Diorex

For those who have not heard, the Adwords tool is now giving approximate volume of searches.

I was prepared for this to be badly flawed like the volume estimates from the old Yahoo tool.

I was surprised by how accurate it was for many of the search terms I used, especially on the exact match setting. Broad match is always a little more hazy, so it was no surprise that my numbers varied, but even then it was not a dramatic difference.

This is valuable data Google is sharing, be sure to make good use of it when planning or expanding new adgroups.

On the other hand, the click estimate tool which guesses at volume and price of clicks received based upon a maximum bid is still badly flawed.

Lots of marketers, both affiliate and otherwise have been encouraged, bribed, cajoled or otherwise convinced to use Google Analytics to track their campaigns. I actually suspect that Google reps are incentivized to get advertisers to use the product.

The main selling point is that it ties into Adwords and uses tracking to determine your cost per lead/sale/whatever back to each keyword with little or no effort on your behalf. If you know which keywords perform good or bad you can then improve your ROI and become more efficient in managing your campaigns. The pitch is perfect for affiliates since they are typically both lazy and like the pricepoint of free.

Google recently bought Doubleclick and there was this huge uproar that they might be in the business of selling rankings via their Performics unit (which they said they would be selling that part of the company), but it turns out performics is also an affiliate marketing network.

Yesterday Google announced that they had renamed the affiliate network to the Google Affiliate Network.

Seems innocuous enough… NOT!

Heres why I think this is a major red flag… If you are an affiliate marketer using Analytics for a product through another network where you are driving traffic via search and Google also has that or a similar offer on their network, then they can simply arbitrage your conversion data and use it to identify the best converting keywords etc.

Say you sell Widgets and Google’s free analytics tool say that the keyword ‘blue widgets’ converts for you at a cost of $6 a sale, yet the widget manufacturer has an affiliate listing through Performics
paying $12 a sale. Your 100% ROI profit is in danger of becoming a $12 profit for Google.  Why should they share that with you? afterall it was their visitor in the first place. Your free analytics tool has now cost you 100% of your profit!

Think Google will not do it? The last time I read their terms and conditions, there is nowhere that it says they cant do this. They will make oral statements saying things like “If we did that we would lose the trust of our advertisers and go out of business”, but they have refused to put that in writing in any way, shape or form. In other words, they can do it.

Something to think about next time you take the easy way out and throw Google Analytics on your pages. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

It surprised me that one of the most frequent search term for visitors to my blog is Diurex. Turns out that Diurex is a weight loss drug that helps people expel fat from their body. I dont know too much about it but I wanted these visitors to end up on a page where they could find information about Diurex.

Regular readers should know what I am up to… So back to your regular feed reader. I will say something profound tomorrow - or maybe the next day - or not.

After much thought and consideration I have decided to resign my position at Yahoo. I know I never applied, nor was I interviewed or hired, but eventually everyone who is anyone at Yahoo must resign and I just wanted to get out in front of the rest of the crowd. The mass Exodus of Jeremy Zawodny, Jeff Weiner, and now the Founders of Flickr within days of the Google announcement is the sign that the most senior people across the board are voting with their feet - they have either made their money already and want to work on more fulfilling projects or they realize that Yahoo is never going to make them rich.

Seth Godin has written about sometimes quitting is the right thing. We teach our kids not to be quitters, but the honest truth is that you sometimes must quit something that is holding you back before moving on to even greater heights. I suspect that Yahoo is aggressively holding back its top talent and now is about to have a huge vacuum of talented leaders just at the time they need them most.

It is Father’s Day weekend and as part of my gift, my kids and I went to see KungFu Panda. Pretty funny movie that I enjoyed and so did my kids.

Like many of the kids movies, this one had a pretty simple moral underlying the humor. That moral was basically that “there is no secret ingredient”.

Again and again in life, I have seen people who are on the outside of an industry trying to get inside looking for the secret to how to do something.

Affiliate/Internet marketing is no different. Read on boards or blogs and it seems that most people are looking for the secret of how to make money out of nothing with no effort.

The truth of life and internet marketing is that there are rarely secret ingredients. The people who succeed do so as a result of hard work, perseverance, intelligence and a little bit of luck - not because they have some secret keyword list or way to scam Google or that hidden niche that noone knows about.

As I was reading through the SEC posting about the Google Yahoo search deal, (Nicely summarized at TechCrunch) I ran across one tidbit I find very interesting and something Google may not have thought all the way through.

This line in particular: “Yahoo! also has sole discretion to decide on which pages to display ads provided by Google”

Any advertiser with a grain of metrics turns off the Yahoo content network due to the huge volume of non-converting clicks.

Google is also known to allow partners to serve search ads in some really strange places as search not content.

So if Yahoo wanted to hurt Google - My quick read saw nothing that says Google has a buyout right - I would just serve search network ads to the Yahoo content network.

Advertisers would start seeing their Google returns diminish greatly, Google makes it almost impossible to opt-out of specific advertising partners, and most advertisers do not even know that the search network is an option that can be turned off. If in mass, advertisers lowered bids by even 5%, that would take a huge chunk out of Google’s revenue and stock price, almost certainly triggering some articles about how Yahoo seems to be a better ROI for advertisers etc.

Probably will not happen, but what if…

Totally off post topic - so if you are not fascinated by this election cycle then just move on…

I am sitting here watching the CNN countdown of delegates needed by Obama to ‘clinch’ the Democratic nomination. According to the home of the voice of Darth Vader he just need 6 more right now.

I cannot help but think, and find it strange that not one talking head is saying this, but a Super Delegate is totally uncommitted and can change their vote at any time up until it is placed at the convention - several have changed their minds already, mostly moving from Clinton to Obama.

If Obama did something enormously stupid in the next few weeks or months, or some past event was to come to light before the convention, then these delegates can and almost certainly would change their votes.

This is not the case for the Republicans, because McCain has won a majority of obligated votes that must vote for him on the first ballet, thus wrapping the Republican nomination up regardless of what might happen in the interim.

Now I am not a Constitutional Scholar or anything like that, but what if Al Gore was to tell Larry King he regrets not campaigning for the Democratic nomination and would accept it enthusiastically if offered to him at the Democratic Convention in Denver.

The way I see that playing out is that more than enough of the non-committed delegates are probably sick of both candidates, see Gore as a person who could actually win with dramatic coat tails and that would unite the party - which is very much fragmented currently.

So on the first vote, Obama and Clinton both fall short of a majority and Gore gets a few hundred or so votes. My understanding is that the committed delegates are now free to vote for whomever they want, meaning that Gore, Edwards or lots of others could actually end up the nominee in what would almost certainly be the cure for low convention ratings.

Please dont read me wrong, an Al Gore fanboy I am not. I am however a huge fan of televised train wrecks and the last 4 months has been regularly scheduled Tuesday night train wrecks for the Democratic party. No wonder American Idol ratings were down.  If only Sanjaya had run for president, CNN might have had even better ratings.

Am I totally wrong here or is this nomination process very much not over? Sure, this is very unlikely to happen, but it can? right?

Cannot tell you how often I get a PM or email or AIM message from someone who says they just cannot figure out how to scale or make any money, that all the campaigns seem so saturated, <insert excuse here>.

First thing I always ask is what kinds of things they are they testing - not the offer, but rather A/B type tests? Invariably the answer is a variation of “I plan to start once I find something with a really good conversion rate.”

I am here to say that Conversion rate is not born, it is grown - very slowly over time, with hard work.

Lets take an example of how someone can make a difference by testing.

• Start with a 3% CR which is considered about the industry average…
• Assume $.60 CPC which seems absurdly low to me, but lots of you guys are paying a lot less…
• Assume a payout of $20 per sale - seems fairly generic, lots of products pay more, lots less…
• If these numbers seem totally wrong to you, just set something up at breakeven for what you are seeing and build a spreadsheet…

After 100 clicks, you would expect to have 3 sales with $60 in revenue and $60 in cost - a total waste of time, right? Just move on to the next thing is what almost all people would do.

But the affiliate who likes to test might try a new headline, maybe some new ad copy, different hero shot or calls to action or any of 100 other things…

Say that this affiliate was able to increase conversion through testing by just 5% each month. Just to show how possible this is, we are often looking for 10-15% increases and seem to find at least one if not several every month! So 5% seems like you are not really trying hard to me…

So the 2nd month, you would earn $3 more than you spend for each 100 clicks - a 3% ROI. Not going to quit the day job, but positive progress. At the end of the year, just finding one 5% increase each month the ROI on this “breakeven” campaign works out to be 42% which is almost certainly worth keeping.

This assumes that you do not manage to increase your CTR or quality score or otherwise lower your CPC which is very doable through testing.

Now say, we have a very clever affiliate who manages to find 10% conversion rate increases each month rather than 5%. At the end of the year, this guy has a 185% ROI from the campaign most of you would have walked away from.

Now if you are getting that kind of ROI, you have probably passed up the affiliate network and gone direct, which will be a free 10% lift, plus increased their payout above where they started, potentially significantly, which allows you to pay more, thus increasing your position, your test bandwidth and frequently your conversion rate in a beautiful cycle.

When you are starting out it is not ridiculous to think you might get 20% or more lifts from some tests, and trust me when I say that front loading the conversion increases significantly improves the end results.

All of the above being said, I am not trying to say that any campaign can be a winner. Nor am I saying that you should stick with a loser. I am merely saying that most people fail because they do not test their way into being a winner ad discard lots of things that would have worked with a proper test plan.

Not to get too nerdy, but when I used to play Dungeons & Dragons type games on the computer, I was always asked to determine my characters alignment, which indicated how I would generally react to a situation.

Paladins always had to be the good guys. Assassins were typically evil. You could also be a troublemaker and be chaotic or totally neutral etc. Essentially you could be good or evil and lawful or chaotic with neutral combinations of each. I usually chose Chaotic Good because even then I was an outside the box non-conformist who was basically good.

Anyway, as I am getting more into the affiliate management space, I am starting to realize that the same holds true for affiliates.

• There are the affiliates who only care about themselves, often using fraudulent or misleading methods to drive traffic, confuse consumers or outright scam advertisers - these would be the chaotic evil alignments - out for only themselves and noone else.
• There are the people who are pushing the limits (think Google takeover Scams, or someone using Splogs to game the SERPS) - I would categorize these guys as Chaotic Neutral. They are gaming Google, but in general are not misleading consumers nor advertisers.
• There are the guys who go out of there way to provide quality leads and make sure that the leads are quality for both the consumer and the advertiser. Often this is the way in which they protect themselves. This is the model Lawful Good paladin.
• There are of course combinations of all of the above. They guy who bids on trademarked terms in violation of an affiliate agreement who do not scam consumers but are intentionally breaking the advertisers rules. The company who has a valid unsubscribe in their Can-Spam compliant emails, but then just mails that consumer from a different domain or for a different product.

As an affiliate, I subscribed to the theory that the fastest way to higher payouts, stronger relationships and overall more predictable earnings was the Lawful Good affiliate character. I was always cognizant of the fact that if I provided bad leads or otherwise unprofitable business to my partners, then my long term viability could be compromised. It was certainly not the only way to achieve my goals, just the way I chose.

Now that I am running a large affiliate team, I am dealing with characters from all walks.  Some are focused on the highest possible payout - to heck with my profitability. Others are slimeballs who consistently mislead consumers and draw unwanted regulatory attention. Still others are very focused on long term relationships and although want a high payout, they also want to make sure their traffic quality is good and that my profits are stable - these are also often the guys who understand that payout is merely one side of the equation - and that conversion rate can be far more important.

I am not trying to condemn any of the affiliate types (well maybe the Chaotic Evil ones who intentionally screw us and our customers), but rather bringing to light that there are many shades of affiliate marketing other than the color of your hat.

Having been on both sides, I do not have a preference for one type over another - I just know that some types of alignments tend to wear a different color hat with higher frequency - Green, for the money they make and the envy they attract from others.

So what is your affiliate alignment? Is that part of the reason for your success? or is that what might be getting in your way from building a sustainable business? Have you ever stopped to think about the ultimate value of your traffic? or are you focused on how much money you can make? have you ever worked with a partner with a lower payout because they pay more reliably or convert better?

Just installed Xobni for Outlook this week. So far I am terribly impressed.

Xobni is kind of a personal assistant for Outlook. One of my issues with my email is that I long ago started creating folders for different tasks around the office. So I have a folder for my Google team, another one for Affiliates, another for IT, Creative etc. Then have folders for my direct reports and colleagues I email frequently.

Well this turned into a mess in almost no time. Say I had a creative for my Google team, but it was based on something from Yahoo and now we needed a little tweaking from IT. A single thread now ends up in maybe 5 different folders. Which means to do a search to find the attachment I am looking for, I might actually have to wait through outlook’s slow ass searches in 5 folders.

Then I need to find that itenarary on the trip I took in February to Miami, I flew maybe 15 times so far this year, and probably had 10+ emails around each trip - I basically had to open 15 emails to find the right one.

Or what about someones phone number - the way my interoffice addresses work, I actually have like 5 different contacts folders. I dont know how or why this is the case, but it is. With Xobni, I just type a persons name and it gives me their number - it does not even have to be something I saved, it can be from their signature - has yet to steer me wrong yet.

Xobni solves all of this and lots more. I can type in a persons name and it will show me every person with that name I have ever sent or received an email from, click the name, and I now see every conversation I have had, it even tells me what time of day they send me email, what the best time of day to get a fast response is and who I email the most with.

Today, I could not remember that sales reps name from something I renew every 3-4 months. Just type in a keyword that identifies that product and up pops a list of anyone I have emailed using that keyword. Click on the reps name, his phone number and email address pop right up - what used to be a frustrating few minutes of searching was a 5 second process.

The creative teams sends me no less than 10 attachments a day - finding the one from last week I need is always a nightmare. Now I can type in the name of the creative - or the person who made it or even the client it was made for and I get a nicely sorted list of attachments - which never fails to identify the attachment, I dont even have to open the email, just click on the attachment listed and it opens.

I am less than a week in and I am in love with this product! It may not be for everyone, but I probably get close to 90 emails a day and our company is pushing 70 people now - no way i remember everyones last names or can spell some of the really hairy ones.

I was honestly spending 15+ minutes every day just looking for old emails (or the spreadsheet with the results from the multivariable test we ran sometime last spring or was it summer). I can see how someone who gets lots of affiliate junk mail could put this to work. Looking for a new dating offer - just type ‘dating CPA’ into the search tool and voila all of the emails that had the hot new dating offer I never even read until I needed them.

Alright now that I have praised Xobni - what other Outlook plug-ins are there? What else can I not live without once I have it installed.  I have had it for 4 days and I would pay a monthly subscription to keep it.

Here is a screenshot of a page I found, but the images and my ramblings do not do the functionality any justice.

(sorry for stealing the image I got it from www.digitalhome.ca - but I am clueless as to how to take a screenshot and then upload it - I frequently amaze myself at what I cannot do online)