Natespost

  Ppv marketing? I spent a couple of hours on this the other day. Normally I can answer a question like this in a much shorter amount of time, but this ppv endeavor is cloaked in such secrecy that it took some serious digging. My quest started when I was reading up on affiliate marketing strategies and happened across a pretty well known guy in the field talking about how he was giving up on adsense ppc and going solely with what he called pay per view, or ppv. He made an excellent argument about the pitfalls and shortcomings of affiliate marketing through google’s ppc (pay per click) and talked about the wonderful benefits of this new method described as pay per view. Well, my research brought me back full circle to this individuals argument, which as it turns out, was a sales pitch.. and one hell of a good one.

   Here is what ppv marketing is. Adware. I know you have heard the term, but may not be familiar with what it is. Have you ever had a virus like issue where, whenever you type a url in the address box or tried to perform a google search, and a new, seemingly random browser window opens up over your intended result? That is adware. I have never experienced it personally, but had it happen on a work computer several years ago after a co-worker downloaded the file sharing application kazaa. The two ways it can plant itself on a users computer is by the user downloading an application like kazaa, where in the fine print… let me correct myself… in the minuscule print, you agree to allow them to show you advertisements in exchange for their free application. The other way that a user can have this happen is, for no better term, a virus. A virus known as adware.

   The way ppv marketing works: An affiliate advertiser signs up with an adware company and from there it works in much the same way as google adwords. They can bid on the same keywords as they would on google, and when the user of an infected computer performs a search on that term, the user will get their normal google search results, but, the adware causes their computer to open a browser on top of their google search results with their ad. In addition, the affiliate marketer can also bid on URLs. This causes the adware to open their ad or page in a browser window when the user of an infected computer types a certain url into the address bar. Let’s say you are selling pet medications. You open an account with an adware company and bid on the url www.petmeds.com. Now when a user of an infected computer types www.petmeds.com into their address bar, your page will open up on top of the page they intended to view.

   The benefits of this form of advertising that will be thrown at you is that that keywords or urls are much cheaper to bid on compared to adwords. Even with the “ad blindness” and click fraud involved in adwords, you have to factor in one huge factor on the ppv, or pay per view, side. Most people, once their computer is infected with adware, get rid of it without interacting with a single ad. This explains the cheaper bidding prices. Your ad would be shown to many, many people who simply ignore it and eventually reformat their hard drive, (most adware is impossible for the average computer owner to remove) or sadly, pay someone to remove it. In addition to this equalization of the bidding prices, advertising through adware could very likely get your affiliate account banned. Most affiliate marketing companies specifically ban the use of adware advertising in their terms of service.

   OK, now that I have downed this so called “new” advertising method of ppv marketing, I am also somewhat intrigued. While I say that most people will clean their computer of the infected adware without interacting with a single pitch, I also know that this is a big world we live in. I also know that their are a lot of… well, less than intelligent people out there (explains camo stretchy pants) that know very little about computers or how internet browsers work. I also know that a good percentage of those people have credit cards. So while I can explain away the majority of the keyword cost difference between ppc and ppv marketing, it does seem that there may be a little wiggle room. This wiggle room could be provided by that fact that as I already mentioned, there is next to no information available as to what ppv marketing is, and therefore, less competition. This morning, I actually signed up for a ppv account. As further example of the secrecy involved here, you are not immediately approved, but must conduct a phone interview. I missed the call while I was picking cucumbers from the garden, and am trying to figure out how to record the call on my cell phone before I call back so I can share it with you. Three of the major ppv marketing outfits that you can sign up for are: trafficvance.com, mediatraffic.com, and zango.com.

   Anyway, back to the full circle. As I mentioned, nobody will give you information on what ppv is like I have. Do a google search on ppv marketing as of today’s post, and you will find the same as I did. A few people touting this “new” form of marketing, but rather than tell you what it is, want you to buy the info. The guy I mentioned at the beginning is well known in the affiliate marketing field and makes excellent money with ppc. His sales pitch was that ppv (of which he explains nothing) is so wonderful that he has now completely cancelled his ppc ventures (laughable). Remember, he is an affiliate marketer! He is a good friend of a guy (whom he mentions several times) selling a ppv guide for several hundred dollars.

   In closing, I am happy to share this info with you for free and would like to ask each of you one thing. I’ll beg if you want me to. Please link to this post, foreword it, digg it, etc, so that in the future when someone wants info on this subject, they can get it for free. Hell, I’m not even making anything off adsense right now because I apparently threw away the letter with my pin in it and now I’m showing public service ads.

   Blogging for traffic? If you don’t have a large advertising budget, you can follow these steps and get the traffic for free. Google Adwords has a tool called “keyword tool” where you type in a keyword phrase and have google give you suggestions on alternatives. The beautiful thing is that along with the suggestions, the results give you info on the average volume of searches for the terms along with advertiser competition. While the advertiser competition they show you is for sponsored search, the numbers directly correlate to competition for organic search. Now what to do?

   After you have written your blog post, think of a rather short title that matches your post well. Enter that title into the keyword tool and scan the suggestions. Find one that has the best combination of the following four, with their importance in this order:

1. Relevance to your post
2. Decent search volume
3. Lack of competition
4. Nice sounding title

   So once you have decided on the title, go back through your post and make sure you have the exact title in your post a few times, but don’t overdo it. For me, I went with “blogging for traffic” for this post, and there is a very good chance you arrived here by searching that exact term. If so, I hope that this post has been the most quality search return you have ever read. If so, please feel free to comment and sign up for my rss feed.

   If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it eventually will. A post that you wrote, one that you worked hard on and did extensive research for, will be stolen. The first sign will be organic search engine traffic dropping for that post. Then, when you do a google search for the keyword you used to rank tops in, you notice that you have been replace by someone else, with your content. And when this happens, you will be slightly pissed. This is what happened to me and here is what I did about it.

   A post I wrote several months ago, http://natespost.com/index.php/install-wordpress-on-yahoo-server/ had still been getting some traffic for me from google. When I was checking on things a few days ago, I noticed that it had completely stopped for the last few weeks. When I did a search for the keywords that I had ranked #1 for, I noticed that I had completely disappeared, and that another blog had taken my place as #1 using my content. The feeling was a little like seeing a stranger driving away in your car, I would assume. Time to get your car back…

   The first thing I did was report it to google. Two days later, I got a response from google explaining the process. To file a DMCA complaint, you have to fill out a form and fax it to the number they provide. Having filled out the form but yet to fax it, I thought I would give the offending party the chance to take my content off his blog first. My email request to him was replied to with a defiant sounding “Show me the proof that it is your content.” The feeling then is like the guy flipping you off as he drives away in your car. Time to do some research.

   Yesterday I published a post which gave an account of the ordeal along with his full name, home address, phone number, and a picture of his new baby. I had collected even more info to use in the future and would know if he was behind any of his friends’ future malicious attempts. Meanwhile, kudos to google. Although I had not faxed in the complaint, an employee there apparently laid human eyes on the situation and corrected the search engine response. (they do have access to detailed caching which can show who posted what and when) For all the bad things you hear and read, I was impressed that someone took the time to help me out. Anyway, after seeing the post about him, he emailed me agreeing to a trade. He would take my content off his blog if I would remove my post about him. Deal. The thing is, now that my “car has been returned”, I really have no ill feeling towards my new-found friend. He is trying to make a dollar like the rest of us, he just needs to go about it the right way. I sincerely hope he continues to be a reader and learns with the rest of us, giving his advice also.

   Now as a small measure of protection, I recommend that when feasible, when you publish a new post, refer to an older post of yours with a link. It can be in the form of “As we talked about in my august post {link to that post} …..” Anything to make it easier for the human eye at google to know that it is your content. Also, at shoemoney, I found a great plugin by Joost De Valk that you can download here. It automatically adds a footer to your post which links back to you when read (or scraped, copied, stolen) from your rss feed.

   Ringtones, who are they making money for? Right now, they are making money for the merchants (the actual company completing the transaction and offering the ringtones) and those who display adsense ads for ringtones, many of whom are telling you how much you can make being a ringtone affiliate. If you were thinking about buying adwords ads and converting them as a ringtone affiliate, think again. Let me explain.

   Recently, being a ringtone affiliate was pretty lucrative. You had (and still have) companies offering ringtones for sale with “no credit card needed”. What this means is that it is an extremely easy sell…all the buyer has to do is type in their cell phone number and BAM, you get paid as an affiliate for providing the lead. Early on, this was very lucrative because the concept of a third party (not verizon, sprint, at&t, etc.) being able to sell a product and bill it to the buyer’s phone number was a fresh idea. So many people signed up as affiliates for these companies, bought adword ads and directed the traffic to the companies offering the ringtone downloads and were paid for each signup. It was easy, because as I said, the concept was new and the affiliates could buy the ads for as little as .06 a click. Now, .06 won’t get you in the top 10 of ANY longtail adword keword for ringtones. If you sign up as a ringtone affiliate now and increase your bid on any keywords to the point that you get any traffic, your investment will be eaten up with no profit….the math just doesn’t work.

   Why is this? Well, as with any money making possibilities, a lot of people will jump on board. With the law of supply and demand, more people in the ringtone game, the price of adword keywords rose sharply for ringtones, to the point that it is not profitable for the affiliates to buy clicks and turn them over to the sellers.

  Now, what I don’t like, is that a few big time bloggers have moved to the other side of the ringtone equation, and are absolutely USING their readers to make their wallets fatter. Follow me closely here. Adwords= buying ads. Adsense= selling ads. OK…so buying adword ads and making money with ringtones is no longer feasible, yet these few big time bloggers are trumpeting the cause. They have massive readerships who cling to their every word and do what they say…hoping to make a dollar. They are taking advantage of this trust by telling their readers how much you can make by buying Adword ads for ringtones and directing the traffic to the merchant. BUT, all they are doing is jacking up the payout for ringtone ADSENSE. Meanwhile, they have built “made for adsense” pages where they are SELLING inflated ringtone adsense ads. Unethical? mostly Brilliant? yes

   How many times have you submitted a post to Digg only to see it get buried before you can refresh the page? After much research, I have discovered that it may or may not be because your post stunk. Many a good post or article from a lower traffic blog gets buried in the Digg landfill before it gets a chance to get off the ground. There are two reasons for this.

1. Your blog doesn’t have the existing mass traffic (possible diggers) to push it from the upcoming category to the hot category.
2. You have no friends.

   By #2, I don’t mean that you are a reclusive hermit. I mean you aren’t playing the Digg game on a level playing field. Digg submissions need a certain number of diggs in order to remain in the game. If you don’t get around 20 diggs or so, your submission will just trickle down the upcoming list and never make it to the hotlist, which results in 10 or 15 hits max. Now I am not recommending that you engage in what is known as a “digg circle” which can get your digg account and possibly your blog banned. What I am recommending is that you add friends to your digg account and send them a shoutout when you submit a post. This will keep your submission from being buried before it has a chance to compete.

   How to make digg friends? Look at articles in your niche, and click on the profiles of the users that have dugg them, then add them as a friend. You will learn that even though you add them, they many times will not reciprocate. So to help us all get started, add me (ellie123) as your friend, and I will reciprocate. Also, add any of my friends that you see. Anyone that is listed as my friend will have originated from this post, so there should be no problem with people not adding you in turn.