In the last couple of days they announced the newest addition to their line of services, the Revolution202 Affiliate Network.  While I generally think that the last thing the Affiliate Industry needs is a new network, they actually managed to create a new network that brings offers and services that other networks don’t have.  Stephen Truong, one of the co-founders was nice enough to chat with me yesterday on the phone about their new network and to approve my application.  After talking with him for a bit, these are a few major highlights and services that will be offered with Revolution202:

• They will not be brokering out their offers and taking brokered offers
• Will have both CPA and CPS offers available
• Free coupons to Google, Myspace, Facebook etc for their affiliates
• Instant qualification for Yahoo Gold
• Custom transparent back end that will allow affiliates to see their lead quality, charge backs, cancellations, etc. on the offers that they are running
• They will also be offering their paid services like tracking202 Pro and the future full release of Stats202 for free to their affiliates who push volume
• Not to mention a few extras I can’t talk about yet

Like I said, I’ve already signed up with Revolution202, and you should too.  There are definitely some big things coming their way.  Not to mention, if it wasn’t for their services like Prosper202, there is no way I would have been successful as I have been with my campaign.  I think most anyone who uses it could agree as well.

You can listen to the interview here.

One thing that most affiliates don’t do is manage the country redirects to offers on their side.  They rely on the network to redirect the traffic or they create seperate pages for different countries.  While this is an ok solution, it isn’t the best.  Often times people will be traveling abroad and want to buy, but are sent to the wrong offer because if their IP address.  Or sometimes affiliates aren’t monetizing international traffic at all.

Here is what I do to monetize international traffic:

I downloaded an geoip script from here off GeoPlugin.com.  I unzipped the script into a folder called “geo”.  This file will basically capture the users IP address and cross reference it to a database to determine what country they are then.

After this is done, I setup my redirects for the affiliate offers.  So your redirects would now look like:

<?php
// ccr.php - country code redirect
require_once(’/geo/geoplugin.class.php’);
$geoplugin = new geoPlugin();
$geoplugin->locate();
$country_code = $geoplugin->countryCode;

switch($country_code) {
case ‘US’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/usoffer.php’);
exit;
case ‘CA’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/caoffer.php’);
exit;
case ‘GB’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/gboffer.php’);
exit;
case ‘IE’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/irelandoffer.php’);
exit;
case ‘AU’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/australiaoffer.php’);
exit;
case ‘NZ’:
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/newzealandoffer.php’);
exit;
default: // exceptions
header(’Location: http://www.yourdomain.com/allelseoffer.php’);
exit;
}

?>

Basically what this redirect does is check the users IP, determines their country, then sends them to the appropriate redirect based on where you specified people from their country to go to.  By doing this, I can control which offer people from which country go to.  So if a top converting offer only takes US traffic, then I send the US people to that offer, then find the best CA offer and send CA traffic to it, and so on.  As you can see in the script, I identify specific countries which I receive the most traffic from, then I use a final “catch all” redirect which I send users to if an offer accepts “any country”.

By using a method like this, you will prevent more broken links when a user can’t access an offer, you have more control over where users go, you will effectively monetize more users, and make more money.  Hope this helps.

Here are some pics I snapped before we moved in:

It is kinda funny how things change and how fast things can happen, if you had told me a year ago that I would be in this situation now I would have probably laughed a little.  I am hoping this new office will increase my productivity as I won’t be watching TV and playing video games most of the day, that is until I get a TV and Xbox in the office!

There are 2 kinds of Google Content campaigns, keywords and placements.  This post will focus soley on keyword campaigns.

Campaign Structure

As an example, I will use “Golf Clubs” as the product I am promoting.  I start by creating a content campaign, with search turned off, and choose 1 country.  I like to make countries their own campaigns for tracking purposes.  I make an initial ad group with 50-75 keywords around a loosely related topic like “golf clubs”.  Then I write 2-3 text ads and upload 2 image ad variations in the standard ad sizes.  If you are using tracking/propser 202 make sure to use the {keyword} variable at the end of your URLs.  After this ad group is done, I’d make another ad group for Putters and repeat the ad types.

Bidding

I normally bid very high initially.  This way I am getting impressions, clicks, and developing a history.  After a few days your CPCs will start to fall and you can continue to make optimizations.

Focus on CTR

Your ad CTR is pretty much the biggest factor on what your CPC’s will be.  You need to work on getting your ad CTR as high as possible.  This means writing good, original text ads and making quality image ads.  If you copy everyone’s text/image ads, your CTR will be low or eventually fall off.  You also need to block low CTR sites, which we will get into in a minute.

Landing Page Tweaks

In terms of landing page optimizations for Google Content, you need to have original text or you will get slapped quickly, I try not to use Wordpress for Google Content as I find I usually get slapped faster, but this isn’t always the case for everyone.  In the footer you should have links for the Sitemap, About, Terms, Privacy, and articles pages.  I usually build back links to the site as well before I launch the campaign.  I find if I treat the site like I am going to “SEO it”, it performs much better in Google Content.

Eliminate Underperforming Keywords and Sites

This is the biggest thing for making a campaign successful.  I usually try to let a campaign run for 3-5 days before I start making tweaks.  After about 5 days I start to elimate keywords that aren’t doing well, as well as blocking sites that are performing poorly.  If you use tracking/prosper202 and out the {keyword} variable in your destination URL, then you should be able to track performance of your content keywords.  If you have a keyword that is flat out tanking, eliminate it.  Then run a placement report so it shows by domain, then sort by CTR and elimate all the domains with low CTR.  You are effectively raising your CTR by doing this which will lower your CPC’s and raise your quality score.  I usually eliminate anything under .1% unless it is converting very well.  Also, if you have placements that are not converting well, eliminate them too at this time.

I almost always start my campaigns by blocking sites like gmail.com, myspace.com, and ezinearticles.com.  They tend to really bring you down.  Once you start eliminating sites, you will see a nice drop in CPCs.  I usually end up with several hundred blocked domains in a campaign after a few weeks.

All in all, that is pretty much what I do for content campaigns.  I find the content network to be pretty easy to run/optimize if I am not getting slapped around.

After going to Ad Tech in San Francisco, I realized that the biggest difference between myself and the affiliates that are larger than me, is not that they know more or have access to information I don’t have, it is that at some point they took some big risks.  Now I am not an advocate of taking risks that don’t make sense, but there are times when they do make sense.  Whether it is doing a very large media buy, doing a homepage takeover, starting your own product, or taking heavy losses on a PPC campaign to break into a market, there are times when you have to take risks.  Assuming your risks make sense, the rewards can be huge.

In regards to affiliate marketing, you can’t just immediately take risks when you start.  You need to learn the ropes, save a little cash, get a feel for what works, then you can take some risks.  There comes a point in time when in order to reach the next level, to be the best, you have to start signing insertion orders for $1M, $2M, or more.  Right now in affiliate marketing, unless you’re doing mid to high six figures a day, you’re really not one of the biggest players.  The way these guys do it is by taking risks and spending a BUTTLOAD of money each day on ads.

So if you want to be average or middle of the road then it’s fine to play it safe, but if you want to be the best or in the top tier, you eventually have to start going for the home runs and hope they work out.

After having spent a lot of money doing media buys, i’ve learned a few things:

• Rates are almost always negotiable.  Either sign a larger IO or offer to prepay and you will almost always get a lower rate.  Lower CPM pricing can make or break a media buy
• Just cause you see someone’s ad in a media buy doesn’t mean it is profitable.  I make this mistake often.  There are lots of variables as to whether you can make it profitable such as their CPM cost, their payout, but also they could also be running negative.
• Know you’re target market before you do a media buy.  You should know your target demographics before you contact the network/site.  Don’t rely on your rep to tell you what ages to target, often they just want to make the sale.
• Test the offer on Facebook first.  I have found running an offer on Facebook first gives me a great idea if the landing page is good and what ages to target.  Better to learn this info on Facebook than during a 6 figure buy.
• Make sure you know when you’re out clause is.  Ask upfront before you sign the IO, you never want to get stuck in a bad buy you can’t get out of.
• I’ve never had success with Right Media.  I have found on multiple buys that the traffic quality on Right Media is bad.  I would just stay away from it.  Yahoo properties and their Comscore 250 are a different story, but smaller right media sites tend to be bad.
• Don’t expect every buy to have ridiculous ROI or be wildly successful.  My first buy tanked.  My second buy tanked (lost like 25k), my 3rd buy rocked (like 400% roi), but every other one has usually been modest 10-25% roi.  When doing big media buys, you usually have smaller margins and make up for them with volume (there are exceptions to this obviously).
• Do not sign an IO if you don’t feel comfortable with it.  Trust your instincts, typically you will know more about your offer/landing page than your ad sales rep.  If you don’t like the targeting, make them change it.  If you really think the CPM price is too high, don’t sign it.  Bottom line is don’t let someone badger you into signing an IO if you don’t want to.  It will rarely ever work out in your benefit.

That’s just a couple of tips for media buying that i’ve learned from successes and failures.  Also, don’t think you have to do media buys to be big.  I know really big affiliates who never do media buys, but I also know guys who almost only do media buys.  There are tons of traffic sources out there, some will work for you, some won’t.

What you have to do is setup a new redirect file, name it something like redirect.php or tracking.php and inside of this file put this html code:

<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<script src=”http://yourtrackingdomain/tracking202/static/landing.php?lpip=1303″ type=”text/javascript”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”> window.location=’http://www.clean-url-users-go-to.com’;</script>
</body>
</html>

After you’ve set this file up and uploaded, you take your orginal P202 tracking string, “?t202id=32254&t202kw=” and add it to the end of this newly created redirect file to look something like http://www.yourdomain.com/redirect.php?t202id=32254&t202kw=.  Now what you’ve done is send the user to this redirect file, which contains your Prosper202 landing page javascript to track the user (which will track against the URL parameters you added), counted the user in Prosper because the javascript was triggered, then your users will be sent to a clean URL.  On this clean URL you will still use your outbound Prosper PHP redirects as normal and it will still count your click throughs.

<?php

// ——————————————————————-
//
// Tracking202 PHP Redirection, created on Sun Feb, 2009
//
// This PHP code is to be used for the following landing page.
// http://youraffiliatedomain.com
//
// ——————————————————————-

if (isset($_COOKIE['tracking202outbound'])) {
$tracking202outbound = $_COOKIE['tracking202outbound'];
} else {
$tracking202outbound = ‘http://www.yourtrackingdomain.com/tracking202/redirect/lp.php?lpip=232′;
}

header(’location: ‘.$tracking202outbound);

?>

That is the standard redirect prosper will spit out to you.  It basically translates to, if the user has cookies enabled, call the tracking domain and subid from the cookie.  If they don’t have cookies enabled, here is the direct link to the tracking domain redirect.

Here is the real simple fix, instead of using your tracking domain link in the “$tracking202outbound = ” field, but in your direct affiliate link at the network of the offer.  If your tracking domain is down, PHP won’t execute the redirect from the cookie, so it will redirect to whats in the “$tracking202outbound = ” field.  You might as well put your affiliate link there anyway, because if the user doesn’t have cookies enabled, their subID won’t be tracked.

Hope this made sense, because it has saved me a lot of headache.  I edit all of my redirects to do this.

Generally speaking, when a network has a contest, the prizes they give away are usually items I would have bought already I wanted it.  Therefore, I either already have or I am not interested in it, making me not motivated to participate in the contest.  Which is exactly what Azoogle is not doing.  The 25 winners get a free trip to LA and get to party at the playboy mansion.  Odds are, you would not ordinarily be able to do this and haven’t done it already

To make things better, their rules actually benefit newer affiliates and affiliates that are new to their network, more than it is large affiliates.  The winners are determined based on incremental revneue for February, March, and April, over the 3 previous months.  So if you never sent them a lead in the previous 3 months, you chances are better than say, Jonathan Volk, who sends them 6 figures each month.

If you’re a new affiliate, now is the time to step your game up, you can win this contest.  The great thing about Affiliate Marketing, is that any affiliate can really blow up and become a super affiliate overnight.  If you haven’t signed up with Azoogle you’re missing out.  You can sign up here, and ask for Maggie as your AM because she is awesome!

Non-Cookied Users

Splitting out traffic for non-cookie enabled users.  I have received a couple questions from people asking me to elaborate on this so I will.  Many networks use a platform called directrack (Copeac, MarketLeverage, etc..), this platform uses cookies to track sales. If a user does not have cookies enabled, their sales will not be counted.  A competitor to Directack, a platform called Hitpath, does not use cookies to track.  Currently Eads uses this, and Ads4Dough and started the transition over to this network.  What I do is use a php script to check to see if a user has cookies enabled, then I send the traffic to my primary network of choice for that offer, if the user does not have cookies I sent the user to the offer at Eads or Ads4Dough.  I normally see about 10-15% of my leads come through as non cookied users.

Exit Pops

Exit pops are starting to become increasingly popular.  Basically, if your bounce rate is 60%, then you are not monetizing 60% of your traffic.  What many people have started to do is use javascript to pop up a window when a user tries to close the window or go back, that directs them to another page, which is usually straight to the offer.  Most people report seeing a lift of 10-20% when doing this.  I use it on some pages but not all.  One thing to remember is that many PPC platforms do not like this and can penalize pages.  I typically will not run this on a page that im running paid search.

Landing Page Margins & Font Sizes

When tweaking a landing page, one of the most important metrics is the CTR from the landing page to the offer.  You want to get it as high as possible, while still properly selling the user on the product/service.  One of the biggest ways to increase CTR is to bring the affiliate link/button above the fold for the user, usually the higher the better.  One thing I noticed when I started running blog style pages, especially with wordpress, is that many themes put most of the links below the fold for users.  Most wordpress themes lose a lot of valuable real estate to excessive margins, padding, line spacing, and font size.  When I was running blog style Acai landing pages last year, one of the biggest things that helped me was to edit my wordpress theme.  I decreased line spacing between unordered lists and header tags.  I reduced paddings and font sizes, just a little bit.  It effectively made my headers a little smaller, the pages a little wider, and most importantly, it brought my pictures and links above the fold.  I saw huge CTR jumps after implementing these changes.

Flash forward 6 months later and I am incredibly glad I quit my job, by far the best decision I have ever made.  Not only the best decision financially, but personaly as well.  When I was at my job and wanted to test new traffic sources, I would have to write something up to justify it and then request approval.  Now, I just do it.  I used to have to be at the office at 8, now I sleep till 11.  I used to have 3 or 4 levels of management, now i’m my own boss.

Being completely in charge has tought me a lot.  Some of the biggest things are:

• My level of effort as an affiliate is almost directly proportional to my revenue.  The more I work, the more I make.  It’s a great feeling, whereas my pay at my old job was always the same, no matter how hard or long I worked.
• Test everything.  If you find a new traffic source, test it.  I am testing out networks I never heard of 6 months ago and many of them are great
• Diversify your offers.  Don’t put all your eggs into one basket, because if an offer or niche gets cut, you don’t want to be SOL (i.e. credit cards).
• I did my first media buy, but make sure you have an out clause.  You don’t want to get burned from shitty traffic and not be able to pull out.  Also, make sure there is a designated spend pattern, don’t let a network jack spending up in the final days just to complete the IO.  If you had asked me 6 months ago if I thought I would be doing 5 or 6 figure media buys, I would have laughed in your face.
• Never be the last one in or out of a niche.  I really learned this over the last 3 months with Acai.  Get in hot niche’s early before margins dry up and the market gets saturated, and get out before too much heat is on it or margins get ridiculously slim.
• Google Content network can be awesome when done right.  When I was at my corporate job we never used the content network, I always read and was told that it was terrible traffic.  Was that ever wrong.
• Be efficient with your traffic.  If 70% of your traffic leaves, do something with it.  Send them to another landing page, or directly to the offer when they try to exit.  Upsell your customers.  Many times there are offers that can compliment the one you’re running, why pay for traffic to get a user to complete 1 action, when you can get them to complete 2 or 3.  Also, don’t send non-cookie enabled users to cookie only tracking networks, their leads won’t count.  Being efficient with your traffic gives you a huge edge over the competition.
• Find individuals you can trust and bounce ideas off of.  I’ve been lucky to become friends with 5 or 6 other large affiliates and it has really helped me. In the sense of sharing ideas, getting someone else’s perspective, ethics check, coding help, but also to realize that everyone has good and bad days.
• But the biggest thing I learned is to believe in yourself.  If you honestly think you can do it, you can and will.  Everyone goes through periods of doubt, i’ve had great days where i felt like I won the lottery with a campaign, and i’ve had terrible days where I couldn’t believe I lost several $k on a campaign.  But at the end of the day, believe in yourself and your abilities.

I am really looking forward to this event for networking, trying to pick up a few tips, meet some friends, and of course go to some parties.  I’d love to meet up with people, so if you’re going hit me up on twitter or something and we can get a drink.  I’ll definitely be making my rounds, i’ll be at the network parties for advaliant, azoogle, copeac, and CX, and the WickedFire meetup on Saturday night.  So if you’re going to be there, say hey.

This is pretty interesting because it is leaving affiliates with less cards to promote, not to mention wondering what company will pull their products next.  Capital One? Citi?  If another major issuer leaves the market, credit card affiliates could take a huge hit, even more so than they have been seeing over the last 3 months.

Last week, out of the blue, I was assigned a Facebook account rep (what up dude, if you’re reading, sorry about the cloaking post - swear I don’t do it).  At first I was really skeptical of what he could offer me, aside from being able to call him when I need big limit increases, which he did.  After talking with him on the phone today I learned SO MUCH about Facebook and he was an awesome guy.  It was actually pretty amazing everything he told me.  I am not going to share it all, I got to keep some to myself but here are some of the big highlights I learned from him:

• Contrary to popular belief, Facebook does not use interns to approve ads.  They have full time employees (yes I am sure it must suck) who approve ads and also double as customer service.
• When you see intern.facebook.com show up in logs during reviews, it stands for internal not as in an intern
• Facebook does pace your campaigns during the day and it paces on campaign limit.  So he suggested that I raise my campaign limits real high to like 20k/day so that it would show more ad impressions, instead of pacing it to a lower limit.
• If you want a big boy daily spend limit, they like for you to have a debit card associated to the account.  I was informed there are quite often large charges that get bounced, so if you attach a debit card as a back up, it can help to get large limit bumps.  I added one and they were quick to bump me pretty high.
• Using keywords can really help, even for broad demo’s.  He really stressed that I should try using keywords more than I do, said a lot of people don’t use them and they can make a big difference.
• Another suggestion was to really break out ads by city/state and call out that city/state in ads.  I’m probably not going to do it because I am lazy, but he said a lot of people see CTR boosts when doing this.

If anyone needs/wants a rep and spends decent coin on facebook, he said I could pass his info to a few people.  Just leave a comment here with your real email and I will get in touch with you.