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.