Starting ring tones wasn't my idea. It was my friend Paul's idea and one of the things he told me he'd done to be successful with ring tones was to stay away from the content network as the conversion rates were extremely low. At the time, I had very little experience so I wasn't about to test the waters against the good advice of an established marketer. Well, needless to say, I started to do very well and here I am.

But, what I've learned lately is that I should have taken the affiliate marketer philosophy a little more seriously. When we say split test everything, we mean split test everything. Everything you can, anyway. The content network (Google, Yahoo or otherwise) is definitely one of those things you should split test on every offer.

The stigma with content matching fall along the lines of:

• Publishers trick users into clicking, which wastes your money
• People aren't technically searching for something when they click, so they're theoretically less interested
• It's difficult to track which keywords or sites convert using the content network

So it's not difficult to see why people would steer their campaigns away from content-based ads, but along with the bad, you should always consider the good:

• The content network is cheaper to place ads on
• You can use site-targeted ads right down to a specific ad placement, which also makes conversion tracking easier
• You can use text, banners and more to advertise to people
• Sometimes you'll receive a larger volume of traffic on the content network

Aside from the good and the bad, there's the reality of the situation. Until recently, I honestly hadn't even touched the content network. Crazy, I know. That was until I found out that the mega affiliates are doing tons of business there and preaching about how it's a terrible place to convert. A-ha! It was a classic "IIIIII'm dumb" moment but a welcomed one.

My advice to you is that you should take nothing for granted when it comes to your business. Split test the search network and the content network. Learn how to track specific sites/ads and you'll be fine. Also, check out Google Lady's post "Adwords Content Network Tip."

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.

Incidentally, you can also view the Skype list, which as you might guess, lists all the affiliate managers who use Skype.

I've noticed a lot of people asking how to get ahold of someone at X company as they are trying to get approved. Well people, here's your chance.

Fast forward eight months and I joined ranks with NeverblueAds on the advice of a friend. Immediately, I had that familiar feeling of being impressed. They were prompt with my confirmation phone call to activate my account and my new affiliate manager was friendly and open to intelligent banter. My Azoogle manager will forever hold a place in my heart, but I figured it wasn't a bad idea to broaden my horizons.

Once my account was activated with Neverblue, I logged in and right away felt as if it were a design I would come up with, so as you might imagine I was very comfortable. There was a search box right before my eyes and a handy graph on the right to tell me how my monthly sales are doing, plus up to the minute updates. Very slick.

The available tabs are: Home, Campaigns, Statistics, Tools, Account, Logout

Home I just described to you, Logout is obvious and Account is where you handle your personal information as wall as enter your websites. Very straight forward. But what really stands out are the three I use all the time: Campaigns, Statistics and Tools.

Campaigns

Much like Azoogle's offer search, the Neverblue campaign search allows you to sort through their offers by search or by browsing each category. Again, the interface is very straight forward and intuitive . You type in 'dating' and you'll get dating offers and you can promote them any way you like: banner, email, search, etc. I'd say more but it would just be fluff.

Statistics

No affiliate marketer should be without a good set of statistics. They make or break your success as they will tell you not only which keywords convert but also the direction a campaign is headed in. That's why it's important that your network allows you to do excellent reporting and statistics on your data. NeverblueAds allows you to run reports on (but not limited to): Campaigns, Creatives, Dates, Subid's and Sites. You can even perform an advanced/customized report. You name it, they've got it.

Tools

Ahh.. now here's the majesty of Neverblue in all its glory. They provide you with excellent tools: API, Ping, Referrals (one time and continuous) and Ad Rotators. All of these are presented right up front, with documentation if you need assistance.

The API (as aforementioned) allows you to tap into Neverblue's reporting mechanism. Essentially, this means you can run reports from your own website without having to visit Neverblue. I won't go into too much detail, but this is very good news for any programmer or someone who has a programmer at their disposal. Not only can API help with reporting but also tracking live sales. This is one thing I hate going without on any network.

Ping provides yet another way to track live sales. Each time a conversion is made, Neverblue will post a notification to the URL you specify. That's right, any time a sale is made, not only will you know about it but you can also track down to the keyword what converts the best. This also requires some programming to handle the ping, but the fact that it's there is amazing to me.

Referrals are self explanatory; you get a referral link you can give to other people to have them sign up under you. You have the option to either earn $2 for any potential affiliate referred or earn a continuous 2% from the sales of each person you refer (I recommend the 2% option).

Ad Rotators are yet another beautiful feature brought to us by Neverblue. Instead of having to create your own banner ad rotators for your website and manage them, Neverblue will handle the work for you. All you do is create a new rotator, choose the size of the banner, choose all the banners you want and throw up the code on your site. Bam, you're in business! It's really that easy. Then, whenever you want to remove or add banners, you can do it from the website instead of looking back into your code.

Conclusion

Although the post is short, the love is great for simplicity. Neverblue may be yet a hidden gem, but I hope other networks will follow their lead in terms of straight forwardness and simple beauty. I definitely recommend it to any affiliate marketer looking to expand their horizons or even to start out with. If you're interested, feel free to click on any of the links in this article or contact me directly using the contact page. I'd be happy to help you start out.

Good luck!

Scott

In general, the formula I use for determining max bid is basically this:

((ecpc * (1 - bounce rate)) - 0.01)

So if your ecpc is $0.75 and your bounce rate is 40%, that means you really generate $0.45 ecpc. Subtract $0.01 from that ($0.44 ecpc) and you'll have a very safe maximum to set your keyword bids at.

Just so everything is clear for you, here are some definitions for the above terms:

ECPC (Estimated Cost Per Click) - This is the estimated dollar amount you receive per click. Essentially, it's [Revenue] / [Clicks]. Although it can seem tempting to just use this number when determining your max spend, it's dangerous as this number can often be wrong due to a high bounce rate.

Bounce Rate - Put simply, this is how many people visit your landing page but don't click on your affiliate links. In general, this probably doesn't apply to forwarded links or framed pages but it's still good to figure out. To figure out what your bounce rate is for a given landing page, just look at how many clicks you've paid for vs. how many your ad network (Azoogle, Neverblue, Copeac, etc.) tells you you've received. For example, if you're using AdWords and Azoogle together, AdWords might tell you you've paid for 100 clicks while Azoogle will tell you it's registered 60. If this is the case, your bounce rate would be 40%.

Of course, this isn't the only method to use when setting bid prices but it's what I use in general. I hope it helps.

Scott

Maximum Bid Calculator

eCPC:

Bounce Rate:
Max Bid: $0.00

Bounce Rate Calculator

PPC Clicks:
(how many clicks you paid for)
Network Clicks:
(how many clicks Azoogle, Neverblue, CJ, etc. show)

A common scenario with affiliate programs is early success, followed by a bust. There are always unpredictable scenarios that can occur, even though you have been participating successfully in an affiliate program for what seems like forever.

While there are a great deal of positives involved with running an affiliate business from the comfort of your own home, there can also be problems for someone who is less experienced. Luckily, this article will point you in the right direction to avoid such pitfalls.

Some of the most common problems with work from home affiliate programs include:

• Losses in search engine rankings due to changes in search engine logarithms, particularly that of Google
• Sudden changes in web trends cause your particular product to be unpopular, creating losses in revenues
• Your particular network suddenly busts, leaving you without a revenue stream
• Your affiliate program becomes associated with adware, becoming discredited

There are many ways to combat these kinds of situations, including frequently monitoring the Google Blog for any signs of an algorithm change, or keeping up to date with web-trends 24x7, or even creating your own affiliate network so you don’t have to worry about relying on a source of revenue from anyone else.

However, there is a much easier way to ensure that you have a constant source of revenue from your partners. The one way to do this is to diversify your programs. Although it takes more work to maintain this kind of “defensive diversification,” as it’s sometimes called, the result is the feeling that you are “investing safely” into your affiliate programs.

The golden rule of good affiliate marketing diversification is “safety in numbers.” Keeping this in mind, several ways to diversify include:

• Joining more than one network to avoid losses if your biggest working partner is suddenly lost (AzoogleAds, Neverblue, Commissin Junction, Copeac, Clickbank, etc.)
• Invest some money into running several affiliate sites at a time. Although the investment may seem like a large sum at first, it will pay off in the long-run if one of your sites is shut down or no longer becomes popular.
• Plan out your internet traffic so that you are not just relying on Google results, but possibly through viral marketing means, networks like Digg, delic.ious, reddit, and other link-related websites, and social networking websites. Don’t overdo the last two, though, because constantly posting similar content may reduce your credibility to these site audiences, who tend to be extremely cynical and skeptical.
• Learn to work with several coding languages like HTML, CSS, and possibly Javascript to make your sites varied and professional instead of relying on free, hacked-together templates, which can also ruin your credibility.
• Vary the industry groups you are affiliated with. If there is a legal clamp-down on digital music sharing, your site will be affected as people draw away from the issue. If you have sites on the Amazon rainforest and European chocolate, however, you will continue to draw traffic on those sites. Even better is if you can sense some trends ahead of time and build sites like “Alternatives to digital music sharing.” This will, of course, require some industry research.
• Broaden your scope on your websites. For example, if you have a website about “Music,” you can devote it to other topics if music sharing becomes taboo.

As with all business ventures, even though affiliate programs are a great way to work from home and may seem like an easy way to run a business, research and diligence is still required to keep them running well.