.

Honest to God, this was the CSR’s response…”Sir, we are the largest software company in the world, we would never release a patch that would harm your machine, everything is thoroughly tested prior to release.”

Good thing I was not drinking hot coffee or juggling swords when this was said as it would have been very painful for me. I asked for clarification of this remark, and she explained that the Xbox was produced by Microsoft -”You know, the software company” and that they would not produce software that did not work properly.

I just about lost it at that point….Instead I just decided to quit entirely and let the damn thing collect dust. Screw it, I have more productive things to do anyway.

Unfortunately for me, the last game I had played was Viva Pinata with my 4 year old. She was having a blast. A combination of getting to play with Daddy and the game being somewhat on her level….Every day for the last 5 days she has asked me “Daddy have you fixed the game yet?”

So now where do I go? Disappoint my little girl at a time when she is showing interest in something I enjoy? Buy another crappy Microsoft product and reinforce the poor design? Is Sony any better?

Anyone know of anything to do to help this problem?

David Pasternak and Did-It have been catching a lot of heat lately for his scathing comments about SEO not being rocket science. I will be among the first to admit I know absolutely nothing about SEO or David Pasternak for that matter. I have a really good in-house SEO who just does what he does. I have a policy of “Dont ask, Dont Tell” when it comes to SEO.

I wrote about how stupid I thought this was awhile back. I still feel that way. Why would you not want traffic from both sources?
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Just found out to my major disgust that Google has eliminated bulk sheets, even for very large advertisers.

My account rep just said that we could do everything in the Adwords editor that could be done with bulksheets.

I proceeded to ask her how to do 3 different things, that were extraordinarily simple with a bulksheet, none of which she could figure out using the editor.

In my opinion, I have never seen a single good reason to use the editor. Anything it can do, I can do as quick in the main account. I guess if I wanted to make a lot of changes while flying on an airplane then the editor might be useful. The few times I have tried to use it for something it was absolutely sluggish and changes took forever to go live.

The one and only reason I can even imagine why this was done is that, we would make tons of changes in Google and then just download the bulksheet and send it to Yahoo. Maybe Google got tired of helping Yahoo drive more traffic. At the same time, they stopped helping me drive more traffic through them.

I must say that this bugs the heck out of me. I hate to see the flags at half staff and not know why. I also think it cheapens the honor of the flag at half-staff when it is that way for days at a time.

I looked it up and we are at Half Staff due to the death of Gerald Ford. WHAT!!! The guy died the day after Christmas and was buried more than 2 weeks ago!

I understand he was a president and they dont die every day. Heck only something like 38 have ever died in 220+ years. But why do we need to “mourn” for a whole month? Is anyone even still in mourning for this guy?

here is the wiki Rules on Half Staff.

* For thirty days after the death of a current or former President.
* For ten days after the death the current Vice-President, Chief Justice, or Speaker of the House of Representatives.
* From the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a State, territory, or possession
* On the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress- i.e. a Senator, a Representative, a Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico.
* On Memorial Day until noon
* Upon presidential proclamation, which have included: the remembrance of the 9/11 attacks, the death of Pope John Paul II, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the death of Coretta Scott King

Come on 30 days was almost as long as this guy was in office, he was never elected, I know 2 things about him, he played Football for Michigan and he pardoned Richard Nixon. If he had died while he was speaker of the house he would have gotten 10 days. I like the rule for congressmen in general, 1 day and then raise em back up. I can live with the existing Governors, Justices ex-VP rules of the day you die until the day you are buried. I can even buy a little longer for icons like Ronald Reagan (whatever your politics no one was indifferent about him…Gerald Ford on the other hand…) or for tragedies like an assassination or terrorist attack.

For me I am proud of the country and I think it is a fitting tribute to lower the flag in respect. I just think 30 days for a president who did not do much when he was president and has not done much since is way too long. I think 30 days for the best president ever is way too long. I understand the politics of making it variable, dont die when a member of the other party is president, but can we impose some sane limits that allow for honoring those who should be honored without cheapening the honor by overdoing it?

I hate articles like this one at MSNBC.

The answer to me is obvious.

It is the same country that created the next Sam Walton, the next Howard Hughes, the next JP Morgan, the next Henry Ford, the next John D. Rockefeller, then next Thomas Edison, the next Leland Stanford……

For the last 150+ years, America has reinvented itself for the betterment of Americans and in almost every case the trickle down effect for the rest of the world has been positive as well.

This country is a unique combination of opportunity, access to capital, business friendly laws and open innovation such that anyone and everyone has the opportunity to make a life for themselves. You do not have to be born into wealth here to have opportunity. If you have an idea, talent and a work ethic you can succeed in this country.

The other thing that the above people share other than being fabulously wealthy is that they created industries and companies that offered many thousands of others the opportunity to be extremely rich alongside themselves.

How many millionaires has Google created that never worked for or invested in Google? What about E-bay? Does cheap airfare enable you to do business you otherwise would not have been able to? Does access to a dynamic banking environment allow you to buy a home or finance a business on credit cards that would be impossible just about anywhere else in the world, where banks and credit are only for the very privileged? Is it any surprise that the first country in the world to offer cheap personal transportation for the masses or electricity for even the poorest families produces an environment where there are tens of millions of people who can change the world. In India or China the ratio is more like 1 in 100,000 with even the remote opportunity to affect change.

For the last 30 years, Asia/Japan has been the next America. Before that it was Germany. The next America is America! the America after the next America is going to be America. Rinse and Repeat.

That’s it I have had it. I hate Fry’s Electronics. All I can do is complain and implore you to not buy from them.

The service is awful.

A huge percentage of merchandise is refurbished, often without clearly stating that fact.

Advertised specials are often out of stock or just not available - even at 9AM the day of the ad. They did not sell out, they just did not have it to begin with. How can you be the first one in the store, walk directly to the section, and the product is sold out?

The company has no means to contact them nationally - they are hiding from customers. They have a dummy website run by outpost.com.

They do not answer the publicly listed main number for their own store. This is not an isolated occurrence this is a pattern.

The return policy is lenient with thousands of exceptions. Better bring the receipt, the original packaging, the original bag, the cellophane and the packaging put together exactly as before or expect a restocking charge or even a refusal to do a return. Charge back against our credit card is usually easier.

Speaking of which, they do not accept American Express.

The employees are non-attentive and not very knowledgeable with a few exceptions. Management is awful.

The pricing outside advertised specials is worse than most comparable stores.

I could go on. Suffice it to say that after years of miserable experiences with this chain, I am never going to set foot in another store again. Thats the only (and best) way for me to vote against them.