Bid Management Tools

Posted: 14 Jul 2010 02:55 PM PDT

Would you like some extra cash? Do you have a website or blog, or at least an idea for one? Do you have time to commit to updating that site with content?

If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, then you may want to consider becoming an affiliate advertiser.

Affiliate advertisers host ads for other companies’ products or services on their site. They are paid each time a particular action is taken relevant to one of the ads. For example, they may be paid each time someone sees the ad, each time someone clicks on the ad, or each time someone clicks on the ad and completes a conversion.

Revenues for affiliate advertising can range from a couple of cents per action to a couple hundred dollars per action. It depends on the value of the product or service for sale, as well as the particular affiliate program the company has in place.

Affiliate advertisers don’t need to be companies themselves. They can be regular people with simple and inexpensive websites.

If you’ve decided you’d like to try out affiliate advertising, here are some steps for getting started:

1. If you don’t already have a website or blog, start one. This is a necessary step for becoming an affiliate advertiser. Some affiliate programs, including Google’s AdSense program, require publishers in certain locations to have owned their sites for at least six months before becoming an affiliate. You may want to base the theme of your new site on a particular product or service you’d like to advertise, though a better idea is probably writing about a topic you’re passionate about. This way you’re more likely to update your content regularly, get more traffic, and have people click your ads.
2. Look for products and/or services to advertise. If you are new to affiliate advertising, you may want to start out with just one advertisement on your site. This way you can see if the revenue produced by the ad is worth the time you’ve invested in designing and updating your site for that ad’s success. You can search for products or services to advertise by joining an established affiliate network like Commission Junction, Amazon, eBay, ClickBank, or Google. Look for items that are highly relevant to your site, don’t have a lot of competition, and have a commission structure that fits your liking.
3. Once you’ve found the product or service you’d like to advertise, review your site. Make sure that it is relevant enough to what you’d like to promote. If it’s not, users will be less interested in the ad. If they are visiting your site to read about innovative children’s toys, for example, they likely won’t click on an ad for an office cleaning business. If your site’s theme is very different from the product or service you’d like to promote, find a new product or service. If it’s just a little different, modify your site to make it more relevant. That may include adding particular keywords, rewriting your headlines, and renaming your images. Once you’ve made these improvements, you’re more likely to be approved to advertise the particular product or service.
4. Next, apply for the affiliate program you’re interested in. Also, if required apply for the particular advertising program you’re interested in. Before applying, check out the affiliate program’s website to see if you fit the eligibility requirements. You will see that to be an affiliate advertiser for Amazon products, for example, you can’t be a resident of Colorado, North Carolina, or Rhode Island. Also, make sure that you have your bank account or PayPal information on hand, as many of the networks require this information in your application.
5. Once you’re accepted into an affiliate/advertising program, create your ad. Affiliate networks generally provide tools that let you easily design your ad. Usually you can choose between a simple text ad or a banner image ad.  Some affiliate networks, like Google’s, allow for video, flash and mobile ads. You must make sure that the ad conforms to the affiliate and/or advertiser’s standards. eBay, for example, has special wording guidelines. Once your ad is complete, you will be provided with a code you must copy and paste onto your site. This code will make the ad appear, as well as track all traffic that is delivered from your site to a company’s landing page.
6. Monitor your ad and site analytics once the ad is up and running. See how much traffic your site or blog is generating, and how much of that traffic is clicking on your ad. Also, monitor the percentage of clicks that are resulting in conversions. Conversions can either be lead-related actions, like white paper registrations or newsletter signups, or actual sales. If your traffic numbers are pretty low, then improving those figures should be your number one priority. Perhaps you could update your blog more often, or start promoting your articles on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.
7. If your traffic is high but your clicks are low, improve your ad. This could mean changing the ad type (banners instead of buttons, text instead of images), moving the ad to another location on your page, or simplifying the ad’s copy. Google offers a number of tips for improving your ad’s performance. Try to make just one change, and then see how that impacts your ad campaign. If it doesn’t make a positive difference, make a different change. Once you find the change or changes that work best, keep those in place. If none of your efforts improve your ad’s performance, you should consider picking a new product or service to advertise.
8. Once you’re ready, put more ads on your site. Once you’ve gotten a feel for whether affiliate advertising is worth your time, consider branching out. Find more products or services to promote within your affiliate program, or join additional affiliate programs to potentially maximize your revenue. Make sure, though, your new ads conform to your site’s theme. As you experience more success with your affiliate advertising efforts, buzz may generate about your site. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself being contacted by companies wanting to advertise on your site.

About the Author

Christine Laubenstein is a Marketing Associate at WordStream, a provider of an advanced pay-per-click tool suite, designed to improve the performance of pay-per-click keywords in your AdWords campaign.

1. build content website

2. buy/sell domains

3. affiliate marketing

4.

Please choose four other networks that you rate most highly. There is an option to type in “other” at the end of the list.   24/7 Real Media

Adsmarket

Affiliate Window/buy.at/zanox

affiliate.com

Burst Media

ClickBank

Commission Junction

COPEAC

CPX Interactive

CX Digital Media

Datran

Epic Advertising

FluxAds

Google Affiliate Network

Hydra Network

IntegraClick/ClickBooth

LeadPile

LinkShare

MarketLeverage

Max Bounty

Media Whiz

MediaTrust

Motive Interactive

NeverBlue

oneNetworkDirect

OurFreeStuff.net

PartnerWeekly

PepperJam

PermissionInteractive

Pulse 360

RevenueLoop

Share Results

ShareASale

Snackable Media

Tatto Media

The MediaCrew

TradeDoubler

Traffic Marketplace

Webgains

XY7.com

Brand bidding is when an affiliate targets specific keywords associated with a brand, as opposed to a generic word, such as a noun or adjective that describes the product. Usually when brand bidding, an affiliate is bidding on a trademarked name and is often therefore “competing” directly with the merchant.

Programs which allow affiliates to bid on their brand are often of the opinion that many searches are executed by brand identity, and the more their brand name is seen in the search engines, the better it is for them. Conversely, other programs feel that allowing brand bidding is essentially giving up control on their brand identity as they cannot manage where and how their brand is viewed, and also risk misuse by affiliates.

There are definite pros and cons to brand bidding, and a variety of exceptions to the rule that should be considered by merchants and affiliates alike.

Considerations for Merchants

Brand name bidding is definitely something that needs to be evaluated by merchants, and then stated in their Terms & Conditions so that this policy can be clearly applied by affiliates. In fact, merchants can take it a step further by creating lists of specific keywords that are off limits to affiliates, as well as a list of words that are permissible. Once this is established, merchants can work with their affiliate managers to act as a communicator to affiliates, to make sure these guidelines are being adhered to.

Pros of Brand Bidding

Allowing brand bidding can be especially beneficial to (1) newer merchants who are just launching their online platform and (2) merchants who do not have their own PPC marketing strategy in place. In each case, having a third party introduce your brand name online can be an effective way of building brand awareness, and indeed, increasing profitability.

That being said, many established merchants who do invest in their own PPC campaigns still allow brand bidding because, at the end of the day, more people are seeing their brand name on a more consistent basis, and they feel this makes for increased business opportunities. On a final note, some merchants may decide to allow brand bidding, but only in markets or search engines where they are not present. This can be extremely beneficial for adding exposure to a brand.

Cons of Brand Bidding

For merchants who do invest in their own PPC campaigns, the cons associated with brand bidding focus on having an increase in competition for bids on branded key words. There is a bit of misconception here that having keyword competition will drive up your bid price. To combat the increase in cost per keyword an operator will need to focus on developing a high quality score which will give the operator access to cheaper keywords than a competitor bidding on the same keyword.

Another concern is quality assurance. Once a merchant gives up control and allows affiliates to use their brand name at will, the sky is the limit in terms of possibilities. Affiliates could bid on a merchant’s brand name to promote a competing brand, or could use this keyword to send visitors to a rinky-dink site or to a site that also promotes other brands — with which the merchant may or may not want to be associated.

A final thought to consider here, especially for merchants selling items that may also be sold by non-trademark owners (like the knock-offs you find on the streets of New York) is the ability to steal search traffic from the rightful owner of a product to promote a fraudulent brand. Major apparel, luxury, jewelry, fragrance, and other well-known and sought after brands are the hardest-hit by trademark infringement.

Allow High-Performing Affiliates to Brand Bid

Using their affiliate marketing software, merchants can segment their affiliates, so that they can customize messages and rights for different affiliate groups. This might be considered by merchants who are interested in allowing some of their high-performing affiliates to take part in brand bidding, while disallowing others.

Considerations for Affiliates

A definite must for affiliates, before bidding on a brand name or any variation of it, is to check out an affiliate program’s Terms & Conditions, where their policies should be included. If there is any confusion, or if brand bidding policies are not listed, it’s best to seek clarification on this matter. Going ahead with brand bidding without permission could lead to a myriad of negative outcomes, including having your sales declined, missing out on a performance bonus, being out-of-pocket for your PPC investment and even being kicked out of a program completely.

Many merchants may not allow bidding on their brand name, but may allow bidding on misspellings or variations of their brand name. Either way, affiliates should consider the cost of brand bidding. With other affiliates bidding on these keywords, as well as merchants, the costs can be high, and depending on what an affiliate has in mind in terms of ROI, may well be out of their spending budget.

Loyalty and Trust

It’s in the best interest of merchants to make their brand bidding policies very clear, and readily available. For affiliates, it really is paramount to be in line with a merchant’s rules and regulations, especially concerning their brand name. When affiliates create long-lasting relationships with merchants that are based on loyalty and trust, they are more likely to be offered exciting benefits like, exclusive promotions, co-branded marketing tools and even the exclusive use of keywords.

source: http://www.adotas.com/2010/03/does-brand-bidding-belong-in-your-marketing-plan/

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