I hope you didn't think I forgot about my favorite time of the month -- recap time. As if I would let the monthly status update go by.

This month was definitely a good one for me personally. I learned a lot that I will be sharing with you in March, but for now, let's go over the blog stats:

• Private Ad Sales - $22.56
• Google AdSense - $22.23
• Referrals - $9.47
• Aweber Signups - $7.98
• Adtoll Clicks - $0.21
• Amazon Book Commission - $0.10 (Hey, it counts!)

For a grand total of $62.55!

The blog income almost more than tripled this month. Not to mention we had a total of 8,646 page views from 3,993 unique visitors. Also, the site is currently ranked at 117,407 on Alexa and has 267 RSS Subscribers. Having started the blog three months ago, I really can't complain. I'm just thrilled that I can help people for free and profit at the same time.

Oh hey, and just for you visual learners, I made up a comparison graph for the last three months:

12/07-02/08 FusionCharts Graph

So as far as February 2008 is concerned, I'm a happy camper. I do know that in March 2008, I'll have to work even harder to push the envelope for this blog. The better the blog gets, the happier you are and the happier you are, the happier I am.

Blog Goals for March 2008:

• $100+ Income
• 100,000 or lower Alexa Rank
• 400 RSS Subscribers
• 8,000 Unique Visitors
• 15,000 Page Views

So based on this month's stats, the blog made $0.015 per unique visitor. Taking that into account for next month's goals, the blog should make around $120. >:) If that ever happens, I suppose I should put ATB on a faster server. Right now, HostGator is great for the money. I mean, I pay $50/month for a ton of space and bandwidth that's hard to beat. But in the end, it's still a shared server environment, so I have to keep that in mind.

All that aside, February was a great month (with an extra day! thanks leap year.) and I hope March is even better. I plan to do a few remarkable things this month to help you guys out, so stay tuned.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Lately, I've been experimenting with both single-page landing pages as well as mini sites. A single-page landing page, as you might imagine, is a landing page that links to no other sites but the jump/hop links. Mini sites are an extension of single-page landing pages in that they have other pages, such as the "about us" page, the "contact" page, and the like.

What I've discovered is that for some offers, mini sites seem to do four good things:

1. The site looks like a legitimate website vs. just a sales pitch, so people are less likely to leave right away (increases stickiness).
2. Because they look like actual websites, they increase the trust factor and therefore, increase conversions for some offers (decreases skepticism).
3. Provides a site people can actually look to and gives the search engines something to index, so your chances of getting free sales go up (increases organic traffic).
4. Search engines like sites with multiple pages as they provide a better end-user experience (increases search engine friendliness).

All these things contribute to an overall increased profit margin. However, there are a few drawbacks to mini sites:

1. They give the user a distraction from the sales pitch. Landing pages are built to be a funnel to the end goal: a sale.
2. They take longer to build. Not everyone is going to want to build a whole website for each offer they run.
3. They're harder to change for split testing. Basically, you have to adapt the whole site to a split testing environment in order to make this feasible.

So, where landing pages are a quick pitch and a quick build, mini sites are a bit more complicated to implement. And keep in mind, they don't always lead to better conversions but, of course, you know to split test everything you do. In general, mini sites lead to a better user experience and are much easier for search engines to index. And I'm a firm believer in organic traffic as it it leads to free conversions in the long-run.

One little trick I've been doing lately is making an HTML-based landing page with links to a Wordpress blog on the back-end. So if my site is http://www.awesomelandingpage.com/awesome_item.php, then it contains several links to very contextual information I post in the site's blog, located (hypothetically) at http://www.awesomelandingpage.com/blog and that does a couple of cool things. First off, it automatically gives search engines something to spider and secondly, it also does a ping-back to sites like Technorati and the like, which provides even more traffic.

Overall, my results have been positive. Just make sure you clear up any out-going links on your blog. Your site should be a funnel to the hop-link, as that's where the sale occurs.

Popularity: 29% [?]

If you're an affiliate marketer, then you know Yahoo! has had its minimum bid set at $0.10 for the longest time. Well, now they've decided to change this, but not across the board.

The change will go into effect for sponsored search keywords only and doesn't apply to all keywords. Yahoo's intention here is, as far as I can tell, to reward those sites that are more relevant and get higher clicks.

They sent this e-mail out today, titled Pricing Update: Minimum Bids will no Longer be Fixed at $.10:

Starting in the next several weeks, the minimum bids for a number of Sponsored Search keywords will no longer be fixed at $.10. Your new minimum bids can be lower or higher than $.10. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10.

This update is intended to align your minimum bids with the value and quality of your keywords. It also is designed to help improve the overall search user experience by rewarding advertisers for better quality with lower entry points into keyword markets.

The amount set as your minimum bid on a keyword in Sponsored Search can vary depending on multiple factors, such as:

• The relevance of your keywords (as measured by the quality of the ads associated with them)
• The number of bidders and bid amounts in the particular keyword market.

A keyword term becomes "active" -- switched "on" in the system and eligible for display -- when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. If your bid falls below your minimum, your keyword will not be displayed. You'll be notified of such changes and will have some time to adjust your bid.

What You Should Do to Prepare
• Get to know your keywords and their value.
Since minimum bids can vary by keyword, it is important to know which keywords work best for your business. Remember, you can check and set your bids at the keyword level. Learn more.

• Improve ad quality to potentially receive lower minimum bids.
Your minimum bids generally take your quality into account. In some instances, higher quality means that you could have a lower minimum bid. Learn more.

• Learn about updates to the account interface.
Become familiar with new tools that can make managing your keywords simpler. Learn more.

For more information on this change, please read our FAQs.

So there you have it. You can all rejoice now kind of.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Oh man. Some people just make being alive golden.

Please take a moment to view this thread on DigitalPoint and recognize the hilariousness that is the language gap.

Apparently, someone thought they were alone when Azoogle didn't respond to them within 24 hours and decided to post on DP about it-

Azoogle is suck to me

I'd tried to apply for their program, the female represent called me, Ask me blah blah blah.... and told me they will let me know if I got approved or not in 24 hours but It'd been almost a week, I didn't get a shit from them.

I don't give a shit, since I have too many affiliate network already. CJ is the best for me I think.

Funny by itself, but the real hilarity began when people started taking the title and catch-phrasing it on photos. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Popularity: 23% [?]

As of this morning, I received an email from the people at Affiliate Radar, announcing that Offer Vault is now free. Yeah, that's right. You can now cross-compare offers from multiple affiliate networks for free.

Here's the email they sent out:

Dear Scott Weaver,

After much heated debate between my partner, Raakesh, and I, we have
decided to allow free access to OfferVault.

In case you are not aware, OfferVault is a research tool for
affiliate marketers that contains a database of over 10,000 offers
from the top CPA and affiliate networks, updated daily.

You can sign-up at http://www.offervault.com

With this powerful tool you can:

Compare offers and payouts between networks

Research niches

Receive optional email alerts based on your own search criteria to
stay on top of new offers as they come out

Preview landing pages (this is huge!)

Quickly sign up for new networks

This tool was formerly available only as a component of our paid
membership site, Affiliate Radar. Now you have the opportunity to
access it free at www.offervault.com, so don't pass it up!

Get your free membership now at http://www.offervault.com

What does that mean for you? It means you no longer have to log into each different network to see where the highest payout is. What it also means is that yet again, I've increased your profit margin. But hey, that's what I'm here for.

Now you can see what networks are offering before you even bother signing up. Apparently, all that OfferVault is asking in return is that, much like on my blog, you sign up using their referral links to new networks you join.

Just this morning, I've found several higher paying offers than the ones I'm currently running and those are the default prices. Not even the negotiated prices.

If you're worried about a product monopoly (even though it's free), don't worry. I'm aware of another site that is whispered to have a similar product coming out soon.

For now, Offer Vault takes the cake as the cat's pajamas. Incidentally, if you want to go right to registration, click here.

You're welcome.

Popularity: 52% [?]

Although I'm sure you've seen links out there just like these, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't try to inform every new affiliate about these bad-ass offers. If you're just getting started with affiliate marketing, you'll probably want to get your feet wet with some play money, so take advantage.

First off, we have the free $50 in clicks for Google Adwords (courtesy of the Volkswagen). This only works for new accounts, so make the most of it.

Second, we have the free $25 for Yahoo! Search Marketing. Again, this is only for new customers, so use it wisely.

Third, we've got the free $50 Microsoft Adcenter coupon for new customers only.

I just saved you $125 in ad spending. The least you can do is give affiliate marketing a try, now that it's free.

Don't worry, it won't bite. Not that hard.

But seriously, if you do use it, tell me how it goes. That would make an interesting follow-up post.

Scott

Popularity: 35% [?]

If you hadn't noticed, please direct your attention over to the right sidebar. You'll see the latest section I've added to ATB for 125x125 ad spaces for anyone interested in advertising.

I'm using Adtoll to run the ads, so if you're interested, sign up with them. Right now, I'm only selling up to six ad spaces so the site doesn't get too crowded.

Incidentally, if you want to run similar ads on your own site, I recommend using Adtoll as it's extremely easy to implement. The ad you see there took me about three minutes to set up from account sign-up to finish. I'm also testing out a few other things but for now, Adtoll seems like the best option.

Anyway, if you're interested in some ad space, let me know. Also, if you have any suggestions, let me know those as well.

Popularity: 20% [?]

For those of you who don't follow Shoemoney's blog, he put up an article today titled Ringtone Scams Exposed on CBS Evening News Tonight. Apparently, CBS is attempting to make people aware of sites charging for "free" ringtones from sites like Ringaza. You can read more on the story here. It's titled Ringing Up Big Charges For "Free" Tones.

What will be most interesting to see is the impact this will have on the ring tone industry as a whole. My guess is that it will have a slight dip for a while and then pick right back up on its steady decline.

Popularity: 25% [?]

When you're first starting out with affiliate marketing, you probably glean over blogs like mine and think "OK, noted. I'll get back to that." Well, it's time to get back to that. As the theme of this blog is generally to save you money and increase your overall profit margin, it's my job to make sure you're informed about the best techniques for saving every last penny. One huge way that will improve the over all ROI of all of your campaigns is to use negative keywords.

What Are Negative Keywords?

Negative keywords are the same as regular keywords, except they tell the search engine when NOT to show your ads. For example, if you have a campaign that is focused on (for example) jobs, you'll want to get rid of a lot of obvious keywords: blow, hand, steve, rim, etc. You get the idea. That way, people searching for things like "gay blow jobs" (not that there's anything wrong with that) or "rim jobs' or even "steve jobs" won't pull your ads up and you won't get disinterested clicks.

What Are Disinterested Clicks?

Disinterested clicks are clicks you don't want. They're from people looking for something you aren't offering. In short, they are clicks that drive up your ad spend without increasing your revenue at all.

On the flip side, interested clicks are the ones you want. Even if someone is not looking specifically for your product, an interested click is from someone who is interested in your topic in general.

So How Do I Implement Them?

Different search engines allow you to implement them different ways. For Adwords, it's as simple as putting a dash in front of each keyword, like so:

-rim
-blow
-steve

With YSM (Yahoo Search Marketing), it's a bit different. When you create an ad group, there's a specific box you put the negative keywords into. As far as other search engines go, it's pretty straight forward and similar to what I just described.

Conclusion

Any time you can make your ad group more focused and relevant to the ad text and your landing page text, do it! It will decrease the amount you have to spend each time someone clicks your ads as well as increase interested clicks. That means less money spent and more money made. Hence, profit.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Lately I've been getting a lot of questions revolving around keyword tracking. Apparently, people still don't think it's very important to track which keywords convert into sales. Apparently, the mindset is that as long as you're in profit, that's all that matters.

WRONG.

If you aren't taking advantage of tracking individual keywords, you're losing money, period.

How do I know this? Well, I've done it both ways -- with and without keyword tracking and I must say, the method speaks for itself. If you don't do it automagically with a service like Tracking202 or the like, you can always do it manually until it gets out of hand. I've created an example of just how that might look for you if you were to run a campaign on potato chips-

As you can see, the campaign is in profit overall at $140.50 net. But what you might notice are the numberes in red (negatives). These are the keywords we should pay special attention to after a period of about a week. You'll also notice the profit margin - 15.45%. Some companies run smoothly on less but their volume is exponentially larger. For smaller volume you'll want to increase your profit margin, unless you plan on creating tons of similar campaigns (not realistic).

So what can one do to increase profit margin? Well, just take a look at this updated chart-

Notice, I've gotten rid of the "Google - chips" and "Yahoo - chips" keywords. Right away, you see the net profit has jumped up to $390.90. The profit margin has jumped way up to 137.59% and my total spent has gone all the way down to $284.10. Wow! I've more than doubled the amount of money I get to keep just by removing two keywords from the mix.

Now of course I don't expect you to completely ditch the higher-volume keywords. In fact, I expect you to work harder to get those into the green to increase your overall profit. But I wanted to drive home a point: Without tracking your individual keywords, you are losing money. Without fail, there are always going to be keywords that outperform others and there will always be keywords that drag your bottom line down.

You might imagine that when you get into the big dog arena (dealing with multiple thousands of dollars daily) this becomes immensely more important. You'd be right. For now, master the art of tracking your keywords and bidding accordingly and you'll get there.

Popularity: 23% [?]