It's no secret that the playing field for ring tones is being re-turfed and the new grass ain't so green. Search engines are locking down on what qualifies as a ring tone-related keyword and affiliate networks are beginning to enforce an extra step in the confirmation process.

So what does this mean for affiliates? Well, essentially, it means that competition is about to get much fiercer.

The reason for this is that the main search engines are enforcing strict guidelines on ring tone-related keywords and ads. Keywords must all contain some variation on the phrase 'ring tone': real tone, ring tune, etc. What this essentially does is corner all the people making tons of money on somewhat un-related searches like '[artist] biography' into the '[artist] ring tone' group, which is already saturated. Much like a population boom in an already expensive area, this will drive prices up.

On top of strict guidelines from search engines, affiliate networks like Azoogle are being forced to add an extra step in the confirmation process for downloading ring tones. The reason for this is that customers are complaining about not knowing that they're going to be billed, which is another way of saying 'false advertising.' Now, instead of just responding back with a code texted to their phone, customers must now text the word 'YES' back to the ring tone company after being notified that they're about to be billed. Trust me, after testing this method, it drives conversions way down and believably so.

To wrap it up, you'll have to pay more per keyword and your landing pages will convert less. That spells trouble for anyone that was killing the market with ring tones and, to steal the phrase, it's a very inconvenient truth.

The Silver Lining

Although they lack the sheer volume of searches, smaller ad networks still maintain lax guidelines on ring tone related campaigns. Fear not, my friends. Despite the fact that the ring tone networks are adding the extra step, you can still take advantage of this plethora of smaller networks who don't mind the unrelated keywords. All they really care about is getting click money and that fact is your friend.

Conclusion

The ring tone revolution isn't dead. It's in its cretaceous period, so there's still a chance to make a bit of money off of this one. Just don't go in thinking you can make a killing with this one.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Ad Networks, Affiliate Marketing, AzoogleAds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.